Welcome to Hawkins County genealogy and history’s “home on the ‘net”! We hope you will find much to assist you in your research.  Please browse around the site and send comments or questions as you wish.

Hawkins County in Brief

From the Ebbing & Flowing Spring to the Devil’s Nose, from the site of the first newspaper published in present-day Tennessee to the seat of a nationwide book-banning campaign, from the first stone house in Tennessee to the Pressman’s Home enclave, from Daniel Boone’s Wilderness Road to the defunct Phipps Bend nuclear reactor site, from the Melungeon settlement on Newman’s Ridge in present-day Hancock County to the “Big Suck” near present-day Chattanooga, you will find tremendously rich and unique history associated with Hawkins County.

Formed from Sullivan County, North Carolina, in 1786, many of Hawkins County’s records go back to the time before Tennessee’s statehood, when the area was part of North Carolina and then the Territory South of the River Ohio.  For a few years, Hawkins County was known as Spencer County, State of Franklin.  A significant portion of Hawkins County’s early residents, especially in the Carter’s Valley area, considered themselves Virginians instead of Carolinians and transacted their official business in Washington County, Virginia.

At one time, many of the counties of East Tennessee were included in the boundaries of the original Hawkins County, making Hawkins County crucial to the state’s development.  Those counties include Anderson (part), Bledsoe (part), Blount, Bradley, Campbell (part), Claiborne, Cumberland (part), Grainger, Hamilton, Hancock, Jefferson (part), Knox, Loudon (part), Marion (part), McMinn, Rhea, Roane, Sequatchie (part), Sevier (part), Union.

You will find several detailed histories of Hawkins County on this Web site.  Follow the About Hawkins County link on the menu.

Using This Site

You do not have to register or login to view anything here.  In addition to submitting comments or questions to the Webmistress, you can submit your photos, transcriptions, and family history queries for sharing with others.  Please follow the links on the menu above to participate in groups and forums or share your research.  We hope these and many other networking features available through TNGenWeb will expand your research horizons and enhance your success.

Research Assistance

Your Webmistress and others who assist with the maintenance of this site do not live in Hawkins County.  Thus, we are unable to do local research for you.  You may contact the Hawkins County Genealogical & Historical Society or the Hawkins County Archives for research assistance.

“Pay It Forward”

Do you have transcribed material or photos to share?  If so, we would love to include those items here.
Do you have a research tip or a site you want to recommend?  Please share it with us.
If you’ve got a Web site or public tree on-line, please let us know so we can link to it.
Be sure you also post a query, so other researchers will be able to contact you.

Let Us Know

Most of all, we look forward to receiving your feedback as we develop this site for you, our visitors and fellow researchers.

Billie McNamara, Webmistress