Louise's Lost Files - Taking Stock

I love going through boxes of "old stuff" as much as any other genealogist out there. And I could spend hours doing so, especially if I am looking for that elusive brickwall-busting document or photo. However, I am also aware of the importance of being able to go back and locate an item I thought was interesting without having to rummage through the entire box's contents all over again. This is why I have decided to inventory and subsequently preserve, or in more practical terms "file" these items away for easy access and with little risk of degradation or damage. 

Although I was trained in the arrangement and description of archival material while obtaining my Library of Science Master's Degree, I'm not going to go THAT FAR. I do not intend to preserve these materials for the next 150 years. Let the actual archives take care of that when I'm gone (because of course I'm going to donate ALL of my genealogical materials to the Archives before I die!) What I do intend to do, however, is to inventory the boxes' contents, organize (and describe) the materials, and arrange them into a manner in which they can be retrieved and shared as necessary. 

There is one aspect of training that I will adhere to called RESPECT des FONDS. You may recognize the two main components of this pricinple: PROVENANCE and ORIGINAL ORDER.[1] 

1. PROVENANCE: refers to the individual, family, or organization that created items in a collection
2. ORIGINAL ORDER: refers to the order in which items in a collection were organized by their creator

An example of why this is important was evident in some of the photos I quickly looked through prior to starting the inventory process... There was a small box about 3x5 that contained photos of my great-grandmother and her school friends, her siblings, her aunts and uncles. Some of the photos had writing on them. The photos of my great-grandmother were labeled "Louise" because that was her name. The photos of my great-grandmother and her mother were labeled "Me and Louise." Do you know what this box of photos was, but more importantly, who they belonged to? They belonged to my 2nd great-grandmother, Eva Benson! I mean it's pretty exciting to have photos of my 2nd great-grandparents, but even more exciting that my great-grandmother had a little something that was her mother's. Her mother did not live with them. In fact, she lived in Oklahoma and she had 7 children and umteen grandchildren and she visited every single one of them. My Benson cousins in Oklahoma have a ton of photos of my 2nd great-grandmother and I'm sure they have all of her possessions and personal items. And now I do too. 

I feel that it is important to identify these photos as those having belonged to my 2nd great-grandmother - they were collected by her; they were written on by her; they were important to her. I therefore want to keep these items separate from my great-grandmother Louise's personal items. They will probably get their own photo box. In this manner I am preserving the provenance of the collection by ensuring that the materials that belonged to my 2nd great-grandmother are kept separate from those belonging to my great-grandmother. 

I will also try to keep the original order of the things as I find them. I am not sure if they are in the original order that their creators initiated; but the least I can do is keep them in the order that I found them in. This can be important if and when I run across a photo that is not labeled. Sometimes, the photos it is grouped with can be helpful in identifying the unlabeled and unidentified photo. 

Here is my bulleted list of goals for this project: 

1.  Inventory

• Who, What, When, & Where?
• Lined notebook
• Materials bundled with rubber bands and post it notes
• Materials bundled in envelops
• Stored in numbered photo boxes

2.  Organize

• Photo boxes (stage 1)
• File folders (stage 2?)
• Letters, Documents, Bills, Photos, Memorabilia, etc

3.  Preserve

• Scan Items in Collection
• How many file folders or boxes are required? 

4.  Extract Genealogical Data

• Marriage, Death, Birth Certificates
• Photos, etc

I hope to do a little with these boxes each week and report back to you on what I found, what I did with it, and what I learned from it.

Sources: 

[1] Society of American Archivists, Website, Glossary, www2.archivists.org, accessed 17 January 2015.
[2] Image of Provenance Text Box created by the author, Ginger R. Smith, 21 January 2015. Feel free to use for noncommercial purposes with attribution back to this website. 

Identifying Land Grants Using the NC State Archives’ online MARS Catalog

In 1795, Nathan Godwin, Dred Godwin, and Rachel Godwin sold 46 acres of land in Sampson County, North Carolina to John Dormond for seven pounds. The land was located “on the east side of the Little Cohara and on the Mill branch.” Although I searched high and low, I could not find any deed records in which Nathan, Dred, or Rachel Godwin were grantees, having purchased this 46 acres of land from someone else.

