Bledsoe County TNGenWeb

Presenting the very best in resources for Bledsoe County researchers since 1996!

Category: Research Repositories & Contacts Page 1 of 2

Revolutionary War Research in Bledsoe County

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On January 12, 2022

In Local History & Information, Research Repositories & Contacts, Revolutionary War History

An unusual number of Revolutionary War Veterans and Patriots lived in Bledsoe County or are buried here.  The local Sons of the American Revolution and Daughters of the American Revolution actively work to document and preserve information, artifacts, and important sites related to these individuals.

The FamilySearch Wiki for Revolutionary War research is an excellent guide for those getting started with research.  Click here to view the Wiki page.

One of the most-common questions raised by Revolutionary War researchers is whether their ancestors received bounty land in the Sequatchie Valley in payment for their service.  The answer is no.  Before 1796, Tennessee was part of North Carolina.  The Sequatchie Valley region was, theoretically, off-limits to white settlement until the Indian Cession in 1805. Click here to view the Treaty.  Note that white settlers were already living in the Bledsoe County area when the Treaty was signed.  Click here to view a petition from residents to the Tennessee General Assembly.

Click here for an index of articles on this site that relate to the Revolutionary War.

 

Tennessee World War I Veterans’ Questionnaires

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On January 11, 2022

In Military Records, Research Repositories & Contacts, Searchable Databases

Records available at the Tennessee State Library & Archives indicate no Bledsoe County veterans completed questionnaires about their service during World War I.  However, 4448 questionnaires were returned, some from residents of neighboring counties.

The World War I questionnaire project (TSLA Record Group 239) was part of an effort to gather and preserve the history of Tennessee’s involvement in what was then known as the Great War. On January 24, 1919, the state legislature resolved that a committee of 25 be appointed, to be known as the Tennessee State Historical Committee, part of whose duties was to “collect, compile, index and arrange all data and information of every kind and character relating to the part Tennessee has played in the Great War.”

Click here for more information about the questionnaires.

Click here to go directly to the searchable database of questionnaires.

Revolutionary War Materials at the Tennessee State Library and Archives

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On January 11, 2022

In Local History & Information, Military Records, Research Repositories & Contacts, Revolutionary War History

This collection highlights a time when the area that is now the state of Tennessee was land claimed by North Carolina. White settlers and their African-American slaves moved into Upper East Tennessee in the 1770s and established their own government, the Watauga Association. By so doing, these settlers clearly defied British authority which had forbidden settlement west of the Appalachian Mountain Chain in the Proclamation of 1763. Fiercely independent, these Overmountain folk and their like-minded kin in Southwest Virginia, Eastern Kentucky, and Western North and South Carolina, collectively referred to as the Southern Backcountry, had little use for distant colonial governments dominated by the British or wealthy planters.

Click here to learn more about this collection.

Maps at the Tennessee State Library and Archives

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On January 11, 2022

In Civil War History, Maps & Gazetteers, Research Repositories & Contacts

Maps are invaluable components of historical and genealogical research, and documentary records often cannot be fully understood without referring to maps. The Library & Archives has the largest and most significant collection of historical maps in the state available for public use.  TSLA hopes to increase utilization of this tremendous research resource by digitizing original manuscript maps and making them available online. These digitized maps appear in the JPEG2000 format, which means that you may view them in greater detail by using the Zoom tool and Expanded View option to navigate to a particular area of the image. We will continue to add maps to this digital online collection to bring more of them to a wider public.

The collection includes historical maps from a variety of sources, Civil War maps, and interesting collections such as the US Postal Service Rural Free Delivery maps for each county.

Click here to read more about the TSLA map collection.

Click here to search or browse the maps.

East Tennessee History Center, Knoxville

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On January 11, 2022

In Court & Council Records, Research Repositories & Contacts, Searchable Databases

The East Tennessee History Center in downtown Knoxville has a wealth of resources for Bledsoe County researchers.

