West Virginia Vital Research Records Project

The West Virginia Vital Research Records Project is a collaborative venture between the West Virginia State Archives and the Genealogical Society of Utah (GSU) to place online via the West Virginia Archives and History Web site selected West Virginia county birth, death and marriage records, and statewide death records in a viewable, downloadable and searchable format accessible at http://www.wvculture.org/vrr.

In Virginia/West Virginia, births and deaths were first reported to the counties in 1853, while marriages were recorded in the counties from the inception of each county. All three types of records are still reported to county clerks today. In 1917, the West Virginia Dept. of Health Vital Registration office began collecting the county reports of births and deaths and issuing official state death certificates. The records made available online in the Vital Research Records database come from both sources: county records as recorded on microfilm by the GSU largely from 1967 to 1970, and statewide records as selected for release by the West Virginia Dept. of Health Vital Registration office.

State death certificates for individuals from all 55 counties dating from 1917 through 1958 are currently available online through this project. Additional death certificates will be added in a batch once a year (usually January 1) as the certificates pass the 50-year mark of issuance. For example in 2010, the death certificates for 1959 will be added to the database. The addition of state birth certificates and of state delayed birth certificates to the database is not anticipated. (Some delayed birth records may show up in the regular county birth records.)

The records are not fully transcribed and are searchable only by the information requested in the search boxes for each type of record.

Georgia Baptist History Depository

Mercer University has collected and preserved Baptist history materials with conscious intent since the late 1870s, following the University's move from Penfield to Macon. At a number of points during the ensuing years, the Georgia Baptist Convention has named the University as the official depository of state Baptist records. Fortunately for historians, the University's libraries have never been destroyed by fire; and the depth of the current collection gives evidence of that good fortune. Careful and consistent collection development has created a body of documents which has breadth, as well as depth.

A collection which at first documented the work of the University and the Georgia Baptist Convention later evolved into a collection which embraced Primitive, Progressive Primitive, Free Will, Holiness, and African-American Baptist endeavors. The collection also fell heir to documentation of additional state Baptist educational institutions, such as Locust Grove Institute, Mary P. Willingham School for Girls, Hearn Academy, and Tift College. Books from Mercer's earliest libraries record Baptist history in colonial North America and the European continent. Documents also chronicle the beginnings of a new national Baptist organization, the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Indeed, there are both depth and breadth in the Georgia Baptist History Depository.

British Research

The National Archives in London has produced a series of animated guides to help you get the most out of your research and The National Archives' website. Select the relevant guide below to discover how an archive works and how you can make your research as effective as possible.

North Carolina Family Records Online

North Carolina Family Records Online is comprised of North Carolina family history materials from the holdings of the North Carolina State Archives and State Library of North Carolina. The online collection currently contains a selection of over 200 Bible Records (lists of birth, marriage, and death information written in North Carolina family bibles) from the 2000+ copies of various donated family Bibles held by the North Carolina State Archives. The State Library's six volume Marriage and Death Notices -- indices of marriage and death announcements appearing in five North Carolina newspapers from 1799 to 1893 -- rounds out this collection. These newspapers include the Raleigh Register, North Carolina State Gazette, Daily Sentinel, Raleigh Observer and News & Observer.

Scope of the Bible Records collection
North Carolina Family Records Online has a narrow and very specific scope. The Bible Records from the North Carolina State Archives are a representative sample of their 2000+ holdings. About 230 of those records covering the longest span of time were selected for transcription and digitization -- entries typically record births, deaths, and marriages covering 150 years or more beginning in the early to mid 1700s and often continuing through to the mid 1900s.

It is important to note that Bible Records were most often created and maintained by a specific sub-set of the population: literate, white, Protestant families. As such, the Bible Records in this digital collection do not adequately reflect the true diversity of North Carolinians represented in this 200 year time span. For example, there are no Native American, Hispanic, or Asian families represented in the records selected for this project, and more than likely, no records in the State Archives holdings*. Moreover, any African-American genealogical information is the result of slave records included in the Bible Records. These are typically birth records that contain only first names, although a few exceptions can be found. Records that contain slavery-related information have been noted in the accompanying data, and a browse by the topic provides a link to every record with a reference to such.

Many records also include references to soldiers who served in the Revolutionary, Civil, and the Spanish-American Wars. This information has also been recorded to ease searching by these topics.Although the collection is currently rather narrow in its scope, it is our hope that it provides a view of the lives and impact of certain early North Carolinian families that has, until now, been unavailable for research online. And, to further broaden this view, the North Carolina State Archives and State Library of North Carolina are actively seeking to digitize Bible Records that reflect the rich cultural diversity within the state. If you are interested in donating copies of your Bible Records to the North Carolina State Archives the for inclusion in this project, and at least one date occurs before 1913, please contact the State Archives.