In North Carolina, much of the land that came into the hands of the settlers up until the end of the 18^th century (and even well into the 19^th century) was purchased NOT from existing owners, but from the State of North Carolina (1777-1959). Prior to the Revolutionary War, settlers purchased land from the Lord Proprietors (1663-1729), including Lord Granville, and the Crown (1729-1776). Records relating to these land purchases are kind of confusing, so it is important to know what time period and approximate location your ancestor might have purchased land.

If you have an ancestor, or ancestors, like mine above, who came into land with no story behind how it came into their hands, then chances are they may have been involved in a land grant purchase.  All land grants issued by the Crown, the Lord Proprietors, and the State came from the Secretary of State’s office. Those issued by Lord Granville were issued by the Granville Office. Records from both offices are indexed by the North Carolina State Archives and are accessible online via their MARS online catalog. Navigating the online catalog can be a bit tricky, so follow these steps below for a sure success.

Navigate to the new North Carolina State Archives Homepage and click on the "For the Public" Link at the top: (Click on each photo to make them bigger).

Then click on the "Online Catalog and Finding Aids" Link on the left side of the page: 

Then click on the MARS online catalog link to access the catalog:

Once you have the MARS online search open, type in your ancestor’s name into the search box, then where it says "Class, Collection, Series" click on the “Browse” button. I have typed in "Nathan Godwin" in the search box . 

When you click the “Browse” button, a list of all of the indexed collections appear with subcollections hidden within the “+” signs. Scroll down to the bottom and click the “+” sign next to “State Records.”

Then click the “+” sign beside “Governor's Papers – Jonathan Worth (18 November 1802 – 5 September 1869) … University of North Carolina Board.” Then scroll down and check the box beside "Secretary of State Record Group."  All land grants, including the Lord Granville Grants, are now indexed within the State Record Group collection. All results will include those for the Granville Grants, which usually occurred before the Granville Land office closed in 1763.

Once you have selected the State Record Group collection, click the "done" link at the top left-hand side of the page. 

This will take you back to the search page. Now you can click the SEARCH button. 

I got 12 results for searching on Nathan Godwin in the Secretary of State Records.

Looking on the right-hand side you will see the Call Number, whether there is a digital image available for download[1], and the years involved. In the middle of the page, you will see the name and the file number associated with the name. This file number is required if you visit the Archives and you want to find the land grant in the microfilm. This collection is contained on microfilm and is organized by county first and then by file number.

Clicking on a title in the search results brings up a brief summary of the item.

Things to note are the County at the top, the person’s name, and the geographical names which are usually included in the description at the bottom and used for indexing purposes. At the bottom, we see the actual details of the land grant. In this example, Nathan Godwin applied for 150 acres between Black Mingo and Chokeberry Pond which was entered on February 6^th, 1793. The land was surveyed, found to be vacant, and returned to the Secretary of State’s Office and subsequently granted to Nathan Godwin on December 17^th, 1794, almost two years later. This grant (number 429) was copied into the Patent Book Number 86, page 311.

I checked the descriptions of all 11 of these land grants, but none of them mentioned the 46 acres on the Cohera River that was mentioned in the grant at the beginning of this post. I also did a search for Rachel and Dred (Netheldred/Etheldred) Godwin but found nothing.

I then changed my search criteria from “Nathan Godwin” to “Godwin, Cohera” to see if another Godwin had received a land grant on the Cohera River. But again, I got 0 results. Changing it to “Godwin, Coharie” gave me several results.

I clicked on Jonathan Godwin and found that he had received a land grant for 46 acres on the “East side of the Little Cohera [Little Coharie Creek] and on the Mile Branch.” This sounded exactly like the same land that Nathan, Rachel, and Dred were selling in 1795 to John Dormond – it was the same 46 acres (an odd amount for that time period) and it was on the “East side of the Little Cohera and the Mill branch.” Only the Mill / Mile branch description was a little off.

Doing a little bit more research, I learned that Rachel Godwin became the widow of Jonathan Godwin in 1791. I also learned that in 1788, Jonathan Godwin received another patent for 47 acres of land on the East side of Black Mingo and the North Side of Beaverdam Swamp. In 1801, Nathan Godwin sold land with this same exact description to Elizabeth Bagley. Since there are no deeds from Jonathan to Nathan Godwin, or from Jonathan to Rachel Godwin, it is possible that Nathan received the land through inheritance.

