Josephine County, Oregon Genealogy

United States

Oregon

Josephine County

Guide to Josephine County, Oregon ancestry, family history, and genealogy birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, family history, and military records.

Oregon Online Genealogy Records

Josephine County, Oregon
Map
Location in the state of Oregon
Location of Oregon in the U.S.
Facts
Founded	January 22, 1856
County Seat	Grants Pass
Courthouse
Address	Josephine County Courthouse 500 NW 6th Street Grants Pass, OR 97526 Phone: 541.474.5243 Josephine County Website

County Information

Description

The County was named for a stream in the area called Josephine Creek, which in turn is probably named after Virginia Josephine Rollins Ort. The County is located in the southwest area of the state.

Josephine County, Oregon Record Dates

Known Beginning Dates for Major County Records
Birth*	Marriage	Death*	Court	Land	Probate	Census
1906	1857	1906	1854	1857	1848	1845
*Statewide registration for births and deaths in 1903. General compliance year unknown.

County Courthouse

County Clerk has marriage and land records from 1857.
Clerk Circuit Court has divorce, probate and court records.

Records Held at the Courthouse

• County Records Inventory listing the records held at the Josephine County Court House as of September 2005.

• Record Loss:

Quick Facts

Named for Virginia Josephine Rollins Ort, the first white woman to settle in southern Oregon.

Parent County

22 January 1856: Created from Umpqua County.

Boundary Changes

For animated maps illustrating Oregon County boundary changes, "Rotating Formation Oregon County Boundary Maps" (1843-1975) may be viewed for free at the MapofUS.org website.

Record Loss

There is no known history of courthouse disasters in this county.

Places / Localities

Populated Places

The following are locations in the county:

For a complete list of populated places, including small neighborhoods and suburbs, visit HomeTown Locator

Cities
Cave Junction	Grants Pass
Unincorporated communities
Dryden Galice Holland Hugo	Leland Murphy Pleasant Valley Sunny Valley	Wilderville Wolf Creek Wonder
Census-designated places
Fruitdale Harbeck Kerby Merlin	New Hope O'Brien Redwood Selma	Takilma Williams
Ghost towns
Golden Greenback	Placer	Waldo

Defunct Post Offices

• Almeda: The post office was established February 15, 1912 and was discontinued July 15, 1920. Josephine Donoghue was the first of three postmasters.
• Aloysius: Aloysius post office apparently operated at the Leonard Ranch in the Althouse district. Mary E. Leonard was the postmaster. Aloysius post office was established July 12, 1888, and was discontinued November 30,1889. The available business was turned over to Althouse. Named for William Aloysius Leonard, born in 1875, died in 1915, son of Lawrence Leonard and Mary Ellen Leonard, his wife.
• Altamont: Altamont post office was established April 16, 1884, with Benjamin M. Parker first and only postmaster. The office was closed June 21, 1886. The available geographic information is meager about this place, but may be sufficient for its importance. Early gazetteers show a place called Alta and also Altamont at a point on the railroad about 21 miles north of Grants Pass and that was doubtless the location of the post office.There had been an earlier post office named Leland near the highway crossing on Grave Creek about four miles east of the railroad. After Altamont post office was closed in 1886, Leland office was moved west to the railroad, but the exact date of this move cannot be determined from the records, may be in the early 1890s.

Neighboring Counties

Curry | Douglas | Jackson | California counties: Del Norte | Siskiyou

Trivia Tidbits

Information about localities, too small or too brief to describe in separate pages. Exception to this are Post Offices. > Trivia Tidbits

Resources

Cemeteries

Tombstone Transcriptions Online	Tombstone Transcriptions in Print	List of Cemeteries in the county
Findagrave.com	Family History Library	Findagrave.com
ORGenWeb	WorldCat	Billion Graves
ORGenWeb Archives		FamilySearch Places
Tombstone Project
ORInterment
ORGravestones
Billion Graves
See Oregon Cemeteries for more information.

