Project overview
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 initially 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. Since May 2009, we have continued to add records as time permits, usually on a quarterly basis.
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 theState 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.
That being said, many of the records are quite beautiful. Some contain 18th- and 19th-Century children's doodles and drawings. Others contain photographs, hand-drawn family trees, and 19th-Century newspaper obituaries. In some case, a reader can track how literacy levels in a single family changed from generation to generation. The religion, language, type, and publisher of each Bible might provide insight into a particular family's social, political, and religious views, as well.
About the State Library of North Carolina
The State Library of North Carolina has provided services to North Carolina and her people since 1812. Among its many services, the State Library provides resources, programs, and services to anyone with a research interest in the history, culture, geography, economy and people of North Carolina. The State Library boasts one of the largest North Carolina specific genealogical collections in the state and serves familly researchers from all over the country and throughout the world.
About the North Carolina State Archives
The North Carolina State Archives was first established in 1903 under the name North Carolina Historical Commission. Since its founding, the State Archives has been committed to the collection, preservation, and utilization of the state's historic resources so that present and future residents may better understand their history. To this purpose, the Archives safeguards the documentary and material evidence of past generations for the education of all citizens and the protection of their democratic rights.
Acknowledgements
Project managers, Christy Allen, Amy Rudersdorf, and Druscie Simpson, would like to extend their sincerest thanks to everyone at the State Library, State Archives, and beyond whose enthusiastic efforts made this project possible:
- To Hans Scholle and Frank Scholle for transcribing the German Bible Records
- To Bridget Jakub for creating an Access database that enabled us to build the geo-location map
- To Steve Case, Erin Bradford, John Leonard, Kate Kluttz, Sally Adams, Druscie Simpson, Debbi Blake, Larry Odzak, Sarah Rice Scott, and Alison Thurman for the tireless hours of work you put into transcribing the Bible Records by hand
- To Robert Grant for scanning and processing all of the Bible Records
- To Steve Case, Cynthia Jones, and Jennifer Ricker for scanning and processing the thousands of pages that make up the Marriage and Death Notices
* Since the Bible records are not cataloged by "race," it is difficult to say definitively that there are no records from any of the groups mentioned above. However, it is unlikely.