A note about the condition and content of the Bible Records
The Bible records in this online collection were not selected for their beauty, legibility, or physical condition (although, our transcribers may have appreciated this). In some cases, our transcribers struggled to read the 18th-Century scripts and unique spellings, but while their heads sometimes ached and their eyes went blurry after hours of squinting, we did our best to transcribe what laid on the page before us. As such, it is our hope that the content of this collection will be of great value to researchers.

All scans were made from the photocopies or photostats that were created up to 80 years earlier by North Carolina State Archives staff when families brought their Bibles to be copied and stored as part of the larger archive of North Carolina history. Some records are typescript transcriptions of the original Bible records, others are completely handwritten, and many are of some combination of the two. Some are ripped, and sections of pages have been cut out, crossed out, or "corrected" by later generations. The ink on some pages has faded, as have the photostats themselves; conversely, some pages are almost too dark to read.

South Carolina Historical Society

As you may still be planning summer research trips I hope you will consider visiting the South Carolina Historical Society (SCHS) in the heart of Charleston.? We are located at 100 Meeting Street, just one block from the corner of Meeting and Broad Streets, in the historic Robert Mills' Fireproof Building.

Search our online catalog and visit our new website at www.SCHSonline.org. You will find we have a diverse collection of materials that cover a great deal of South Carolina's history and her people's lives.

As you plan, please note that effective August 3, 2009, the SCHS will no longer be open for researchers on Mondays. The balance of our library hours will remain unchanged: Tuesday through Friday from 9am to 4pm and Saturday from 9am to 2pm. Other holiday closings for the year can be reached from our home page.

We will also continue to open our library on Tuesday evenings by appointment: if you make arrangements with me (Jane.Aldrich@SCHSonline.org) or Mary Jo Fairchild(MaryJo.Fairchild@SCHSonline.org) no later than 4pm on Monday afternoons, we will be happy to keep the library open on Tuesday from 4pm until 7:30pm for your convenience. Feel free to let us know of your intent to research late in advance of your trip as no appointments will be guaranteed without at least 24 hours advanced notice.

Please feel free to contact me should you have questions about a visit to our archive or to Charleston in general. I'm always glad to assist if you need advice in planning the logistics of your trip or have questions about other repositories, historic sites, or potential interview subjects for your topic in the region.

If you value the historical records of South Carolina and are not a member of the Society, or your membership has lapsed, please consider joining now.? We would greatly appreciate your support to keep this amazing collection in good condition and available for all to use--possibly even on Mondays again!? Membership information is available on our website under GET INVOLVED.

As a member you will receive? both our quarterly newsletter _Carologue_, a general audience, glossy magazine and the scholarly South Carolina Historical Magazine (SCHM) which has been published continuously since 1900. Remember, we welcome submissions to both publications from historians, independent scholars, graduate students, and advanced undergraduate students.? If you have students who have written scholarly or more general articles on South Carolina--particularly the upstate region--please consider having them submit them for potential publication. Guidelines for submissions are on our website under PUBLICATIONS.

A Guide to Civil War Records at the State Archives of Florida

The purpose of this guide is to identify and describe the state, federal, and private records pertaining to Florida’s Civil War era (1860-1865) housed at the State Archives of Florida. We hope this guide will assist and promote research into this time period.

Access to Records
Records at the State Archives are available to patrons in accordance with the laws of Florida and the operating rules of the Archives. All public records are open for use except for those specifically restricted by law or rule. You may obtain copies of the laws and rules regulating the Archives and access to the records of Florida government from the reference desk. Some personal papers or manuscript materials donated to the Archives may be subject to special conditions or restrictions imposed by the donor(s).

Images courtesy of the State Library & Archives of Florida.

North Carolina Maps

North Carolina Maps is a comprehensive, online collection of historic maps of the Tar Heel State. Featuring maps from three of the state's largest map collections -- the North Carolina State Archives, the North Carolina Collection at UNC-Chapel Hill, and the Outer Banks History Center

North Carolina Maps provides an unprecedented level of access to these materials. When complete, North Carolina Maps will contain over 1,500 maps, ranging in date from the late 1500s to the 1970s, and will include detailed maps for each of North Carolina's one hundred counties.

North Carolina Maps is made possible by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by the State Library of North Carolina.

Alabama Genealogy Resources

Alabama Genealogical Society Index to Past Issues (1967-2005)

Link is to a PDF file.

To SEARCH any of AGS= Searchable Resources, click on the resource of interest, then click on Edit and Find in your tool bar and type in the word or words you are searching (i.e., county name, surname, type of record, etc…)

To ORDER any of AGS’ Searchable Resources, print off the Copies Order Form and complete it. Include the number of pages in each article from AGS Magazine Past Issues or other source index. (Note: the number of pages in each AGS Magazine Past Issues article are listed following the titles below.)