California County Resources
This entry was originally written by Dwight A. Radford, Thelma Berkey Walsmith, and Nell Sachse Woodard in Red Book: American State, County, and Town Sources.
The following is a listing of the extant vital, land, probate, and court records for each county. Some counties encompass land settled in the eighteenth century; their records pre-date county formation. Land transactions and vital records recorded in the county are at the county recorder's office. The county clerk generally has probate books and files from the county's superior court, civil court records, and naturalizations. Divorces may be in either place, depending on how they were filed.
The California State Archives and the FHL both have microfilms of selected county records. Current information for county offices can be found at www.state.ca.us/state/portal/myca_hompage.jsp and the California Association of Counties website at www.csac.counties.org.
California's records are fairly complex, due in part to the nature of how counties were formed. Land was often added to the different counties several times for years after a county was formed. It is therefore an extremely subjective process to determine a beginning date for California's early records, a process that is complicated by the changes in jurisdiction during the territorial period, Mexican period, and the Spanish period, which all generated records. The result is that any inventory of beginning dates for county records will vary depending on how a county record is defined.
To address this problem, several published sources and Internet sites were consulted and compared to verify the county list that follows, including the following references:
- Coy, Owen C. California County Boundaries: A Study of the Division of the State into Counties and the Subsequent Changes in Their Boundaries. Berkeley: California Historical Survey Commission, 1923.
- . Guide to the County Archives of California. Sacramento: California State Printing Office, 1919.
- 'The Birth of Each County and Later Significant Boundary Changes,' found at www.csac.counties.org.
- Sperling, Muriel. Sources of Genealogical Help in California. Burbank, Calif.: The Southern California Genealogical Society, 1990. Reprinted 2000.
- Nicklas, Laurie. The California Locator: A Directory of Public Records for Locating People Dead or Alive in California. Modesto, Calif.: Nicklas Publishing Co., 1996.
Map | County | County Address | Date Formed | Parent County(ies) | Birth | Marriage | Death | Land | Probate | Court | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
D6 | Alameda | 1221 Oak St Ste 536, Oakland 94612-4224 | 1853 | Contra Costa/ Santa Clara | 1873 | 1853 | 1859 | 1853 | 1853 | 1853 | ||
D4 | Alpine | 99 Water St/ P.O. Box 158, Markleeville 91620-0158 | 1864 | El Dorado/Amador/ Calaveras/ Tuolumne | 1873 | 1864 | 1864 | 1864 | 1864 | 1864 | ||
C8 | Amador | 500 Argonaut Lane, Jackson 95642-6470 | 1854 | Calaveras/El Dorado | 1873 | 1854 | 1873 | 1854 | 1854 | 1854 | ||
Land from El Dorado was added in 1855 and again in 1857 and 1863 | ||||||||||||
Branciforte | (renamed Santa Cruz in 1850) | original | ||||||||||
C2 | Butte | 25 County Center Dr, Oroville 95965-3316 | 1850 | original | 1859 | 1851 | 1859 | 1846 | 1850 | 1850 | ||
C8 | Calaveras | 891 Mountain Ranch Road, San Adreas 95249-9713 | 1850 | original | 1858 | 1854 | 1858 | 1850 | 1866 | 1850 | ||
A6 | Colusa | 546 Jay St, Colusa 95932-2400 | 1850 | original | 1873 | 1873 | 1873 | 1844 | 1851 | 1851 | ||
Attached to Butte County for administration until it was organized in 1851. Land was later added from counties Yolo (1851), Butte (1856) , and Sutter (1856) . | ||||||||||||
D6 | Contra Costa | 651 Pine St. Rm 106, Martinez 94553-1229 | 1850 | original | 1850 | 1850 | 1850 | 1850 | 1850 | 1850 | ||
A1 | Del Norte | 555 H St, Crescent City 95531 | 1857 | Klamath | 1873 | 1857 | 1873 | 1853 | 1848 | 1848 | ||
Land was later added from counties Siskiyou (1887) and Humboldt (1901) . | ||||||||||||
B8 | El Dorado | 330 Fair Lane, Placerville 95667-4103 | 1850 | original | 1878 | 1851 | 1907 | 1851 | 1850 | 1850 | ||
Land from Placer County was added in 1863 | ||||||||||||
G3 | Fresno | 2281 Tulare St, Fresno 93721 | 1856 | Mariposa/Merced/Tulare | 1873 | 1856 | 1873 | 1856 | 1880 | 1856 | ||
Land was later added from counties Merced (1856) and Tulare (1856) | ||||||||||||
C2 | Glenn | 526 W Sycamore St, Willows 95988-2746 | 1891 | Colusa | 1895 | 1891 | 1891 | 1891 | 1891 | 1891 | ||
Land from Mendocino County was added in 1907. | ||||||||||||
A1 | Humboldt | 825 Fifth St, Eureka 95501-1153 | 1853 | Trinity | 1873 | 1864 | 1873 | 1874 | 1853 | 1853 | ||
Land was later added from counties Mendocino (1860) and Klamath (1875) , and Del Norte (1901) . |