This is just one example of how land grants can be very useful in genealogical research. I find them to be a very good starting point, especially if you are trying to track parcels of land through several hands. We are fortunate that our land grants are indexed through the North Carolina State Archives’ website. If you visit their onsite location in Raleigh, you can use the card catalog which is organized first by surname, then by county – that is the county they lived in at the time the land grant was issued.

What about the terminology?

I get a lot of questions about the terminology involved in the Land Grant process. In case you were wondering yourself, here is a brief synopsis of how the Land Grant Process worked in North Carolina:

1. ENTRY:  This is an application that a person filled out to apply for a PATENT to occupy and purchase vacant land
2. WARRANT:  This is issued once the ENTRY is approved, telling the county surveyor to measure the tract of land
3. PLAT:  This is drawn up by the surveyor describing the land in metes and bounds
4. PATENT:  This is the final document written by the Secretary of State conveying the surveyed land to the applicant. Also known as a Land GRANT

You may be wondering why this is called a Land “Grant” Process but the end product is a “Patent.”  This is because it is a process involving the transfer of vacant land from a granting body to a private person.  

Have you checked out your land grants yet? If so, please share your experiences in a comment below, or feel free to email me.

For more information on using the North Carolina State Archives online catalog (MARS), check out their YouTube videos here. 

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[1] At this time, the only digital items that I know of in MARS are the colonial wills. The colonial wills (written before 1776) were filed with the Secretary of State’s office. Wills written after the Revolutionary War were filed with the county. Digital images require the user to download a proprietary viewer called “deja-vu” in order to view the images.  

To Cite This Post:

Ginger R. Smith, "Identifying Land Grants Using the NC State Archives’ online MARS Catalog" Genealogy By Ginger, 06 May 2013, (http://www.genealogybyginger.blogspot.com : accessed [date])

Ordering Records from the North Carolina State Archives

I have always enjoyed visiting the North Carolina State Archives that is located in downtown Raleigh. But I rarely have the chance to get down there on a Saturday anymore.  Especially since I’ve been trying to get my feet in the door with the Wake County Public Library system. Because of this, I have been working several Saturdays a month for the past 6 months or so and will continue to do so until I graduate from UNC in May. Even if I could visit the Archives on a Saturday, they have started limiting their hours from 9 am to 2 pm. They used to be open until 5 pm. It’s unfortunate; however, as we’ve seen from archives across the country, funding is short and they are doing what they can to stay open to the public and I am grateful that they are open 5 days a week and on Saturdays!

The North Carolina State Archives does have an alternative for ordering records for those people who have a busy schedule and cannot visit the Archives during regular business hours. If you live In-State, you can order records via an online form found on their website.  They recommend that you read about what they will and will not search for you and that you provide as detailed a description as possible in your request. I decided to give this a try and order some records I had been looking for.

You can request materials from the “Services” link on the left side of the page. Clicking on the “Requesting Information by Mail” link will take you to the general information page which includes information about what kind of requests the Archives CAN and CANNOT answer. This page also has a link by which NORTH CAROLINA RESIDENTS can order materials – just click on the link at the top that says “North Carolina Residents.”

You have the option to submit an online form via email or to print out the form and submit by snail mail. When completed, click the “Submit Request” button and if you checked the box to “Send a copy of this request to your e-mail address,” then a copy of your request will be delivered to your email box. I created a special filter in my email to send all of these requests to.

You won’t receive a reply back from the Archives until an invoice is ready for your review and approval.  My first request for a marriage record was placed on 12/23/2012 and I received an invoice on 1/3/2013. It took 11 days to receive a reply, however this was probably delayed due to the holidays. In my reply, I was given the option to print the invoice and either pay by check or credit card and then mail back the completed invoice to the Archives, allowing for up to ten business days for delivery of copies of materials.

The alternative option, and the one I chose to use, is to pay the invoice online using the Archives’ new Correspondence Portal. I talked about this in a previous post. This is the section of the online ordering process that Out of Staters can use to order materials. They are charged a flat $20 fee for each record.

Speaking of fees, although it is free to order records for North Carolina Residents, there is a $2.00 minimum copying fee associated with each order. That is what I was invoiced for. I still find this to be a fairly reasonable rate considering it is about 25 miles from my house to the Archives. If I were charging the IRS rate of $0.55 / mile to drive there and back, it would cost almost $30 round trip!

Using the online portal to pay my invoice was quick and easy. I entered my shipping address and credit card information into the form and then submitted it. I received 3 emails immediate after my order was processed. One was from the Archives letting me know my order was received and would be processed. Two additional emails arrived from the NC Dept of Cultural Resources letting know that my credit card was charged $2.00 for my order.  

