Record Atlas
5 eras · 1762–2026 · 63 places

Iowa

Des Moines, Davenport, Dubuque, Burlington, Iowa City, Sioux City. Which empire held this ground in which years — and, the part that matters, which archive that means.

Whose archive this ground was

YearsWho held itWhose archive that means
1762–1803 Spanish Louisiana (France again from 1800) no registers survive

France ceded Louisiana to Spain in the secret Treaty of Fontainebleau of 1762, and the Treaty of Paris of 1763 gave the west bank of the Mississippi to Spain; St. Louis, founded in 1764, became capital of Upper Louisiana. Spain returned Louisiana to France in 1800 and formally transferred it on 30 November 1803.
1803–1838 Louisiana Purchase lands - successive territories FamilySearch · National Archives Catalog (NARA)

The ground was in Louisiana, Missouri, Michigan and Wisconsin territories before 1838. It was closed to white settlers until the 1830s, after the Black Hawk War.
1838–1846 Iowa Territory FamilySearch · National Archives Catalog (NARA)

Created in July 1838 and covering about 194,000 square miles including present Minnesota and parts of the Dakotas, with the capital at Burlington (1838-1841) and then Iowa City. The 1840 census counted 43,112 residents in 18 counties.
1846–1880 State of Iowa FamilySearch · National Archives Catalog (NARA) · Chronicling America

Iowa was admitted on 28 December 1846.
1880–2026 Iowa - statewide registration FamilySearch · National Archives Catalog (NARA) · Chronicling America

Statewide registration is dated 1 July 1880 for births or 1891 for deaths depending on the source, and compliance improved markedly after 1921.

The rings are approximate — deliberately. They exist to shade which filing system a place fell under, not to adjudicate a border. A place near a ring's edge should be checked against both neighbours.

See the whole span, 1762–2026, on the map →

The map takes a range, and a range that crosses one of the rows above is where records get lost: the family never moved, and the archive on the far side of the handover will tell you it holds nothing.

63 places on this ground

1742 FamilySearch collections reach this ground

Ranked with the regional ones first — a collection for a province is usually a better lead than a national index, though the national index is often where a name is actually written down. A free account opens the images.

…and 1682 more.

All record regions · The map