McClung Collection

The Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection (click here) is Central East Tennessee’s premier research repository with

  • More than 75,000 books
  • More than 3,000 printed genealogies
  • More than 15,000 folders of First Families of Tennessee materials
  • Genealogical manuscript holdings that have been processed for research use — this is an incredible compilation of original documents and research deposited there by individuals over the course of decades
  • More than 19,000 rolls of microfilm including census records, state and local government records, newspapers, and other valuable primary source material
  • Subscriptions to web-based genealogical databases
  • Significant holdings of historic maps, photographs, and manuscripts  

The Special Collections include

  • Manuscripts, photographs, and newspapers — those not on microfilm are NOT available during evening and weekend hours, except by prior arrangement with the manager of the McClung Collection.
  • The McClung Digital Collection (click here) of photographs and documents

Knox County Archives

The archives receive, process, and preserve the non-current, permanent records created by county government since 1792.
 
Click here to visit the Archives’ Web site.

The Knox County Archives provides information on the origins and history of the court systems, court records, genealogy, and history of Knox County, Tennessee. The Archives provides public access to all holdings, with the exception of juvenile records and those restricted by Tennessee laws. It provides local government source material to court officials, genealogists, legal professionals, historians, and the general public.

Hamilton District Superior Court of Law and Equity

Of particular importance to Bledsoe County researchers, the records of the Hamilton District Court are housed in the Knox County Archives.  The early Superior Courts of Law and Equity of Tennessee were tasked with handling criminal matters and cases of relatively high dollar value, generally greater than $50. In this way, they were “superior” to the County Courts that adjudicated matters less than $50. The Superior Court also served as an appellate court. They were held in five districts and existed from 1793–1809 with the Hamilton District Superior Court sitting in Knoxville and serving the middle East Tennessee region. The records of this court are held at the Knox County Archives and the surviving cases are indexed here.
 
Click here to search the index to case files.

Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound

The mission is “Preserving the audio, video, and film history of East Tennessee.”
 
Dating back to 1915, the moving image collection currently contains more than 5,000 reels and videotapes of home movies, documentaries, advertisements, industrial and training films, commercial films, television programming, and newsreels, all with local or regional connections. Its audio collection includes vintage radio programming, sound recordings, and oral histories and field recordings from the region, which date back to the 1930s.
 
Some of the iconic programming(link is external) preserved by TAMIS includes the early television shows of Cas Walker(link is external), 1982 World’s Fair(link is external) footage, and Jim Thompson’s 1915 home movies of the Great Smoky Mountains(link is external), which helped spawn the National Park movement. TAMIS recently unearthed early unreleased demo recordings by a young Dolly Parton. For requests or information regarding TAMIS resources, please click here to e-mail TAMIS.

FamilySearch Memories: User-Submitted Photos, Audio Files, and Documents

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On January 11, 2022

In Individuals & Families, Off-Site Links, Photo Albums, Research Repositories & Contacts, Searchable Databases

FamilySearch Memories is a crowd-sourced compilation of photos, audio recordings, stories, and documents attached to persons in the FamilySearch communal tree.

Click here to visit FamilySearch Memories.

Click here for detailed instructions for locating items in the Memories section.

Searching for Bledsoe Tennessee (without quotation marks) returns the maximum of 10,000 hits. Many of those results are connected to individuals with the surname Bledsoe, rather than the location.

Note: Misspellings and other errors in item titles are not corrected or conformed as they are in the FamilySearch Tree.

We recommend you review the search tips below and consider creative searching.

What is searched?

  • The Find feature searches for words contained in a title or description of a memory or album.
  • The Find feature also searches for words contained in the first 250 characters of a story. Currently the entire text of the story is not included in the search.

The following will not display in a text search result:

  • Memories with no person tags
  • Memories with only unlinked person tags
  • Memories linked to living people in the Family Tree

Searching Topic Tags

  • The Find feature in Memories separately searches for topic tags, which are user-contributed words or phrases applied as tags to individual memories.

