Ancestry Magazine

Each state in the “Deep South”–Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi–has its own unique past and its own way of record-keeping.

The settlement of the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi began with European outposts in the colonial wars of empire. However, each of these political entities, on the road to becoming the states of today, made such different histories that these six states only sometimes share a common past. The history of the Old South, from Virginia to Texas, cannot be told in any one state’s story although it can be found in the experiences of the many migratory “frontier” southern families.

The diversity of the respective states continued through to the present, making research in the South particularly difficult. A researcher must learn about each state, not the entire region, through such resources as the current edition of Ancestry’s Red Book (Ancestry, 1997). Lack of a tradition of early vital records and religious faiths that did not leave parish registers among a widespread people during a long frontier period also makes finding information on individuals in these six states difficult. Patience in southern genealogy proves not only a virtue but an important and necessary research tool.

Something like region-wide consistency begins only in 1830 with the first relatively complete and credible federal census records for all of these states. (Earlier cens us records for these states usually did not survive in the federal courts where they were kept.) Most of the members of the last Native American tribes in these states were removed to western Arkansas, today’s Oklahoma, shortly afterwards, creating a large volume of federal and other records of the Indians, and the whites among them, that can contain extensive family information. Even removing and, in some instances, battling Indians, ultimately contributed to the thousands of genealogically valuable military bounty, pension, and other military records of southerners. These records survive today for the various early wars of the South, 1783—1855, in the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, DC.

All of the states examined here, except for Georgia, were federal territories and states. Personal information appears on the settlers of those states in such well-known works as The American State Papers and The Territorial Papers of the United States. Colonial and early federal records have also been published for individual states. Bureau of Land Management indexes for the land grants of these federal land states have been made widely available but are incomplete for pre-1820 credit grants and for the homestead applications that were never completed. An alternative index in the National Archives should be consulted by mail for complete references through 1908 for Alabama, Florida, and Louisiana. The National Archives also has genealogically valuable military bounty land applications (to 1855), even those made by Georgia soldiers and their heirs, and homestead applications (1862—1927) for federal lands. The Eastern Division of the Bureau of Land Management also has additional information on individual federal land grants. For information on access, contact the BLM through its website.

The American Civil War/Reconstruction Era created especially valuable records for these southern states. Confederacy-wide indexes to service records, such as on Ancestry.com, led to National Archives service and related records on microfilm that can contain personal information. Each of these state governments gave pensions to elderly and impoverished resident Confederate veterans and widows, as well as to veterans and widows of veterans who lived in states that did not give Confederate service pensions. These files and related records vary widely from state to state but, for states like Alabama and Arkansas, the personal data can be extensive. Most of the material from the Reconstruction still lacks useful indexes and publication, but extensive personal data on thousands of former slaves and other persons found in what survives of the registers of the Freedman’s Bank has been abstracted on CD-ROM by the Genealogical Society of Utah.

Genealogical periodicals in the Deep South in general, however, concentrate on abstracting records, not compiled family histories. Too often these journals have incomplete indexes, when indexed at all.

Regionally, these states have two great libraries for family history research, The Southern History and Literature Department, Birmingham Public Library, 2100 Park Place, Birmingham, AL 35202 and the Washington Memorial Library, 1180 Washington Avenue, Macon, GA 31201. The Family & Regional History Program, James C. Bailey College (formerly Wallace State), PO Box 2000, 801 N. Main Street, Hanceville, Alabama 35077-2000 has extensive Revolutionary War, southern, Civil War, and Native American microfilms, with related books, not found elsewhere in a single resource center.

Many of the most important finds by southern genealogists turn up in private rather than public records, such as the family papers, genealogical research collections, business records, etc., in the region’s thousands of manuscripts and special collections departments. The greatest single repository for such m aterial, for the genealogist and historian of the South, is the Southern Historical Collection, CB# 3926, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27514-8890. The nearby Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library, Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708-0185, would come in second place.

