Tidbits From Researchers
From time to time, on our Stewart County Genealogy List, researchers share interesting tidbits that can be invaluable to future researchers of this county. For that reason, this portion of the site is dedicated to archiving and sharing that information.
| Fort Campbell Cemeteries | Finding Census Records | Tennessee Land Grants | Tennessee Marriage Records |
The Archaeology Dept. at Fort Campbell is in charge of taking care of all the family cemeteries on post, and they've done a nice job of it so far. They have all the cemeteries catalogued and mapped, and will take you right to a cemetery if you call ahead and schedule an appointment. There's even a long-term project, started this year, to install fences around all the cemeteries.
Last winter, a cousin and I toured 3 of our family cemeteries on post (Montgomery Co. side), escorted by employees of the Archaeology Dept. They even cleared out some deer hunters from the area for our safety.
The staff is friendly, and is interested in learning about the family histories of the area's early settlers. It turns out that my Long family cemetery is the one that the Dept. uses to "train" new employees on the cemetery program and to educate school children on field trips about some of the history of the area.
Contact the Archaeology Dept. at (502) 798-7437 for more information or to schedule a visit.
Jim Long;Nashville;; 12-23-98
I do know the census for the years up to 1880 were carried as Stewart County for that portion that became Houston County and the records were shown as Stewart County, also the two books of Early deeds for Tennessee County, NC have a note in them that says "These books are a n attempt to show some of the earlier records of the early settlers into Middle Tennessee. Some of the first settlers were in about 1780. Certainly there were traders and hunters back ads far as the 1690s Apparently about 1789 Tennessee County was established as a part of North Carolina. Today this would represent MONTGOMERY, Part of ROBERTSON, STEWART, DICKSON, HICKMAN, HOUSTON, and HUMPHREYS counties and probably every thing westward. TENNESSEE became a state in 1796 and these records became a part of MONTGOMERY COUNTY COURT RECORDS". So that answers what happened to Tennessee County North Carolina's records.
Ira Bell; GRIDDIP@aol.com
First, the Tennessee State Library and Archives holds Tennessee’s land grants records and microfilms of them can be purchased. I believe that $20 per roll + $1 shipping is the price. There are *many* rolls. These records include the pre-statehood North Carolina grants because many NC records were copied eons ago by TN. The way to access them is to use the card file index at the library. Of course, if you live far from TSLA, this could prove difficult to access that index. Maybe one of our CCs who is connected with TSLA can answer about surname lookups, obtaining copies of individual grants, etc. Not my bailiwick.
There is another way to do this. The genealogy bookmonger, Bryon Sistler has a series of seventeen paperback surname index books made directly from TSLA’s card file index. http://www.mindspring.com/~sistler/tnland.html Note that while Bryon sells the books by alphabetical order, he is planning to publish a complete two volume hardbound set. He currently has a pre-publication discount. Looks like a shipping date around July (1999). Once the "proper" ancestor is found in the index, then photocopies of the grant may be ordered from TSLA.
Fred Smoot; dogtrot@well.com
This is a link that has information on vital records for the State of Tennessee and for the individual counties: http://vitalrec.com/tn.html Marriages are a county record in TN and the records are kept in the county the license was obtained in. There are published books that give records of marriages for some counties. There is a 3 volume set of Marriage books for the Tennessee, one volume for East, one for Middle and one for West TN. The time period that these published married records cover varies from county to county. Many counties have no surviving marriage records before 1838. These books are available at the TN State Library and Archives and probably at the local library in a county of interest.
There are Davidson Co., marriage records online and lookups for Davidson Co., marriages. You will find a link for these (and all the links that I am including in this email) on the website of Metropolitan Archives of Nashville and Davidson County, TN: http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/3661/links.html
This site has links to online marriages for 20 TN counties. Tennessee Marriages Online: http://members.tripod.com/~rosters/index-8.html
The Cheatham Co., GenWeb site has marriages online: http://www.tngenweb.org/cheatham/
The Sumner Co., GenWeb site has marriages online before 1850 and also has marriage lookups available: http://www.tngenweb.usit.com/sumner/marrndx.htm
You should check the GenWeb site for any county you are interested in to see if they have marriages online or if they have someone willing to do look ups.
Debie Cox; Metro Archives of Nashville and Davidson Co., TN; http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/3661/links.html