St. Louis County, Minnesota Genealogy

United States

Minnesota

St. Louis County

Guide to St. Louis County, Minnesota ancestry, family history, and genealogy birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, family history, and military records.

Minnesota Online Genealogy Records

St. Louis County, Minnesota
Map
Location of Minnesota in the U.S.
Facts
Founded	March 1, 1856
County Seat	Duluth
Courthouse
Address	St. Louis County Courthouse 100 N 5th Ave W Duluth, MN 55802-1202 Phone: 218.726.2559 St. Louis County Website

County Information

Description

The County was named for St. Louis River. The County is located in the northeast area of the state.

St. Louis County, Minnesota Record Dates

Known Beginning Dates for Major County Records
Birth*	Marriage	Death*	Court	Land	Probate	Census
1870	1870	1870	1859	1859	Unknown	1836
Statewide registration started for births in 1900 and deaths in 1908. General compliance by 1915.

County Courthouse

Clerk District Court has birth, death and marriage records from 1870,
burial permits from 1938, divorce, court and land records from 1859.
County Court has probate records.

History

Parent County

• 1856--St. Louis County was created 1 March 1856 from Itasca County. County seat: Duluth
• For a brief history of how St. Louis County was named, click here, then select St. Louis County.

Record Loss

1869-70 Courthouse suffered a county record loss; cause unknown.

For suggestions about research in places that suffered historic record losses, see:

• Burned Counties. By Michael John Neill at 24-7 Family History Circle.
• When the Records are Gone. By Arlene Eakle at Arlene Eakle's Tennessee Blog.
• Burned Counties Research in the FamilySearch Research Wiki.

Places/Localities

Populated Places

For a complete list of populated places, including small neighborhoods and suburbs, visit HomeTown Locator. The following are the most historically and genealogically relevant populated places in this county:

Cities
Aurora Babbitt Biwabik Brookston Buhl Chisholm Cook Duluth Ely	Eveleth Floodwood Gilbert Hermantown Hibbing Hoyt Lakes Iron Junction Kinney Leonidas	McKinley Meadowlands Mountain Iron Orr Proctor Rice Lake Tower Virginia Winton
Unincorporated communities
Alborn Angora Ash Lake Bassett Bear River Bengal Brimson Britt Burnett Burntside Buyck Canyon Celina Central Lakes Cherry Clover Valley Cotton Crane Lake Culver Cusson Eldes Corner Elmer Embarrass Fairbanks Florenton	Forbes Four Corners French River Gheen Gheen Corner Glendale Gowan Greaney Idington Independence Island Lake Kabetogama Keenan Kelsey Linden Grove Makinen Markham McComber Meadow Brook Melrude Munger Palmers Palo Payne Peary	Petrel Peyla Prosit Ramshaw Robinson Rollins Saginaw Sax Shaw Sherman Corner Side Lake Silica Simar Skibo Sturgeon Taft Toivola Twig Vermilion Dam Wahlsten Wakemup Whiteface Wolf Zim
Census-designated places
Mahnomen	Nett Lake	Soudan
Townships
Alango Alborn Alden Angora Arrowhead Ault Balkan Bassett Beatty Biwabik Breitung Brevator Camp 5 Canosia Cedar Valley Cherry Clinton Colvin Cotton Crane Lake Culver Duluth Eagles Nest Ellsburg	Elmer Embarrass Fairbanks Fayal Field Fine Lakes Floodwood Fredenberg French Gnesen Grand Lake Great Scott Greenwood Halden Industrial Kabetogama Kelsey Kugler Lakewood Lavell Leiding Linden Grove McDavitt Meadowlands	Midway Morcom Morse Ness New Independence Normanna North Star Northland Owens Pequaywan Pike Portage Prairie Lake Sandy Solway Stoney Brook Sturgeon Toivola Van Buren Vermilion Lake Waasa White Willow Valley Wuori
Unorganized territories
Angleworm Lake Bear Head Lake Birch Lake Camp A Lake Crab Lake Dark River Gheen Hay Lake Heikkala Lake Hush Lake	Janette Lake Leander Lake Linwood Lake Marion Lake McCormack Mud Hen Lake Nett Lake Northeast St. Louis Northwest St. Louis Pfeiffer Lake	Picket Lake Potshot Lake Sand Lake Slim Lake Sturgeon River Sunday Lake Tikander Lake Whiteface Reservoir
Ghost towns
Costin Village Elcor	Fermoy	Spina

