1.  Birth, Marriage, and Death Certificates show race information and the names of parents.  These are located at the Department of Health, the Hawaii State Archives and the Daughters of the American Revolution Library in Honolulu.  

The Hawaii State Archives collection of marriage records dates from 1826 to 1929, with an index from 1826 to 1910.

    A death certificate is one of the best ways to push back the genealogical chart as the death certificate will list the parents of the deceased.  Unfortunately, many times people do not know their grandparents' and their great grandparents' death dates.  Part of the problem is that at the turn of the century (1900) many neighbor island families moved to Honolulu for work.  As the years passed, the neighbor island and the Honolulu families lost knowledge and close association with one another.  To overcome these obstacles, use Nanett Purnell's Guide to Cemetery Records for the islands of Oahu, Maui, Molokai, and Lanai to locate family names and death dates.  Then order the death certificate from the Department of Health.  The Guide to Cemetery Records has names listed alphabetically and can be found at the Hawaiian Mission Children's Library, Hawaii State Archives, and at the public library.  Other cemetery records can be found at the Hawaii State Archives and at the LDS Family History Centers.  The Archives has a death index taken from newspaper obituaries that is helpful in identifying surviving family members.

You can obtain copies of state records from the 1850s to the present by visiting the State Department of Health website to learn more.         

2.  Certificate of Hawaiian Birth - These forms were issued to people who did not have a birth certificate recorded at the time of their birth.  In order to get a Certificate of Hawaiian Birth a person had to take witnesses that could testify to the circumstances of their birth.  Those testifying were usually family members or family friends.  These records include information such as:

                a.  Name of parents

                b.  Race of parents

                c.  Death dates of parent

                d.  Names of brothers and sisters.

                e.  Remarriages of parents

                f.  Hanai family members.

                g.  A photo of the applicant (this photo can be ordered)

Be sure to order the testimony when requesting the certificate.  The testimony gives much of the family history.  Try to locate as many DBR on the family as possible.  These records are found at the Hawaii State Department of Health for $10.00 per order.  An index to these records can be found at the LDS (Mormon) Family History Centers.  Some Family History Centers have these Certificates with testimony on microfilm for those that were born prior to 1903 only.  

3.  Marriage Licenses are important to Hawaiian genealogy because unlike marriage certificates which gives the race of the bride and groom, the marriage license will give race information on the parents.  These records will sometimes be one of the few records you can find on the parents.  These records will also state if the parents are alive or dead and where they reside.  Marriage Licenses are found for the periods 1900-1910, 1911-1929 at the Hawaii State Archives.

 

4.  Census Records are important because they show race information, family groups, relationships to the head of the household, ages and birthdates, marital status and years married, how many times married, how many children born and how many alive, place of birth and place of birth of parents, date of naturalization, occupation, use of Hawaiian and English language, and if the family owned land.

              The census records can be found according to year taken:

                      1878 Census                    Hawaii State Archives

                                                           LDS (Mormon) Family History Centers

                      1890 Census                    Hawaii State Archives

                                                           LDS (Mormon) Family History Centers

                       [Note:  This census does not include all districts]

                      1895 Census                    Hawaii State Archives

                      1896 Census                    Hawaii State Archives

                      1900 Census                    Hawaii State Library

                                                           LDS (Mormon) Family History Centers

                      1910 Census                    Hawaii State Library

                                                           LDS (Mormon) Family History Centers

The Hawaii State Archives also has two census files, 1840-1866 and 1847-1866.  These contain miscellaneous records such as school census, population lists, and vital record summaries.

5.  Probates are found in the circuit courts on the individual islands after 1908.  Prior to 1908, probates for all islands can be located at the Hawaii State Archives.  Probates are important because they prove the link between parents and their children or heirs.  Probates are indexed by family name in locator books in the Hawaii State Archives and the First Circuit Court (Oahu).  For neighbor islands, probate records are located in the Circuit Courts and can be accessed by the staff.  From Honolulu, call the neighbor island circuit court clerks and they will look up the appropriate probate, quote a price for the document, and mail the probate after receiving payment.

Sometimes a probate will begin with the person's will.  Sometimes the probate will be nicely typed, but many times probates and land deeds are in Hawaiian and may need to be translated.

6.  Church Records.  Missionaries started arriving to the islands between 1820 and 1850.  By 1900, the largest religious groups in the islands were The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), Congregational (United Church of Christ), Presbyterian, and Roman Catholic.  Later, the Buddhists became a major group.  Buddhist records are kept at the individual Buddhist temples.  

8.  Court Records.  The Family History Library has circuit court divorce records from 1849 to 1915.  Other circuit court records are available at the various county courthouses.  The following records are available at the Hawaii State Archives:

               Divorces          1848-1915 

                 [These may include divorce & marriage certificates, testimony and reasoning for divorce.]

               Equity files       1851-1914

               Criminal cases   1848-1914

               Minutes           1848-1960

               Civil cases       1848-1916

9.  Naturalization and Citizenship.  These records are also located at the Hawaii State Archives.  The Family History Library has microfilm copies of Letters of Denization.  These are records granting Hawaiian citizenship during Hawaii's royal era.  The Supreme Court also issued Naturalization Records, 1874-1904.  These are located at the Hawaii State Archives for the years 1874 to 1904 and include petitions for 1900 and 1904.  They are partially indexed.  No naturalizations were issued from 1895 to 1900.  All persons who were citizens of the Republic of Hawaii on August 12, 1898 were declared citizens of the United States.  For naturalization records after September 1906, contact the following:

          Immigration and Naturalization Service

          595 Ala Moana Blvd.

          Honolulu, HI 96813

          Telephone:  808-532-3721

10.  Newspapers and Obituaries.  The Family History Library and the Hawaii State Archives have the newspaper, Nupepa Kuokoa, (Honolulu, Hawaii) 1861 to 1927, which includes genealogies (Honolulu:  University of Hawaii Library; Archives of Hawaii, 19--; FHL films 1020698-729).  ALSO: http://nupepa.org/gsdl2.5/cgi-bin/nupepa?l=en has the Hawaiian Language newspapers online.  Use the search engine to help you locate an ancestor's marriage, birth or death announcement.  

A partial index to births, marriages and deaths in Hawaiian newspapers prior to 1950 is also at the Family History Library and the Hawaii State Archives.  These do not include all births, marriages and deaths during the time, only those that were published.

Brigham Young University - Hawaii is working on http://w2.byuh.edu/library/obituaries/, which is an online database of Hawaii obituaries from 1994-2005.  You may also go to http://www.starbulletin.com and search through the archives for past obituaries.

An alphabetical list of English and Hawaiian language newspapers from 1834 and 1948 is found in Esther T. Mookini, The Hawaiian Newspapers.