Copies of the record I ordered should arrive in the mail any day now.  Have you ordered materials from the Archives? If so, feel free to share your experiences below or email me at ginger.reney [at] gmail.com.

The North Carolina State Archives offers new Correspondence Portal

I just received the following news from the North Carolina State Archives' online blog History For All the People:

Online Correspondence is here!  The State Archives of North Carolina is excited to announce a new web portal for correspondence.  Online Correspondence will allow persons residing outside of North Carolina to request a search for a record and pay the search and handling fee using the Online Correspondence portal.  Persons residing outside of North Carolina will still have the option of sending a check, a money order or credit card information through the USPS but the Online Correspondence portal will give the additional option of paying electronically.

http://correspondence.archives.ncdcr.gov

But wait – there’s more!

The Online Correspondence portal will also have a feature that will allow residents and non-residents to pay their invoice electronically too!  Researchers will receive an invoice with instructions on how to find and use the online payment option.

http://correspondence.archives.ncdcr.gov/invoice.asp

And that’s not all!

North Carolina residents will now find a new option on the North Carolina online request form.  North Carolina residents can now opt-in to receive an electronic invoice.  If the researcher selects the electronic invoice option they will receive the invoice via email instead of a paper copy sent by USPS.  This service should save time for the customer and reduce operational costs for the Archives!

http://req.archives.ncdcr.gov/

We hope these new features will help us serve you faster and more efficiently.  Try them out and give us your feedback!

I personally have not yet used the website to request materials but I am excited by this new feature to pay for our materials online. I think it will streamline the process and free up the Archives staff for other things, like, oh, say, fulfilling our requests! 

If you are out of State you can check out the new Online Correspondence Portal. This website has records broken down into seventeen categories, including the following:

• Civil War
• Deed Books
• Land Grants
• World War I
• Selective Service
• Cemetery Records
• Bible Records
• Private Collections
• Court Minutes
• Death Certificate
• Estate Records
• Maps
• Marriage Bonds
• Marriage Licenses
• Revolutionary War
• War of 1812
• Will Records

When you find the record type you want to order, you can fill in the form with your ancestor's name, county, and any other pertinent information you think will help the Archivist find the record. All search fees start at $20.00 for Out of State residents. All requests can then be added to your cart.

If you are a North Carolina State Resident, you can use the standard records request by email form posted here. The form does not specify what the charge is to North Carolina Residents. My guess is the charge is accrued for copies only. It is on my "To-Do" list to try this out sometime.

What about you? Have you ever requested materials from the North Carolina State Archives online? If so, please tell us about it in the comments below.

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The quoted portion of this post was reprinted from the following source:

Christopher Meeks, "New Services Available for Correspondence Requests," History For All the People, 6 September 2012, (http://ncarchives.wordpress.com/2012/09/06/new-services-available-for-correspondence-requests/ : accessed 6 September 2012).

Follow Friday - Jan 6 2012

Today is Follow Friday where I post some blogs I've read and found interesting. Some are new to me this week. Check them out!

The Keough Corner - Tessa has started participating in the Motivation Monday meme in which each blogger posts their goals on the first Monday of the month and reports back on their progress for the previous month. She has some inspiring expectations for data entry, organization, and working smarter, not harder!

Cousin Linda - Linda is fairly new to blogging and is starting with stories about the house she bought, the cemetery next door, and the church. She also did a 31 day genealogy challenge for the month of December.

Corn and Cotton - Stephanie has been very active in the genealogy blogging and twitter community and has been rallying up other bloggers to find a genea-buddy and set some goals! If you'd like to join in the fun, check out her Motivation Monday post.

Denise's Genealogy Journal - Denise is very excited about the 1940 census being released and offers her readers a preview of it here.

A Look Over the Mending Wall - join Vincent as he stumbles through the archival process - start to finish - of a single collection involving estates and probate packets (and some financial account records) from the Maine Historical Society Research Center in Portland, Maine.