FamilySearch Research Wiki Pages

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On January 11, 2022

In Off-Site Links, Research Aids, Research Repositories & Contacts

FamilySearch Wiki is a crowd-sourced compilation of resources available on the FamilySearch site, in the FamilySearch Catalogue, FamilySearch (digitized) Books, and items available elsewhere.

Tennessee Wiki

Bledsoe County Wiki

Cumberland County Wiki

Hamilton County Wiki

Marion County Wiki

Rhea County Wiki

Roane County Wiki

Sequatchie County Wiki

Van Buren County Wiki

Tennessee Electronic Library Resources

By

On January 10, 2022

In Research Repositories & Contacts, Searchable Databases

If you are a Tennessee resident, you can access many resources on-line through the Tennessee Electronic Library.  Some of these resources require individual subscriptions, but access is free for Tennessee residents.

Click here to visit the TEL site for genealogy research.

Sample resources

The Tennessean (1812 – 2002)

Digitized pages of The Tennessean (1812-2002) provide unique historical insight into the regional issues and concerns, such as local government, industrialization, prohibition, and racial struggles. Audience: Middle School, High School, College/Research, Public, Genealogy

Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers

Search America’s historic newspaper pages from 1789-1963 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present including 125 newspapers from Tennessee. Audience: Public, Genealogy

Digital Library of Tennessee

The Digital Library of Tennessee provides free access to unique materials from museums, libraries, and archives across the state. Audience: Public, Genealogy

Digital Public Library of America

The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) brings together the riches of America’s libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world. Audience: Public, Genealogy

HeritageQuest Online

Collection of genealogical and historical sources, with coverage dating back to the 1700s. Search U.S. census records, full-text family and local history books, Freedman’s Bank records and more. Audience: High School, College/Research, Public, Genealogy

Tennessee Records on Ancestry.com

Tennessee records, including birth, death, and tax lists are available online thru a partnership with Ancestry.com. While other Ancestry.com resources require a subscription; these records are free for Tennesseans. Audience: High School, College/Research, Public, Genealogy

Tennessee Virtual Archive (TeVA)

Digital repository of Tennessee history and culture featuring historical records, photographs, documents, maps, postcards, film, audio and other original materials of enduring value. Audience: Public, Genealogy

 

Genealogical and Historical Organizations

By

On January 10, 2022

In Research Guidance, Research Repositories & Contacts

Bledsoe County Historical & Genealogical Society

Contact by snail-mail only: P. O. Box 465, Pikeville, TN 37367

Tennessee Society, Daughters of the American Revolution

Sequatchie Valley Chapter, Pikeville

Crab Orchard Chapter, Crossville

Avery Trace Chapter, Harriman

Tennessee Society Sons of the American Revolution

Statewide Web Site

Upper Cumberland Genealogical Association

UCGA is an active group that covers multiple counties that were historically related to Bledsoe County. Click here to visit the Web site.  

East Tennessee Historical Society (Knoxville)

ETHS covers the 35-county region of East Tennessee, location of Bledsoe and its parent counties, and is active on multiple social media platforms. Click here for the Web site.

Middle Tennessee Genealogical Society

Most of the Cumberland Plateau, west of the Sequatchie Valley, falls geographically in Middle Tennessee. Click here for the Web site.  

Tennessee Genealogical Society

The Tennessee Genealogical Society encompasses the entire state. Click here for the Web site.

Bledsoe County Historian

By

On January 10, 2022

In Research Repositories & Contacts

Miss Elizabeth Parham Robnett

Contact by snail-mail only: 
Route One, Box 234, Pikeville, TN 37367

Miss Robnett has published books on Bledsoe County history.  Click here for a listing.

Elizabeth Parham Robnett has served as Bledsoe County Historian for more than 40 years. Born and raised in Pikeville, her deep sense of the past, led her not only to become a teacher of history but also to publish the excellent books mentioned elsewhere on this page. The first TNGenWeb Bledsoe County Coordinator, Nancy Cole, wrote, “I am deeply indebted to Ms. Robnett for much of the historical information presented here.”

The full listing of Tennessee County Historians is maintained by the Tennessee State Library and Archives.  Click here to view it.

 

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