Research rooms
North Carolina State Archives Search Room
The North Carolina State Archives receives visitors to the Search Room Tuesday through Saturday, as well as more than 17,000 postal mail and e-mail inquiries each year. Instructions on how best to conduct research, either in person or by mail are included on their website.
State Library of North Carolina Genealogy Services
The State Library's genealogy reading room serves thousands of visitors per year and provides research assistance in-person, over-the-phone, via postal mail, and e-mail. Their website provides research aids and access to genealogy databases, as well as information for beginning genealogical research and tracking ancestors back to North Carolina.
Online resources
Ancestor Chart (pdf)
This blank chart provides users with a method of recording information about the relationships between their ancestors.
Archives Information Circulars
Essays written by Archives staff to introduce resources and various areas of research. Topics included are: Revolutionary War Pay Vouchers, Census Records, 1787-1920, Tennessee records, Civil War records, Military Personnel records, maps, Revolutionary War records, the colonial and state records, marriage bonds, as well as records relating to African Americans, and Native Americans.
Cemetery Census
Cemetery Census is a strictly volunteer effort to record the burials in local family, religious and municipal cemeteries in North Carolina and Virginia.
Colonial and State Records Online
A digital version of the 26-volumes series The Colonial and State Records of North Carolina. This series contains documents from North Carolina's settlement through the ratification of the United States Constitution.
County Formation
A historical record of how and when North Carolina counties were formed.
Documenting the American South
This digital publishing initiative provides online access to texts, images, and audio files related to southern history, literature, and culture. It also boasts the largest collection of southern African-American and slave information online.
Eastern North Carolina Digital Library
This project brings together local history materials, historical fiction related to these localities, and museum artifacts that highlight Eastern North Carolina's rich past. It also provides classroom resources such as lesson plans for integrating these materials into K-12 studies.
Finding Slave Records
A how-to article for finding and using slave records.
Guide to County Records
A listing of more than 9,000 bound volumes, 21,000 boxes, and over 24,000 reels of microfilm containing county government records and documents available to researchers in the State Archives.
Manuscript and Archives Reference System (MARS)
MARS is the online catalog for the State Archives. It provides access to images of certain documents. Images are accessible via the DjVu Viewer Browser Plug-in, available for free download from LizardTech.
North Carolina Digital Collections
The North Carolina Digital Collections provides online access to numerous documents and images which contain information relevant to genealogists and family historians. A joint project of the North Carolina State Archives and the State Library of North Carolina, this single website serves as a gateway for searching multiple collections, incluing the North Carolina Family Records Online, Treasures of the Archives, which has some of the most historically influential documents from our state's history, and the State Government Publications collection, which contains state publications full of information useful to genealogists, like Public Documents of North Carolina.
Original County Estates Papers
Listings of papers that relate to the settlement of a person's estate. These listings were compiled by volunteers.
Publications for Sale
A list of microfilm and other resources that can be purchased from the State Archives. Subject areas are: County Records, State Government Records, Military Records, and Tennessee Records.
State Archives online finding aids
Detailed listings of records in the custody of the State Archives, including academic records, non-textual materials (such as photographs), organization records, private collections, and State Agency records.
Vital Records Information
Information on how to locate and use North Carolina vital records including birth/death certificates and marriage licenses.
Wake County Public Library Special Collections
This website provides access to Raleigh City Directories, transcriptions of personal diaries, a list of farmers/landowners in Wake County in the 1890s, and an index of Confederate Burials in Raleigh's Oakwood cemetery.