Most southern researchers find using local public records on microfilm at individual state archives more efficient, at least initially, than searching in individual courthouses, although many county records have not yet been microfilmed. The six states discussed here have the oldest state archives in the United States (Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia, all of which are getting new buildings in 2003) and the newest (Louisiana and Florida) in the United States. Local federal records, including for the district and circuit courts for Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and Mississippi, should be sought in the National Archives Southeast Region (soon to move to a new facility next door to the new Georgia state archives building in Morrow, Georgia). Consult its website for details. The National Archives Southwest Region, 501 West Felix Street, Building 1, PO Box 6216, Fort Worth, Texas 76115-0216, has the federal records for Arkansas and Louisiana, as well as the federal documents for southern Indians whose ancestors were removed to today’s Oklahoma in the 1830s.

Alabama
The earliest permanent settlement in today’s Alabama began at Mobile in 1702 as a French colony (1702—1763). Great Britain (1763—1780) and Spain (1780—1813) also controlled Mobile before the United States added it to the Mississippi Territory in 1813. The many local archives of Mobile, and in nearby Florida, contain extensive resources fo r research into the city’s families. The best place to begin a search of a local genealogy, however, would be in Local History and Genealogy, Mobile Public Library, 704 Government Street, Mobile, AL 36602-1403, (online at <www.mplonline.org/lhg.htm>).

Twice Alabama went through especially great population growth. With the creation of the Alabama Territory in 1817, and statehood in 1819, families from Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee moved into Alabama in hopes of buying federal lands at low rates. The United States government did not meet their expectations then, but starting after 1862, it did offer lands to adults who did not aid the Confederacy for minor fees, under the Homestead Act. Families from throughout the United States responded by moving to Alabama.

As part of the Mississippi Territory (1798—1817), today’s Alabama started with civil registrations of marriage licenses and bonds. (Bonds were largely dropped in 1888). Probate, marriage, and property conveyance records are kept in the individual county probate courts (called the orphans court before 1850). Criminal and civil court cases, including divorce files, are kept in the office of the individual county clerks of court. Divorces also required approval by the state legislature until 1864.

Alabama began requiring registrations of births and deaths in 1881. When these records survive through 1908, they are found in the individual county probate courts. Statewide registrations began in 1908. Public indexes to death certificates (1908—1959), state birth records (1917—1919), divorce decrees (1818—1829, 1818—1864, 1908—1927), and marriage licenses (1936—1959) are widely available. These indexes are also available on loan through LDS Family History Centers, as are the death certificates (1908—1972), marriages reports (1936—1992), and divorces (1938—1992).

Especially useful books for Alabama research include Robert S. Davis, Tracing Your Alabama Past (Jackson: University Press of Missis sippi, 2003); Marcia K. Smith, Alabama County Data and Resources (Titus, Ala.: The Author, 1999); Marilyn Barefield Davis, Researching in Alabama (Birmingham: Birmingham Public Library, 1998); W. Craig Remington and Thomas J. Kallsen, Historical Atlas of Alabama (2 vols., Tuscaloosa: Department of Geography, University of Alabama Press, 1997—2000); and Peggy Tuck Sinko, Alabama: Atlas of Historical County Boundaries (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996).

Alabama Department of Archives and History
624 Washington Avenue
Montgomery, AL 36130-0100
www.archives.state.al.us/index.html
The ADAH’s extensive holdings include the largest collection of Alabama newspaper microfilms.

Alabama Center for Health Statistics
Alabama Vital Records
PO Box 5625
Montgomery, AL 36103-5625
http://ph.state.al.us/chs/VitalRecords/Death/Death.html

Map Sales
Alabama Department of Transportation
1409 Coliseum Blvd., Room R-109
PO Box 303050
Montgomery, AL 36130-3050
www.dot.state.al.us/Bureau/Equipment/maps.htm

Arkansas
The French established the first permanent settlement in what became Arkansas in 1686. The British took over administration of the area as part of Louisiana in 1762 but, in the negotiations that followed, Spain took over the region in 1766 and operated its government until Napoleon sold what became Arkansas, as part of the Louisiana Purchase, to the United States in 1803. It became the Missouri Territory in 1812, the Arkansas Territory in 1819, and the state of Arkansas in 1836.

