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 October 2024 thru March 2025.   Additional details are provided in the next section.

• Marriage Records - 109 marriages for 1923
• Birth Records - 331 births for 1924
• Obituaries - 613 added, 227 recent and 386 from previous years
• Cemetery Burials -  The most recent interments, based on obituaries
• Gravestone photos -  296 additions or updates
• Family Tree - 588 individuals and 256 families added

New Data Sets and Major Additions:  Below is a description of additional, complete data sets added April 2024 through March 2025. 

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)

1924 Madison County Births: The complete set of Madison County births for calendar year 1924, comprised of 331 records, have been posted to our birth pages as of Mar 31, 2025. To see the list of 1924 births, click here. To see them integrated with all births, select BIRTH RECORDS on the left.  (Posted 10 Mar 2025) 

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 Veterans Buried In Iowa Veterans Cemetery: A complete list of these veterans buried in the Iowa Veterans Cemetery, located near Van Meter, is a link near the top of the MILITARY RECORDS page.  These names are generously provided through the work of Connie McDaniel Hall of Dallas County IAGenWeb, who provides continuous updates. (Posted 10 April 2025)

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.  Here is updated information on their progress.

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 October 2024 thru March 2025, 296 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 10 Apr 2025)

Enhanced Gravestone Navigation: 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 28,700 gravestones records (96%) have been updated with a row link. Only St. Patrick's cemetery, with1313 gravestones, is left to map. (Posted 10 Apr 2025)  

 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. Three more are on hand and will be installed in 2025. Photographs of the gravestones already placed can be seen here.  (Posted 10 Apr 2025) 

Madison County Family Tree: Checkout the tree icon in the upper left of this screen.  Our online tree holds over 102,500 individuals, grouped in 33,750 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 October 2024 thru March 2025, 588 individuals and 256 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 10 Apr 2025)

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.  In the past year, a group of Madison County Genealogical Society members updated the 3-ring binders at the Winterset Public Library that hold all walks done in our 53 cemeteries since the mid-1970s. 
  
  
• 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.  Starting in 2024, she is documenting veteran gravestones in every Madison County cemetery and researching their military service, which will be added to our MILITARY RECORDS pages.
  
  
• Donna Wenzl, through her volunteer work at the Iowa Gold Star Museum, has provided WWII Army, Navy, and Coast Guard veteran service information to be entered to our MILITARY RECORDS pages.
  
  
• 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 obituary entries that have been made over 20+ years.