Welcome to Madison County IAGenWeb

Madison County is located in the south central part of Iowa. It was established in 1846 and organized in 1849 from a territory within Mahaska County. Madison County has many covered bridges made famous in the book The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller. It is also the birthplace of John Wayne and the home of the tree that produced the first "Delicious" apple.  

Daily Updates:  The County Coordinator and several members of the Madison County Genealogical Society are working daily on obituaries, cemetery records, marriage records, birth records, gravestone photos, newspaper gleanings, the Madison County Family Tree, and other research pertaining to Madison County. If you visited this website before and didn't find your relative's information, we urge you to look again. 

This list is a sample of what has been added from April 2024 thru September 2024.   Additional details are provided in the next section.

• Marriage Records - 109 marriages for 1923, listed by both bride and groom
• Obituaries - 347 added, both recent and found from previous years
• Cemetery Burials -  Reflecting the most recent interments
• Gravestone photos - 360 additions or updates
• Family Tree - 547 individuals and 200 families added

New Data Sets and Major Additions:  Below is a description of additional, complete data sets added October 2023 through September 2024. 

1923 Madison County Marriages: The complete set of Madison County marriages for calendar year 1923, comprised of 218 records, have been posted to our MARRIAGE RECORDS as of September 30, 2024. To see the list of 1923 marriages, click here.  To see them integrated with all marriages, select MARRIAGE RECORDS on the left. (Posted 30 Sep 2024)

1923 Madison County Births: The complete set of Madison County births for calendar year 1923, comprised of 313 records, have been posted to our birth pages as of Mar 31, 2024. To see the list of 1923 births, click here. To see them integrated with all births, select BIRTH RECORDS on the left.  (Posted 11 Apr 2024) 

Random Birth Records: As a part of routine maintenance of the website as well as special projects, we may encounter Madison County births not found in the official birth records that either haven't been included or for which additional information has been uncovered. They may come from other county's state census records, marriage records, obituaries, death records, Social Security Applications or Draft Registrations. These random records or record changes are accumulated and posted to the website every 6 months. Twenty-six random birth records have been posted in the 6 months ending 31 Sep 2024 including twelve new and fourteen modified records. (Posted 11 Oct 2024).

1881-1882 Obituaries:  Over 150 obituaries from 1881/1882 and associated family members  have been added. Winterset Madisonian newspapers for 1881 and 1882 are not available for microfilming and/or digitizing. However, for many years the Madisonian ran weekly features of news items that took place 10, 20, 30, and 40 years previously. On occasion, this included mentions of deaths, so these have been added to the obituary index. Newspapers from Dallas, Clarke, Union and Warren County have also provided obits from these years. The majority of these 1881-1882 obituaries had accompanying gravestones photos that have been linked. (Posted 26 Jun 2024)

Surname List of Madison County Gravestones: A surname list of Madison County's Iowa Gravestone Photo Project (IGPP) records are now accessible under CEMETERIES.  This allows IGPP entries to appear within the results of the all-site search in the yellow box in the upper right. Updates are done quarterly. (Posted 30 Sep 2024) 

1862 Madison County Active Militia List: A complete list of Madison County militia volunteers, both for infantry and cavalry duty, has been added to the MILITARY RECORDS page. These groups were formed by law and put into effect in September, 1862 to protect local residents in case of attack.  The information was provided by the State Historical Society of Iowa. (Posted 02 Jul 2024) 

1916-1917 Mexican Border War Veterans: A complete list of Madison County Iowa National Guard veterans who served during the Mexican Border War has been completed on the MILITARY RECORDS page. These names were taken from the 1916 Biennial Report of the Adjutant General of Iowa published by the State of Iowa. (Posted 02 May 2024) 

Madison County Inventor List: A complete list of Madison County individuals who have been awarded a U.S. patent from 1843 to the present has been added under COUNTY HISTORY.  The list includes description, patent number, and date.  A link is provided to search for associated documentation. (Posted 25 Jul 2024) 

Ongoing Projects:  Several efforts require continuous updating or work over multiple years to complete.

Gravestone Photos: Over 31,300 gravestones in Madison County's 53 cemeteries have been photographed and posted at the Iowa Gravestone Project. This is a continuous effort as there are new burials, repaired gravestones, or stones placed on existing graves. In the period from April 2024 thru September 2024, 360 gravestones photos (with GPS coordinates) and transcriptions have been updated. A list of the new postings can be seen in a separately compiled list of new Gravestone Photo postings. (Posted 30 Sep 2024)

Enhanced Gravestone Way-finding: To help those who want to personally visit family members' gravestones in a Madison County cemetery, a project is underway to add a link with the row number, as well as section letter for larger cemeteries, to the gravestone photo.  This link will take you to a cemetery map with the rows marked.  Using this information, a visitor can walk to the row then use the gravestone photo to locate a stone.  Please note that rows are often incomplete or irregular, so searching neighboring rows is suggested.  See a sample here. Over 27,800 gravestones records (87%) have been updated with a row link. (Posted 30 Sep 2024)  

 Civil War Gravestone Project: With collaboration among the Madison County IAGenWeb team and the Madison County Genealogy Society, volunteers are researching and procuring Veterans Administration (VA) issued gravestones for Civil War soldiers currently lying in unmarked graves in Madison County cemeteries. Veterans of other pre-WWI conflicts were added to the project in early 2023 and as of 30 Aug 2024, 29 new stones have been placed and 2 repaired. Photographs of the gravestones already placed can be seen here.  (Posted 30 Sep 2024) 

Madison County Family Tree: Our online tree holds over 102,000 individuals, grouped in 33,500 families, who have a direct connection to Madison County (without ancestors and descendants who do not). Continual updates are made from various sources, such as additions to this website, vital records encountered in our research, and incoming obituaries.  In the period from April 2024 thru September 2024, 547 individuals and 200 families were added. When first generated, the tree had few sources. For the past five years, we have been entering sources for all new entries and, as we have occasion to work with older entries, adding sources for them as well.   (Posted 30 Sep 2024)

Current Contributors:  Maintenance and improvement of this website would be impossible without the continued support of various volunteer contributors. Those below are especially dedicated to their work and have our deep appreciation.  (Posted 30 Sep 2024)

• Special thanks go to Pat Hochstetler and Kathi Kuhl who have worked tirelessly in transcribing new obituaries weekly along with older obituaries as they are found.
  
  
• Since 2022, a variety of local genealogists, led by Pat Hochstetler, volunteer their time in cemeteries to gather data and to add photos for the Iowa Gravestones Photo Project for Madison County.  Pat then updates both row-by-row and alphabetical listing documents, which are available at the Winterset Public Library. 
  
  
• Colleen Peterson has put much energy into the Civil War Gravestone Project, researching candidates, creating VA applications, communicating with cemetery trustees, coordinating installations, and inviting descendants, if known.
  
  
• Kent Transier, although retired from active County Coordinator duties, continues to expand the website with new/additional information in many categories or to connect information within the website.  Recent examples include the Civil War Gravestone Project, creating cemetery maps with rows in support of the Iowa Gravestone Photo Project, an extensive Church History update, and standardizing entries that have been made over 20+ years.