Missouri Public Records Search

The Missouri State Archive was created by the state legislature in 1965. The State Archives acts as the repository for state records which are of permanent historical value. It holds records from the year 1770 and records which are contained in the archives are judicial, executive and legislative records, state department and agencies records, land records, military records, state publications, and photographic collections, municipal and county records on microfilm, manuscript and reference collections.

The State Archives identifies, collects and preserves the records and makes them available to the state government officials, historians, students, genealogists and general public. At present the Archives holds over 336 million pages of paper; 9000 maps, 400,000 photographs; 61,000 microfilm reels, 560 cubic feet of published state documents and more than 1,000 audio/video items.

You can access the Archives through the research room on http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/resources/resources.asp.

Records Available from the Archives

County and Municipal Records

The State Archives of Missouri holds more than 55,000 reels of film which contains materials related to marriages, deeds, probate court and circuit court as well as census film and some publication on state agency on microfilms.

The Missouri State Archives contains direct index to deeds, indirect index to deeds, records of deeds, warranty deeds, administrator deeds, index to mortgages, quitclaim deed records, mortgage records, marriage records, selective records, birth records, common pleas, death records, road records, treasury records, naturalization records and other records.

Judicial Records

The Missouri judicial record contains records which are related to the judicial system of Missouri. The Missouri State Archives includes records from the Supreme Court of Missouri, Appellate Courts, County and Municipal Courts.

The “Missouri Supreme Court Historical Database” includes the index and the abstract of the civil and criminal court cases and they can be accessed from here. The case files which are available here are files which include records of civil, criminal and chancery cases. The majority of the cases are related to damages or debts. It also holds records on unredeemed promissory notes, breach of contracts and land disputes. Cases also range from petty thefts to murders. The other types of cases which are available here are divorce, estate settlements and others.

You can search for the Supreme Court Record Database from the search tool which is provided in the official website of the State Archives of Missouri http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/judiciary/supremecourt/default.asp.

You can also access the case files from the Appellate Courts which are situated on the eastern, western and the southern districts. The access to these records is done through case numbers.

You can also acquire roll by roll listings of the Municipal and County records on microfilm. The Judicial Index database provides an abstract and index of selected civil, criminal and probate court cases. If you wish to know more about these records, you can contact the state archive at archref@sos.mo.gov.

Land Records

The detail records of land such as name of the purchaser, section, amount of the land purchased, township and all other related information can be obtained from:

Bureau of Land Management
Eastern States Office
7450 Boston Boulevard
Springfield, VA 22153
Or you can visit http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/ .

Birth & Death Records

The Bureau of Vital Records maintains the abstracts on birth, stillbirths and death records and the information is available in the form of microfilm at the State Archives of Missouri.

The bureau has the certificates of births in Missouri from 1910 to the present. The bureau also has the death records which are less than fifty years old.

The web-link http://www.sos.mo.gov/archives/resources/birthdeath/ provides the users with a search tool to access the records of birth, stillbirth and death records.