North Carolina Genealogical Archives

   It is wise to acquaint yourself with any repository which you might visit by writing to the appropriate archive or library in advance. Every repository has published materials that introduce its collections and research policy. State archives and historical agencies also have Internet sites that provide the same information. Some even have downloadable databases for some or parts of their collections.

• State Library of North Carolina, 109 East Jones Street, Raleigh, NC 27601-2807; (919) 733-7222, (919) 733-3270
• North Carolina State Vital Records Office, 1903 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-1903; (919) 733-3526
• North Carolina State Archives, Office of Archives and History—State Library Building
  Public Services Branch, Mail Service Center 4614, Raleigh, N.C. 27699-4614
  Phone: (919) 807-7310, Fax: (919) 733-1354, [EMAIL]
  Its holdings consist of official records of state, county, and local governmental units, and copies of federal and foreign government materials. In addition to these official records are private collections, maps, pamphlets, sound recordings, photographs, motion picture film, and a small reference library. In all, the Archives houses over 50,000 linear feet of permanently valuable materials containing millions of individual items.
  Materials in the State Archives constitute by far the most valuable assembly of manuscript records and North Caroliniana in existence. Most of the records housed in the Archives are available for use only in the Search Room. A limited amount of indexed material can be searched for mail inquiries.
• Library of Congress
• University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27514
  In addition to an extensive list of publications coming from its press, the university houses the Southern Historical Collection and the North Carolina Collection, an exceptional and extensive collection of printed material on the state
• Duke University, William R. Perkins Library, Durham, NC 27701
  This fine collection focuses on, but is not limited to, the southeastern part of the state

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Historical & Genealogical Societies

   "Genealogists are generally positive and energetic, and most are ready to share their findings or research experience with anyone they can help. There are hundreds of genealogical societies at the grass-roots level. Knowledge of the genealogical community will place you in the midst of much activity, increase your productivity, and alert you to the importance of research standards and etiquette."
Sandra Hargreaves Luebking, Editor of FGS Forum,
Co-editor of The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy

   Because family history research relies greatly upon records found at the county level, many local societies represent counties. Organizations also form around shared interests. Ethnic or religious origins account for many groups, such as the Polish Genealogical Society of America and P.O.I.N.T. (Pursuing Our Italian Names Together). Societies also form around common locales of origin for members’ ancestors; hence, the Palatines to America and Germans from Russia societies. To locate these and other societies, consult Juliana Szucs Smith’s The Ancestry Family Historian’s Address Book. It lists addresses, telephone and fax numbers, and Internet addresses of thousands of organizations throughout the United States.
For almost every state there is a state genealogical society, a state genealogical council, or both. In addition to their own work, state-level groups sometimes help coordinate the efforts of local societies within the state. Their publications, newsletters and quarterlies, supplement those produced by the local societies.

• North Carolina Genealogical Society, P.O. Box 22, Greenville, NC 27835.
  NCGS is a membership organization dedicated to preserving and promoting genealogical studies in North Carolina. Founded in 1975, NCGS provides members and interested researchers with a variety of genealogical resources.
• Old New Hanover Genealogical Society, P.O. Box 2536, Wilmington, NC 28402-2536
  Covers Bladen, Brunswick, Columbus, New Hanover and Pender Counties
• Old Buncombe County Genealogical Society, P.O.Box 2122, Asheville, NC 28802-2122, [EMAIL]
  Covers Buncombe, Cherokee, Clay, Graham and Transylvania Counties
• Heritage Genealogical Society, PO Box 6204, Kinston, NC 28501, [EMAIL]
  Covers Greene, Jones and Lenoir Counties
• Toe Valley Genealogical Society, 491 Beaver Creek Road, Spruce Pine, NC 28777
  Covers Avery, Mitchell and Yancey Counties
• North Carolina Division Sons of Confederate Veterans
• United Daughters of the Confederacy
• Order of Southern Gray
• Carolinas Genealogical Society, P. O. Box 397, Monroe, NC 28111
• Genealogical Services Branch, Division of North Carolina State Library
  109 East Jones Street, Raleigh, NC 27611
• North Carolina African-American Historical Society, P.O. Box 26334, Raleigh NC 27611

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North Carolina Genealogical Publications

