Thrifty Thursday: Wake County, NC Records

Facts to know when researching your ancestors in Wake County:

• Formed in 1771 from parts of Cumberland, Johnston, & Orange Counties 
• 1787 some parts of Wake were taken for the formation of Franklin County
• 1881 & 1911 some parts were taken for the formation of Durham County

Wake County Records available online

late 1700s to 1800s

1770s - late 1800s Deeds
1772-1881 Bastardy Bonds
1781 Wake Tax List (partial)
1785-present Land Deeds & Real Estate Records
1789 Wake Tax List
1799- early 1900s Wake County Deaths

1799-1893 Marriage & Death Notices

1800s to present Wake County Obituaries

late 1800s to early 1900s

1872-1944 Wake & Raleigh Directories

1899-1900 Raleigh City Directory

1891 Farmers & Landowners

1905/1907 Wake County Public Schools Biennial Report

General Links:

• Wake County Wikipedia article
• Wake- ncgenweb 
• Oakwood Confederate Burial Index
• Revolutionary & Military Service

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.

Thankful Thursday: Census Images on Heritage Quest

I'm thankful for several things today--

#1 Census Images--because they allow you to see a spatial relationship between two or more families

#2 Heritage Quest-- I love Ancestry.com, but I don't have a subscription right now, so instead I use my local libraries access for Heritage Quest. Having more than one place to find census images is also useful because transcriptions are different on the two sites, so a road block on one might not be present on the other.

I was especially thankful earlier this week while I was writing & "updating" Matrilineal Monday: The Daughters of Frances Buffaloe & Larkin Wood. I hated connecting the daughters to their husbands based off of the single marriage records I found on FamilySearch.org.

What if there was more than one Fannie Wood and I was chasing after the wrong one?!?! But lo and behold, I found an image that subsided some of my fears--one that had several of the families I was researching all on one page.

There are at least FOUR connected families on this one page (and possibly more just from my cursory glance at the other surnames on the page):

Image of Ervin Mann & Hattie Wood Mann (daughter of Fannie Wood).

Image of William Castleberry & his children. Two months after the census is recorded he will go on to marry Minnie Wood (shown in image below).

Image of Fannie Wood and several of her unmarried children: Minnie, Rena, Lena, and Kelso. 

Image of William Hunter, his wife Fannie Wood Hunter (daughter of Fannie Wood), their children, and William's mother & sister. 

These images come from the
1900 United States Census; Series: T623, Roll: 1221, Page: 284
White Oak Township, Wake County, North Carolina
Enumeration District: 153, Sheet No. 22B