I have really enjoyed reading everyone's 2012 genealogy goals posts! Some genealogists are even pairing up with genea-buddies to help motivate them along the way and to offer them support. These were some of my favorites posts:

Denise Levenick's The Family Curator
Amy Coffin's The We Tree Blog
Elyse's Genealogy Blog
Stephanie's Corn and Cotton: My Family's Story
Terri O'Connell's Finding Our Ancestors
Laura's The Last Leaf On This Branch
Randy Seaver's Genea-Musings

Looking for Wills at the NC State Archives - Updated

In 2008 I wrote a post, “Looking for Wills at the NC State Archives” in which I talked about how to use the NC State Archives’ online catalog (MARS) to see if your ancestor left a will in North Carolina. Since then the Archives has totally redesigned their online catalog, so my screenshots are obsolete. I have updated them in the post below. Please feel free to leave comments or questions for help in the comment boxes below.

I consider Mitchell's "Will Index" to be my #1 resource material to researching NC families. It is a two volume printed set that sits out on the main counter at the NC State Archives. It can be searched online using the NC State Archive MARS search Engine. This is how I went about finding the last will and testament for Henry Williams in Caswell County, NC:

Go to NC State Archives webpage

Click on the MARS Catalog link on the left side and a new window will open. It may take a couple of minutes to completely load. You will see the main search page. I have included a screen shot below:

Because I want to look in a specific resource –the Mitchell’s Will Index – I click on the Browse Button to open the list of collections. The Mitchell’s Will Index is found under the Popular Collections Heading. Click the little plus sign beside “Popular Collections” to expand the sub-headings and then click the box beside “Mitchell Will Index” to select it. Make sure a green check box appears.

Once the Mitchell Will Index is loaded as the collection I want to search, I type in “Williams” in the main search box:

And I get the following 49 pages of results!!! – What???

If you look at the Mars ID, all results have the same first 4 digits – 5200, but different set of 2^nd numbers. The first result has a 5200.1 – this is for Alamance County. The next 3 results have 5200.2 – This is for Albemarle County. They are listed alphabetically by county. The Archives uses a set of numbers for county codes. So this is good to know if you are looking for a particular county. I happen to know that Caswell County’s code is “20” and I could scroll through these results until I get to 20, but I’m not going to do that. I’m going to go back and use the search box again.

I can enter “Williams, Caswell.”

And then I get 5 results, one of which is my Henry Williams. And you see the county code is in fact, 20.

The MARS system is only a catalog, it is not a digital repository with digital images. But using this will tell you if your ancestor left a will in the state of North Carolina.
However, there ARE some wills written before 1776 which have been scanned with digital images accessible from this catalog. You can NOT access them from the Mitchell's Will Index though. They are accessed from the Secretary of State Record Group. (More on this later)

Double clicking on Henry Williams brings up the information for this record:

This record depicts information for this Henry Williams. The will was recorded 1786 in Caswell Co., NC. The call number and MARS Id number are not important.


What's Next? - Head to the Archives

Once you find the will date, person's name and county, you can go to the Archives and look through the will boxes. They are organized by COUNTY first, then alphabetized by last name. Before you can look through the records you have to fill out a Call Slip. 

County:
The call numbers start with a 3-digit prefix assigned to the county of interest. Caswell County's 3-digit prefix is 020. 


Document Type:
Then the next 3-digits are assigned to document type. For wills, that number is always 801. 


Folder Number:
The last number of the call number is the box number that contains your ancestor's file. This last number is left blank on the call slip. 


You will put your surname on the call slip instead. They will bring you the box that contains the surname for the county of interest. For example, I might find the will of Henry Williams, 1786, Caswell County, using the following call number: 020.801.25. Box 25 containing the surname Williams.

The archivist will give you the whole box and you can only take out 1 file folder at a time. You must keep all documents inside the folder in order at all times. You can request copies be made by filling out a copy request form. Copies are $0.10 a page.


Here's some information on Estate Records at the NC State Archives in my post "A Peek into the NC State Archives: Loose Documents of Estate Records"

The Carolina Digital Library and Archives

Ok, so I was in the Wilson Library on the UNC campus this week waiting for my class to start and came across this display at the end of the hall and had to take a photograph of it. I thought it look super cool, and wanted to share with everyone.

We are very lucky to have an organization like this on campus. The Carolina Digital Library and Archives (CDLA) is primarily responsible for transferring materials to digital format.  They have completed such projects as North Carolina Maps, Going to the Show, and one project that I had a chance to work on last semester - Driving through Time: The Digital Blue Ridge Parkway.

Photograph taken by Ginger R. Smith, 22 March 2011, Wilson Library, UNC, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

A look at a real business case study in archives

As some of you may know, I am currently in Library School, with a concentration in Archives and Records Management.  My class schedule is structured in 3 different categories - library classes, IT classes, and Archives classes.

