Putnam County is located in one of the state's three "grand divisions," Middle Tennessee, as depicted in the map below.

Putnam County was first formed in 1842, but it was short-lived, since it was declared unconstitutional and dissolved. It was permanently established in 1854 and was named for Israel Putnam, a Revolutionary War hero.

Click here to see changes announced by the TSLA January 2022.
OBITUARIES OF PUTNAM COUNTY AND JACKSON COUNTY TENNESSEE
Charles A. Reeves, Jr.

From a scrapbook of newspaper clippings published in the Cookeville Dispatch and Herald Citizen at Cookeville, Tennessee and The Jackson County Sentinel at Gainesboro, Tennessee (and a few other sources) from 1965-1986 by Wilda Allen Luttrell, Dec. 31, 1986.

I purchased a copy of a CD of this scrapbook several years ago from the Tennessee State Library and Archives (Microfilm Access Number 1059). The CD contains 576 high quality 350 pixels-per-inch JPEG image scans of the scrapbook pages.  With an average of 3-4 obituaries per page, there are over 2000 obituaries in the scrapbook.

You can download a 2.7 MB PDF of a document I created from this CD here,
and an Index of names  in the document here.
Here's a listing by town of old Tennessee newspapers that are online:

https://theancestorhunt.com/blog/tennessee-online-historical-newspapers-summary/

If you find  new addresses (URLs) for broken links on these pages, if you will send them to Charles Reeves, Jr., I'll correct them. Thanks.

I have uploaded a PDF of the 1943 Cookeville Central High School annual to my web site.  It is a 14MB file. I got the copy off eBay because that was the year I was born in Cookeville. I only discovered after I got it that my uncle, Kelly Ensor, was a senior that year. Sadly, he passed away soon thereafter. I have given the annual to his daughter.

The United States Reference Unit at the Family History Library has launched a Research Guide for Putnam County, Tennessee in the new FamilySearch Wiki format. Anyone who wishes to can register and add material or make changes.

Putnam County Gazetteer - $140 from Sam Barnes at Trademark Printing, 502 W. Spring St., Cookeville, TN 38501, (931) 520-3421

History of Putnam County

Topography and Migration Patterns of Putnam County

Putnam County Research Helps

Putnam City Cemetery Obituaries

Putnam County Historic Sites of Interest

Those doing Research on Families from the County

Post a New Putnam County Query (no longer available)

Putnam County Cemetery Listing

Putnam County Related Obituaries

View Old Posted Putnam County Queries

Putnam County Scenes from Old Postcards

Putnam County Photos

USGenWeb Archives

Calendar of Events

Search Engine

About the Tennessee GenWeb Project

The TNGenWeb County Select Page

Go to the Tennessee Genealogy page

 

This page was created by Charles Reeves, Jr. with considerable input from Billie R. McNamara, Fred Clark, and others as indicated in the references.


Note: No claims or estimates are made nor intended of the validity of the information contained on the Putnam County Website. Each new piece of information found should not be taken at face value, but should be researched and proved or disproved by weight of evidence. Among the items you may find are copies of copyright-expired texts pertaining to the history of Putnam County, Tennessee. These must be considered in the era that they were written. You are welcome to copy information found at the Putnam County Tennessee Genealogy Website for personal use and share information with other researchers or genealogical organizations, but this information may not under any conditions be sold or used in a commercial project without expressed prior written permission. The entire contents of the Putnam County TNGenWeb pages are copyright 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2011, 2013, 2016, 2022.