During each of these periods, waves of settlers arrived from the east, such as the veterans and their families of the War of 1812, who came to claim two million acres of land set aside for them between the Arkansas and St. Francis rivers.

Each county clerk keeps his or her respective county records, including the bound and loose estate reco rds. Civil marriages start as early as 1821 and probate records begin in 1819. Statewide registration of births and deaths begin in 1914 although many counties did not comply for years afterwards. The indexes to Arkansas death records have been published for 1914—1940. Marriages were recorded statewide beginning in 1917 and divorces in 1923.

Arkansas History Commission
One Capitol Mall
Little Rock, AR 72201
www.ark-ives.com/
The AHC is the archives for the state of Arkansas.

Arkansas Department of Health
Division of Vital Records, Slot 44
4815 W. Markham Street
Little Rock, AR 72205-3867
www.healthyarkansas.com/certificates/certificates.html

Research Services Department
Special Collections
University of Arkansas Libraries
365 N. Ozark Ave.
Fayetteville, AR 72701-4002
http://libinfo.uark.edu/specialcollections/about/overview.asp
The largest archives for Arkansas newspapers and private manuscript collections.

Arkansas State Highway and Transportation Department
Map Sales—Room 205
10324 Interstate 30, 72209
P.O. Box 2261
Little Rock, AR 72203-2261
www.ahtd.state.ar.us/maps.htm

Florida
St. Augustine, founded as a Spanish outpost, is the oldest continuous settlement north of Mexico. Florida was ruled by Spain (1565—1763, 1784—1821) and Great Britain (1763—1783). It became a separate territory in 1821 and a state in 1845. Although many nations tried to settle the vast peninsula, significant settlement of the state began after the American Civil War with the arrival of railroads.

Records of Floridians are relatively centralized. Colonial resources are best sought in the historical archives of the cities that grew up from these settlements, such as the St. Augustine Historical Society, 271 Charlotte Street, St. Augustine, FL 32084. The Florida Department of Archives and History has land grant records; microfil m of many county records; miscellaneous tax records; files of the Florida Pioneers Papers; state censuses for 1845, 1885, 1935, and 1945 that supplement the federal censuses that begin with 1830; and much more. Few states have so many lists of its general population that have survived, from colonial times to almost the present, and so many to have been published, such as the Civil War service records. The Florida Tombstone Transcription Project endeavors to preserve the information found on all of the state’s grave markers.

Local government records are held by the individual county clerks. Civil registrations of marriages and probate records survive from as early as 1821. Deaths were being registered as early as 1877 but were not required until 1899 and were not general until some years later.

Each region of Florida is served, respectively, by a local university private manuscripts and special collections department, such as the Special Collections and West Florida Archives, John C. Pace Library, University of West Florida, 11000 University Parkway, Pensacola, FL 32514-5750, (see <www.lib.uwf.edu/SpecialCollections/index.shtml>) covering the Florida “panhandle” to New Orleans, Louisiana. For the whole state, the P. K. Yonge Library University of Florida in Gainesville has extensive manuscript and photograph collections. The University of Florida Libraries also has one of the world’s great map collections.

Some Florida research publications that merit special mention include Diane C. Roble, Searching in Florida: A Reference Guide to Public and Private Records (Costa Mesa, Calif.: ISC Publications, 1982); Paul S. George, A Guide to the History of Florida (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1989); and James A. and Lana D. Servies, A Bibliography of Florida (4 vols. to date, Pensacola: King & Queen Books, 2003).

Florida State Archives
500 South Bronough Street
Tallahassee, FL 32399-0250
http://dlis.dos.state.fl.us/barm/fsa.html

P. K. Yonge Library of Florida History
University of Florida George A. Smathers Libraries
Special Collections
P.O. Box 117007
Gainesville, FL 32611-7001
http://web.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/pkyonge
This library also serves as the archives for Florida newspapers.

