El Salvador Quick Start Guide

El Salvador Quick Start Guide

El Salvador: Records

 * All Records in El Salvador are in Spanish. If you are not familiar with Spanish, you should find someone who is. Another possibility is to use one or more of the new Internet translators.
 * Most Records in El Salvador are written long hand. If you are not familiar with reading Spanish handwriting, click Here
 * Not all Records from El Salvador are online. To find the online El Salvador records, click Here
 * Not all Records from El Salvador are indexed. To find the indexed online El Salvador records, click Here
 * To find all El Salvador records on microfilm, click Here

El Salvador: Ancestor's birth, marriage, or death location unknown

 * FamilySearch Indexed Records: Try searching in the indexed records for the name of the ancestor if they were born before 1900. Limit your results to the country of El Salvador and the name of the department if known. If there are no results, you will have to find more information from home sources or by asking family members.

Contact Family Members: If you do not have even a minimal amount of information AND have no idea of where and when to look, you need to contact family members you might have that information. This could be older aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc.

El Salvador: Ancestor's birth, marriage, or death location and names of parents, children, or spouse known
FamilySearch Indexed Records: Try searching first in indexed records. Try a variety of searches with the ancestor's name, or with parents' names, or just by parents' surnames AND using the option to limit record by locality by the country El Salvador and the department of El Salvador.

FamilySearch Browse Images: If there are no results from the previous search for the ancestor or any siblings, you will have to browse images for the locality. Civil Registration began in 1879 in El Salvador. Before 1879 Civil Registration was taken care of by the Catholic Church and some of the records were collect by parish priests. Catholic Church records are a good choice because they cover all time periods. If you can find the ancestor in both record types, that is best as you will get more information to advance the pedigree.

FamilySearch Catalog: Not all records for El Salvador are online, be sure to check the catalog before giving up on finding records.

Research Strategies
Who to search for? If you don't know the names of the parents, but you know the name of the spouse and/or the names of some of his children, begin with a marriage search (if they married in El Salvador and you know the place). Or begin with a search for the birth/baptism record for one of their children (if you have an approximate birth date and place).

Finding a Locality

 * Google
 * Wikipedia (The Spanish version works the best)
 * Try a keyword search in the FamilySearch Catalog for El Salvador Gazetteers.

Online Resources
For other online resources please review the Wiki article Hispanic Genealogy Resources Online.