• Oregon Metro
• Oregon Genealogy Cemeteries

Census

Historical populations
Census	Pop.	%±
1860	1,623	—
1870	1,204	−25.8%
1880	2,485	106.4%
1890	4,878	96.3%
1900	7,517	54.1%
1910	9,567	27.3%
1920	7,655	−20.0%
1930	11,498	50.2%
1940	16,301	41.8%
1950	26,542	62.8%
1960	29,917	12.7%
1970	35,746	19.5%
1980	58,855	64.6%
1990	62,649	6.4%
2000	75,726	20.9%
2010	82,713	9.2%
Source: "Wikipedia.org".

Church History and Records

List of Churches and Church Parishes

• FamilySearch Places
  

Gazetteers

• FamilySearch Places:Cities and Towns- How to Use FS Places

Maps

• FamilySearch Places:Cities and Towns- How to Use FS Places

Click a neighboring county
for more resources

Military

Civil War

• 1861-1865 - Oregon, Civil War Service Records of Union Soldiers, 1861-1865 at FamilySearch — index

World War I

• 1919-1920 - Oregon, World War I, County Military Service Records, 1919-1920 at FamilySearch — index
• 1921-1938 - Oregon, World War I, Veteran State Aid Applications, 1921-1938 at FamilySearch — index and images

Newspapers

Oregon Online Historical Newspapers - identifies historical archived and digitized newspapers available online on both free and pay-to-access websites.

Historic Oregon Newspapers  as a division of the Oregon Digital Newspaper Program has digitzied more than 644,000 pages of newspapers throughout Oregon. Dates range from 1846-1922 with selected issues continuing through 1973.

Of particular interest to Josephine County researchers:

Grants Pass Daily Courier (Grants Pass)
Rogue River Courier (Grants Pass)

Probate

Online Records

• 1833 – 1963 Oregon Wills and Probate Records 1833-1963 at Ancestry.com — index and images $

Rivers and Waterways

Details about the rivers and waterways where farms and settlements are often found along them. >> Rivers and Waterways

Vital Records

See also How to order Oregon Vital Records, order electronically online or download an application for Oregon Birth Certificate, Marriage Certificate, Divorce Certificate, Death Certificate Application to mail.

Birth Records

• 1860 - 1952 - Oregon Births, 1860-1952 at FamilySearch — index

Delayed Birth Certificates

Birth Registers

Marriage Records

1. 1826-1975 - Oregon, United States Marriages at FindMyPast — index $
2. 1849-1884; 1991-2006 - Oregon Marriage Index, 1849-1884; 1991-2006 at FamilySearch — index and images; collection is incomplete.
3. Extractions of early marriages are listed on the Western States Marriage Index
4. Marriage Index 1885-1896 Actually is a book of affiants reporting the marriages. Historical Records Collection

Societies and Libraries

Rogue Valley Genealogical Society
500 NW Sixth Street, RM 170
Grants Pass, OR 97526
Telephone: 541-474-5240
Fax: 541-474-5246
E-mail:clerk@co.josephine.or.us
Website

Josephine County Historical Society
512 SW 5th St
Grants Pass, OR 97526
541-479-7827
Website
Facebook Page

Josephine Community Library - Four Branches
200 NW C St
Grants Pass, OR 97526
541-476-0571
Website
Facebook Page

Family History Centers

Family History Center and Affiliate Library Locator map - search for local Family History Centers or Affiliate Libraries

• Family History Centers provide one-on-one assistance, free access to center-only databases, and to premium genealogical websites.
• FamilySearch Affiliate Libraries have access to most center-only databases, but may not always have full services normally provided by a family history center.
  

Local Centers and Affiliate Libraries

• Cave Junction Oregon Family History Center
• Grants Pass Oregon Family History Center

Websites

• Josephine County, OR History, Records, Facts and Genealogy
• Oregon Genealogy Network Group on Facebook
• The Josephine County GenWeb Project part of The ORGenWeb Project
• Linkpendium
• The USGenWeb Archives Project
• The USGenWeb Archives Project (Backup site)
• FamilySearch.org