Florida Department of Health
Vital Records
Mailing Address:
P.O. Box 210
Jacksonville, FL 32231-0042
Physical Location:
1217 Pearl Street
Jacksonville, FL 32202
www.doh.state.fl.us/

Florida Department of Transportation
Maps & Publications Sales
Mail Station 12
605 Suwannee Street
Tallahassee, FL 32399-0450
www.dot.state.fl.us/

Georgia
Georgia began in 1733 as the thirteenth colony founded by the British on the American mainland. Contrary to widely published myth, the colony never received the poor, debtors, or criminals from Great Britain; although a non-profit trust did initiate the colony to offer worthy middle class families a chance at new homes in America. Until 1777, local government in the province consisted of only the court in Savannah. Almost all of the public records to that year have survived, with at least published indexes, and can be found today in the Georgia Department of Archives and History.

Although many Georgians supported the king or otherwise wanted no part of any war of independence, Georgia joined the other twelve colonies that declared independence on 4 July 1776. The great period of Georgia’s growth occurred from 1783 to 1794, when soldiers hired from the Carolinas and Virginia to serve in the state during that war returned to permanently settle in the state, bringing with them thousands of their kinsmen and neighbors. Although on paper Georgia extended to the Pacific Ocean, the state never exercised any authority outside of the state’s present boundarie s. However, the passports issued by its governors to families passing through the Creek lands, 1785—1820, are one of the great sources for documentation of families moving west to Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. These records are abstracted in Dorothy Potter, Passports of Southeastern Pioneers, 1770—1823 (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Company, 1982).

Georgia has 159 counties, almost all of which have public libraries, each with a local heritage rooms. The state’s county boundary changes have caused endless confusion but so has the fact that more than thirty of these counties have the same or nearly the same names as Georgia cities not found in those respective counties. For example, the city of Macon, Georgia, is in Bibb County and not in Macon County, Georgia, which is some 100 miles distant.

Contrary to popular myth, the state lost relatively few local records, or even private property, to Sherman’s march or during the Civil War, although the Ku Klux Klan did burn several courthouses and their contents in the years that followed. Estate records and marriages are kept in the individual county probate court (known as the Ordinary to 1789, as the Inferior Court for Ordinary Purposes to 1868, and the Ordinary Court to 1974). Registration of marriage licenses began in 1804 although many times individual records were not brought back to the respective courthouse for recording. Property conveyance records and court records, including divorces, are kept in the individual county superior courts. Georgia began allowing divorces in 1797 but until 1838 the legislature had to approve individual divorces granted by the superior courts.

Georgia briefly attempted statewide registration of births, deaths, and marriages in 1875. What few records were created by this effort can now be found at the Georgia Department of Archives and History. A few cities kept voluntary vital records. In 1915, the state required counties to keep birth and death records but this law was completely ignored until 1919 and largely ignored until the late 1920s. An index to the Georgia death certificates (1919 to present) is widely available, as are the indexes to marriages and divorces (1964 to present).

The Georgia Department of Archives and History has what survives of the state’s land grant records from 1733 to the present. The eastern fifth of Georgia was granted by headrights to heads of household and as bounties to the state’s Revolutionary War veterans. Individuals received grants to the rest of the state through a series of land grant lotteries in 1805, 1807, 1820, 1821, 1827, and 1832. Lists of the grants and other records have been published that serve as substitutes for and supplements to the federal censuses. (The earliest Georgia federal census to survive is most of the 1820 census but, even for the county returns that survive, there were many omissions.)

Georgia’s newspaper resources deserve special mention. No state has such extensive typescripts, books, and websites that index, abstract, or electronically scan newspapers. This access includes newspapers from 1763 to the early 1900s.

Some Georgia books for research that should be especially noted include Ted. O. Brooke and Robert S. Davis, Georgia Research (Atlanta: Georgia Genealogical Society, 2002); Robert Holcomb Warnock, Georgia Sources for Family History (Atlanta: Georgia Genealogical Society, 1995); and James E. Dorsey, Georgia Genealogy and Local History: A Bibliography (Spartanburg, S.C.: Reprint Company, 1983).

