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  in the last six month, from October 2025 thru March 2026.  Additional details are provided in the next section.

• Marriage Records - 103 marriages for 1924
• Birth Records - 245 births for 1925
• Obituaries - 733 added, 322 recent (most with a photo) and 411 from previous years from funeral homes and newspapers
• Cemetery Burials -  The most recent interments, based on obituaries
• Gravestone photos -  64 additions and 3048 updates
• Family Tree - 1100 individuals and 367 families added

New Data Sets and Major Additions:  Below is a description of additional, complete data sets added April 2025 through March 2026. 

1924 Madison County Marriages: The complete set of Madison County marriages for calendar year 1924, comprised of 103 marriages and 212 records, have been posted to our MARRIAGE RECORDS as of September 30, 2025. To see the list of 1924 marriages, click here.  To see them integrated with all marriages, select MARRIAGE RECORDS on the left. (Posted 30 Sep 2025)

1925 Madison County Births: The complete set of Madison County births for calendar year 1925, comprised of 245 records, have been posted to our birth pages as of Mar 26, 2026. To see the list of 1925 births, click here. To see them integrated with all births, select BIRTH RECORDS on the left.  (Posted 26 Mar 2026) 

Lineage Society Burials in Madison County: A complete list of individuals buried in Madison County who were a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), the Sons of the American Revolution (SAR), or the Mayflower Society has been gathered. Found under CEMETERIES, names with their membership number(s) are listed.  Connecting with this documentation may provide you with a wealth of verified genealogical information.  (Posted 10 Mar 2026) 

Madison County Land Records: A new menu item, LAND RECORDS, holds links to help you find where your family purchased land when first arriving in Madison County, or the farms or town lots they purchased from others. You can search for original purchases within US land patents or for subsequent transfers within Madison County Recorder Office records. (Posted 13 Sep 2025) 

Madison County Century and Heritage Farms: Also under LAND RECORDS  is a link to the list of Iowa farms held within a family for 100 years (Century Farm) and 150 years (Heritage Farm), as recognized by the Iowa Secretary of Agriculture. (Posted 17 Jul 2025) 

Madison County Biography Index:  Selecting the "Bios" icon on the right side of this page now leads to a comprehensive biography index making it much easier to find your ancestors. Within the development of the index was a task to consolidate multiple biographies for the same person into single postings. You can still access the biography surname search through an icon at the top of each index page. (Posted 07 Apr 2026)

Ongoing Projects:  Several efforts require continuous updating or work over multiple years to complete.  Here is updated information on their progress.

Gravestone Photos: Over 32,000 photos have been taken in Madison County's 53 cemeteries 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 2025 thru March 2026, 64 gravestones photos (with GPS coordinates) and transcriptions have been updated. Over 3000 gravestone entries have been updated. A list of the new postings can be seen in a separately compiled list of new Gravestone Photo postings. (Posted 20 Mar 2026)

Enhanced Gravestone Navigation:  A project has been completed to add a row number link for each of our 30,000+ gravestone photos.  In larger cemeteries, the link also includes a section number.  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.  (Posted 10 Aug 2025)  

 Civil War Gravestone Project: With collaboration among the Madison County IAGenWeb team, Madison County Genealogy Society, and Madison County Historic Preservation Commission, 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, 31 new stones have been placed and 2 repaired. One more is on hand waiting installation. Photographs of the gravestones already placed can be seen here.  (Posted 10 Aug 2025) 

 Gravestone - Obituary Link Project: Due to the unavailability of gravestone photos in the early part of the development of this website, the majority of our obituaries were not linked to their respective gravestone photos. In addition, the major offsite source of gravestone photos had recently updated all of their links to a new format, possibly leading to a massive breakage of links on our website. In the fall of 2024, former County Coordinator Kent Transier volunteered to go through every obituary and link those that could be linked and update the links for those connected to an external website. As that project progressed, it was expanded to also fix any problems with the obit formatting with particular attention to the title, surnames list, and accuracy of the source data. This project was completed on April 2, 2026. (Posted 02 Apr 2026)

Madison County Family Tree: Check out the tree icon in the upper left of this screen.  Our online tree holds over 103,500 individuals, grouped in 34,100 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 2025 thru March 2026, 1100 individuals and 367 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 20 Mar 2026)

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 20 Mar 2026)

• 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.  Weekly Beth Hunsberger processes all new incoming obituaries to standardized the listing, add a photo, link to their gravestone, and adds them into the OBITUARY INDEX.
  
  
• 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 (IGGP) for Madison County.  Pat then updates both row-by-row and alphabetical listing documents, which are available in the Winterset Public Library.  She is also locating obituaries for IGPP gravestones that do not have a link to one yet in our OBITUARY INDEX.  
  
  
• 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 the 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, finished her project to provide 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 improve  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, creating a Biography Index, and standardizing obituary entries.