Thrifty Thursday: Johnston County, NC Records

Facts to know when researching your ancestors in Johnston County:

• Formed in 1746 from Craven County
• In 1752 a part of Johnston County was taken to form Orange County
• In 1758 the eastern part of Johnston became Dobbs County
• In 1770 a part of Johnston County was taken to form Wake County 
• In 1855 a part of Johnston County was taken to form Wilson County
• Has the largest Civil War Battlefield in NC, Bentonville Battlefield

Johnston County Records available online

My goal here is to have resources other than your everyday census, cemetery, and obituary records. If you know of additional resources that can be found online, please let me know to add them.

1700s (some 1800s & 1900s)

• 1784-1787 Census
• 1779-1853 Marriage Bonds
• 1750-1860 Deeds
• 1750- Quit Rent (Tax List)
• 1750- Quit Rent List (Tax List)
• 1751- Quit Rent (Tax List)
• 1760-1922 Wills Index

1800s

• 1849 Freemasons
• 1852 Freemasons
• 1850-1895 Bastardy Bonds

1900s

• 1902 Voter Registration Records
• Assorted Court Records

Other

• Slave Name Index
• Cohabitation & Slave Marriage Index
• Confederate Soldiers
• Marriages

General Links:

• Johnston County Wikipedia article
• The Heritage Center
• Johnston- rootsweb
• Johnston- ncgenweb

Thrifty Thursday: NC (& Other) Census Records

As a poor college student with little money and a hobby for genealogy I have had to find as many free records as possible over the years. So for this Thrifty Thursday, some of the most important records genealogists have at their disposal: Census Records! Most of these links are for North Carolina censuses, but pages are available for all states on these sites.

• CensusFinder

A compilation of sites, by state and county, that offer free transcriptions & indexes of census records. Some counties have "Other" types of records as well, like tax lists. 

• The USGenWeb Census Project 

Set up almost like a spreedsheet, the USGenWeb Census Project shows the online transcription status of every census record and the provider of the transcription. 

•  Census Online

Similar to CensusFinder, Census Online connects users to other sites which have transcriptions & indexes of census records sorted by year and county.

Thrifty Thursday: North Carolina Digital Collections

NC Digital Collection screen shot

One of my favorite ways of researching my ancestors online is to find free resources online. Not only does this save me a trip to the local library (& the gas money), but it also provides faster digital searches and an opportunity to save digital copies for later use. Here are just a few of my favorites....more to be added later of course!



North Carolina Digital Collections
By the Archives & Library of the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources.

The NC Digital Collections offers up great free digital resources like

• NC Family Records

One of the more popular collections, the NC Family Records provides bible records, marriage & death notices from NC newspapers, and cemetery photos all searchable by family name and recently updated as of June 13, 2011

• NC Maps

 This collection offers historic maps from the late 1500s to 2000. It can be searched by location, date and subject; and their is an interactive historic map overlay which compares historic maps with current road maps. 

• NC Newspaper Digitization Project

 This collection provides select digitalized newspapers that date from 1751-1890s, mainly from the cities of Edenton, Fayetteville, Hillsboro, New Bern, Salisbury, & Wilmington.