Search The PERiodical Source Index

   A host of excellent periodicals regarding North Carolina genealogy have been or are currently being published, including The North Carolina Genealogical Society Journal (Raleigh, N.C.: North Carolina Genealogical Society, 1975–present) and North Carolina Genealogy, formerly The North Carolinian (Raleigh, N.C.: W. P. Johnson, 1955–75). These two periodicals provide an extensive array of instructive articles and transcriptions of original source material, making it important for the researcher to keep abreast of their contents. The North Carolina Department of Archives and History and the FHL have copies of these and other periodicals of interest to the researcher.
 [ see specific county page for individual county list ]

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North Carolina Newspapers

Search Historical Newspapers

   North Carolina Gazette, the first newspaper published in North Carolina, appeared in August 1751. Other newspapers followed. The most extensive collection of early North Carolina newspapers on microfilm is at the North Carolina State Archives; however, many other public and academic libraries have newspapers on microfilm.

   Over 2,000 newspapers have been published in North Carolina since the North Carolina Gazette first appeared in New Bern in 1751. From January 1991 through March 1999, the North Carolina Division of Archives and History and the State Library of North Carolina coordinated the North Carolina Newspaper Project (NCNP), an extensive program to locate, catalog, and microfilm existing North Carolina newspapers. Through the efforts of project staff, over 3,000,000 newspaper pages have been microfilmed. NCNP, a part of the United States Newspaper Program, was partially funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and coordinated by the Library of Congress. The NCNP funding ended in 1999 and the project is no longer active. Any newspapers not microfilmed and cataloged during that time are not included in our listings. Most newspapers which began publication after 1970 will not be listed either.

• Newspapers have been identified for all of North Carolina's 100 counties.
• Selected titles from each county have been microfilmed by the State Archives. Not all newspaper titles have been filmed, due to limited funding. Only those newspapers cataloged and/or microfilmed at the time of the NCNP are listed here. Newspaper titles are no longer being added to our list.
• Some North Carolina newspapers have been microfilmed by commercial companies.

What is Not Available

• Newspapers in original paper form
• Topical indexes of the newspapers microfilmed
• Searching by personal names or subjects

How to Start

   The best place to begin your research is at your local library. The librarian can assist you with your search, identify where newspapers are located, and provide information about resources in your area; e.g., whether or not a local history or genealogical group has indexed the county's paper.

Selected information is also available on the Internet:

• Guide to Newspapers on Microfilm in the North Carolina State Archives (Titles of newspapers microfilmed by the State Archives)
• County and city indexes to newspaper title information (Each entry gives title, earliest/latest issue, OCLC number, preceding/succeeding titles)
• Information about newspaper project work in other states

   Your local library can help you identify libraries in the state that have microfilm copies of newspaper titles filmed by the State Archives or by commercial companies.

   Many newspaper titles on microfilm are available through interlibrary loan (ILL), a cooperative program for lending materials among libraries. The State Library of North Carolina lends its microfilm through ILL, but all ILL requests must come through a library. Microfilm and other library materials are never mailed to the patron's home.

Interlibrary Loan Procedures for Borrowing Microfilm

• Contact your local library
• The interlibrary loan librarian or reference librarian should be able to help you
• Microfilm will be loaned only through libraries

   While records of birth, marriage, and death are the most commonly sought and the most consistently helpful records, only the genealogist’s imagination and resourcefulness limit newspapers’ usefulness in supplying clues about historical events, local history, probate court and legal notices, real estate transactions, political biographies, announcements, notices of new and terminated partnerships, business advertisements, and notices for settling debts.

Newspapers can provide at least a partial substitute for nonexistent civil records. For example, a person’s obituary may have appeared in a newspaper even when civil death records for that person do not exist. And newspapers are an important source of marriage records, particularly in those states where civil recording of marriages was essentially nonexistent until the twentieth century.

Unlike official records, newspapers are not limited to a particular geographical area. They often include reports of the weddings of local citizens (even those that occurred in a neighboring county or another state), and they sometimes report visits of geographically distant relatives or the visits of former local residents. They often published death notices of individuals who had left the area long before but who still had local family or friends as well. In each case the newspaper account can identify the date and place of an event, thus opening the possibility of turning up additional documentation in other sources.

The first step in searching a newspaper is to identify those which served the area of interest and which have survived. The three most necessary tools are bibliographies (What was published?), inventories of library and depository holdings (Where is it?), and indexes (How do I find what I want in it?).

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