Neighboring Counties

• Aitkin
• Carlton
• Douglas County, Wisconsin
• Itasca
• Koochiching
• Lake

Resources

Cemeteries

Tombstone Transcriptions Online	Tombstone Transcriptions in Print	List of Cemeteries in the county
Findagrave.com	Family History Library	Findagrave.com
MNGenWeb	WorldCat	Billion Graves
MNGenWeb Archives		FamilySearch Places
Tombstone Project
MNInterment
MNGravestones
Billion Graves
See Minnesota Cemeteries for more information.

Census

Historical populations
Census	Pop.	%±
1860	406	—
1870	4,561	1023.4%
1880	4,504	−1.2%
1890	44,862	896.0%
1900	82,932	84.9%
1910	163,274	96.9%
1920	206,391	26.4%
1930	204,596	−0.9%
1940	206,917	1.1%
1950	206,062	−0.4%
1960	231,588	12.4%
1970	220,693	−4.7%
1980	222,229	0.7%
1990	198,213	−10.8%
2000	200,528	1.2%
2010	200,226	−0.2%
Source: "Wikipedia.org".

State Census'

• 1865 - Minnesota State Census, 1865 at FamilySearch — index and images
• 1885 - Minnesota State Census, 1885 at FamilySearch — index and images
• 1905 - Minnesota State Census, 1905 at FamilySearch — index and images

Church

Most church records are held by individual churches. For contact information, check a phone directory, such as SearchBug or Dex Knows. Some denominations are gathering their records into a central repository. For more information about these major repositories, see Minnesota Church Records.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Ward and Branch Records

• Duluth

Lutheran

First Lutheran Church, Duluth

• Records of First Lutheran Church, Duluth, in Evangelical Lutheran Church in America database at Archives.com ($).

Orr

• Records of the American Lutheran Church, Orr, in Evangelical Lutheran Church in America database at Archives.com ($).

St. Louis County

• Records of the American Lutheran Church, St. Louis County, in Evangelical Lutheran Church in America database at Archives.com ($).

List of Churches and Church Parishes

• FamilySearch Places
  

Emigration and Immigration

• 1912 - 1956 - Minnesota Passenger and Crew Lists, 1912-1956 at FamilySearch — index and images

Land

The county register of deeds keeps land records once the land was transferred to private ownership. Abstracts and indexes for these records are generally available at the county courthouse.

Land records for Minnesota are listed in the Place Search of the FamilySearch Catalog under:

MINNESOTA, St. Louis – LAND AND PROPERTY

Local Histories

Local histories are available for St. Louis County, Minnesota Genealogy. County histories may include biographies, church, school and government history, and military information. For more information about local histories, see the wiki page section Minnesota Local Histories.

Maps

• FamilySearch Places:Cities and Towns- How to Use FS Places

Click a neighboring county
for more resources

Military

World War II

• 1940-1945 - Minnesota, World War II Draft Registration Cards,1940-1947 at FamilySearch — index and images

Naturalization and Citizenship

• 1872-1962 - Minnesota Naturalization Records and Indexes, 1872-1962 at FamilySearch — index

Newspapers

Additional newspapers abstracts can sometimes be found using search phrases such as St. Louis County, Minnesota Genealogy newspapers in online catalogs like:

• WorldCat
• FamilySearch. Do a St. Louis County, Minnesota Genealogy Place-name search for these and other records in the FamilySearch Catalog (For instructions see, FamilySearch Catalog Place-name Search).

