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.