Georgia Department of Archives and History
5800 Jonesboro Road
Morrow, GA 30260
www.sos.state.ga.us/archives/

Georgia Vital Records
2600 Skyland Drive NE
Atlanta, GA 30319-3640

Georgia Newspaper Project
University of Georgia Libraries
Athens, GA 30602-1641
The University of Georgia Libraries is also home to the Hargrett Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, t he largest of Georgia’s more than 100 private manuscripts archives.

Georgia Department of Transportation
Office of Communications
Map Sales Unit
No. 2 Capitol Square
Atlanta, GA 30334
www.dot.state.ga.us/

Louisiana
France established the colony of Louisiana in 1699. Originally, the province stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada. In 1763, France gave to Spain control over all territory on the west side of the Mississippi River, lands that Spain administered until Napoleon sold the Louisiana Purchase to the United States in 1803. Not only have the colonial records of Louisiana largely survived but much of this material has been indexed and published as well. What became today’s Louisiana was a territory until statehood in 1812.

Louisiana has parishes instead of counties. Estate records prior to 1845 were held by each probate court. Today each county’s clerk of court maintains the parish records and can have marriages and probates to the early 1700s. Church records and voluntary registrations of births and deaths can go back to the 1700s but Louisiana did not require statewide registration of vital records until 1914. Unlike the other states discussed in this article, Louisiana has at least some federal census records dating to 1810.

Louisiana is famed for its exceptionally large number of historical and genealogical societies, as well as local archives. New Orleans, always one of the largest cities of the Old South, has many such organizations and institutions, including for specific ethnic groups.

Louisiana State Archives
3851 Essen Lane
Baton Rouge, LA 70809-2137
http://www.sec.state.la.us/archives/archives/archives-index.htm

Louisiana Vital Records Registry
PO Box 60630
New Orleans, LA 70160
www.oph.dhh.state.la.us/recordsstatistics/vitalrecords/

LaParish.com
Louisiana State & Parish Guide
http://www.louisiana-parish.com/

Louisiana Newspaper Project
Special Collections
Louisiana State University Libraries
Baton Rouge, LA 70803
http://www.lib.lsu.edu/special/lnp.html

Mississippi
In 1699, the French established Biloxi as the first permanent settlement in what has become today’s Mississippi. France continued to control the area until the end of the French and Indian War in 1763 when it passed to Great Britain. In 1779, during the American Revolution, Spain took control of Biloxi and held that area until 1798, when the United States created the Mississippi territory from most of what is today’s Alabama and Mississippi. Coastal Mississippi became part of the Mississippi Territory in 1812. Mississippi received statehood in 1817, the same year Alabama was created from the Mississippi Territory. Some counties were split in the process.

The assembly of the Mississippi Territory in 1799 laid out the basis for local government in today’s Alabama and Mississippi. Originally estates were handled by each county’s orphans court but in Mississippi today they are found in a county’s probate and chancery courts. Registration of births and deaths began for Mississippi in 1912. An index to death certificates, 1912—1942, and to the state’s marriage records, 1802—1926, are widely available. The earliest federal census records for this state begin in 1820.

Of special value as a Mississippi bibliography and as a guide to the extensive holdings of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History is Anne S. Lipscomb and Kathleen S. Hutchison, Tracing Your Mississippi Ancestors (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1994).

Mississippi Department of Archives and History
P.O. Box 571
Jackson, MS 39205-0571
www.mdah.state.ms.us
The MDAH is also the archives for Mississippi’s newspapers.

Mississippi State Department of Health
Vital Records Office
571 Stadium Street
P.O. Box 1700
Jackson, MS 39215
www.msdh.state.ms.us/phs/index.htm

Mississippi Department of Transportation, Map Sales Office
PO Box 1850
(MDOT Administration Building at 401 North West Street, Room 1067)
Jackson, MS 39215-1850
www.gomdot.com/business/maps/map_online.htm

Robert S. Davis, M. Ed., M.A. directs the library and classes of the Family & Regional History Program at James C. Bailey College in Hanceville, Alabama. He has published hundreds of articles and several books on records and research.