A Look at Some Central & South American Records at FamilySearch

In our discussions on research topics, we so often spend a great deal of time focusing on our ancestors who have come to the United States from the East or the West. But what about those who came from the South? Fortunately, FamilySearch has not forgotten about them. While availability of European and U.S. records have been easier to access and index in the past, FamilySearch has made great efforts to include those vital records accessible from Central and South American countries. This includes the Caribbean. Here is just a short list of indexed records which have been made available this year for free at FamilySearch:

Brazil, Immigration Cards, 1900-1965, 125,830 records as of 17 Sep 2011
Argentina, National Census, 1895; 3,888,939 records as of 6 Sep 2011
Nicaragua, Civil Registration; 363,085 records as of 16 Aug 2011
Peru, Civil Registration, 1874-1978; 163,944 records as of 16 Aug 2011
Jamaica, Civil Birth Registration; 1,528,614 records as of 13 Apr 2011
Costa Rica Church Records, 1595-1992; 1,380,256 records as of 8 Apr 2011

With so many people vying to get into the U.S., and with a hot-potato topic like illegal immigration seemingly in the news every other day or so, its easy to forget people actually immigrate to countries other than our own. Brazil and Argentina saw mass migrations of Europeans during the great wars. Some of these individuals and families, or their descendants, later immigrated into the U.S. Immigration records from foreign countries may just come in handy to your research.

Other records, both browsable images as well as indexed, have been added over the past couple of years. There are millions of available records, most belonging to someone’s ancestor, just waiting to be found.

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