Obituaries

• 1865 - 2006 - Minnesota Obituaries 1865-2006 at FamilySearch— index and images
• 1962 - Present - Duluth Public Library has an Index to Obituaries printed in the Duluth News-Tribune and Duluth Herald newspapers from 1962 to the present.

Probate

Probate records may include, wills, bonds, petitions, accounts, inventories, administrations, orders, decrees, and distributions. They may include the decedent’s date of death, names of his or her spouse, children, parents, siblings, in-laws, etc. See Minnesota Probate Records for additional information.

Online Probate Records

• 1801 - 1999 Minnesota Wills and Probate Records 1801-1999 at Ancestry.com — index and images $

Taxation

Minnesota tax records complement land records and can be used in place of censuses before 1820 or to supplement the years between censuses. Because only persons who owned taxable property were listed, many residents were not included in tax lists. There may also be gaps of several years in the tax records of some counties. For more information, see the wiki page Minnesota Taxation.

Vital Records

Vital Records consist of births, adoptions, marriages, divorces, and deaths recorded on registers, certificates, and documents.

A copy or an extract of most original records can be purchased from the Minnesota State Registrar of Vital Records, the County Clerk's office of the county where the event occurred], order electronically online ($) or download an application for Minnesota Birth Certificate and Death Certificates Applications to mail.

See also Minnesota Vital Records or How to order Minnesota Vital Records. For information about restrictions and costs for certificates, see the CDC Where to Write for Vital Records site.

Birth

• 1900-1934 Minnesota, Birth Index, 1900-1934 at MyHeritage($) — index

Marriage

• 1850-2019 WEB: Minnesota, Marriages from the Minnesota Official Marriage System, 1850-2019 at Ancestry($) — index
• 1860 - 1949 Minnesota, County Marriages, 1860-1949 at FamilySearch — index and images
• 1976-2003 Minnesota, Marriages, 1976-2003 at MyHeritage($) — index

Death

• 1850-2001 - Minnesota, County Deaths, 1850-2001 at FamilySearch — index and images
• 1887-2001 - Minnesota Deaths, 1887-2001 at FamilySearch — index and images
• St. Louis County Death Record Index covering the time period from January 1, 1870 through December 31, 2000.  Hosted by Rootsweb 
• 1904-2001 Minnesota, Death Index, 1904-2001 at MyHeritage($) — index

Societies and Libraries

St. Louis Park Historical Society
3700 Monterey Drive
St. Louis Park 55416
Website

St. Louis County Historical Society
506 West Michigan Street
Duluth 55802-1505
Website

Canosia Historical Society
5762 N Pike Lake Rd
Duluth, MN 55811
Telephone: 218-729-8963
Website

Range Genealogical Society
PO Box 388
Chisholm MN 55719-0388
Telephone: 218-254-7959
Website

Twin Ports Genealogical Society
PO Box 16895
Duluth MN 55816-0895

Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR)
Duluth, Minnesota
E-mail:edwardcnewman@juno.com
Website

The ‘DAR’ is dedicated to promoting patriotism, preserving American History, and securing America’s future through better education for children. If you live in northern Minnesota or northwest Wisconsin and you think you might have a Revolutionary War Patriot in your family tree please contact this organization. They can assist you in filling out your application to be a member of the DAR.

Family History Centers

Family History Centers provide one-on-one assistance, free access to center-only databases, and to premium genealogical websites.
FamilySearch Affiliate Libraries have access to most center-only databases, but may not always have full services normally provided by a family history center.

• Family History Center and Affiliate Library Locator

Local Centers and Libraries

• Duluth Minnesota Family History Center
• Virginia Minnesota Family History Center

Websites

• St Louis County MNGenWeb
• St. Louis County, MN Genealogy Forum (GenForum)
• FamilySearch Catalog

This website requires a paid subscription for full access.