Tonight we had a class in the UNC Wilson Library in the Rare Books Room. The guest speaker was an archivist from the Southern Historical Collection. She gave the class a presentation about the Burlington Industries collection that they accessioned back in 2006 into the library. This collection was an example of how a fairly large collection was processed as it was accessioned.

Processing is the act of collecting, preserving, arranging, and describing the materials (MY understanding of it, at least); There is a lot of debate about whether the archivists should keep the materials in their "original order," ie, as they were received - for example, if the person who created and/or donated the materials organized their files in a certain manner, should that file system be preserved as such in order to give the future users a look into the motivations of the creator? - or should those files be reorganized in such a manner as to better serve future users in locating and reviewing materials, and in preservation as well - for example, do you put them in chronological order, or by important person's name; and for preservation sake, do you remove the staples and paper clips and hanging file folders?

At the end of the presentation, she showed us some of the materials - some that that been left in their original order and some that had been reorganized. I noticed a box of photos. It looked as if the photos had been mounted on a folded cardstock in which one piece of the fold had the photograph and the other fold had a sticker on it with a typed description of the photograph. I thought that sounded like a good idea for organizing photos. I would imagine, though, that it would take up a bit more space.

I really need to get back to reading Sally's archiving tips on photographs. But there just seems like there are so many options. I did manage to get all of the photographs out of the magnetic album. I still have tons of photos that I brought home from my Mom's house that are in manilla envelops organized by category.

Back to the Burlington Industries collection. I emailed my professor and asked if they had in fact mounted them on two folded cardstock and she said they had not done anything to them at all. What I saw was what the original owners had done. I guess it's good enough preservation-wise because they kept them that way!

Godwin Research at the NC State Archives

Last weekend I spent a few hours at the North Carolina State Archives to check out some Godwin family wills, estate files and deeds in Sampson and Johnston Counties. Researching Johnston County is new to me.  This is the first time I have crossed over from Sampson to Johnston County.  Many of our Godwin families are from both Sampson and Johnston Counties. It seems, however, that one family in particular may have jumped over from Sampson to Johnston County - that of James Godwin. 

In 1801, James Godwin died in Sampson County, North Carolina, leaving a widow, Elizabeth and several heirs. In 1827, the widow, Elizabeth Godwin shows up in Johnston County Court Minutes! Evidently her estate is now being administered by a William Godwin. Even though mention of the estate of Elizabeth Godwin is made in the Johnston County Court Minutes, no record of a will or estate has been found. I searched through the original wills and loose papers of estates of Johnston County at the Archives this time when I went, but did not find anything.

I was able to take a new inventory of what Godwin wills and estate files were on hand in both Johnston and Sampson Counties at the Archives while I was there. As you can tell, there's no will for Elizabeth Godwin in either Johnston or Sampson County, around 1827.




 This particular James Godwin family is not even really a part of my Godwin family as has been determined by DNA testing. I have been working with some descendants of this line of Godwins, however, to help determine ancestry of this line.


Negative evidence can be positive evidence after all in most cases, especially in the case of all of these Godwin families who even to this day dominate these parts of North Carolina. The more Godwins I can identify as belonging to this family, the more I can eliminate as belonging to my own family. This is what I mean by negative evidence.

So five hours later I located and reviewed several Johnston County deeds for William, Elizabeth, and James Godwin in order to determine approximately when they removed from Sampson County to Johnston County in the early 1800s. I brought along a friend with me who was interested in learning how to locate records at the Archives. She caught on super fast and was going through microfilms and printing off deeds like she'd been doing it for years! It's so much more fun to have friends there with you!

I really enjoyed my time at the Archives, but it pretty tiresome. I was happy to hear that they no longer close their doors during lunch. They remain open now instead of uprooting us and kicking all of us out at noon and then letting us back in at 1pm. They also seemed to have more staff on hand than the last time I went (when was that again? like over a year ago? Maybe two years ago?) I even saw a guy named Chris who had talked to my Public History Class last semester about what it was like working in an Archives. I remember him because he was one of the brave souls who had made a career change late in life and had gone to school while working full time.

I'm also enjoying working with my Godwin researchers - they are so full of ideas and smart as whips! There are 5 of us in the ring now. And they are great researchers, so I don't have to worry or fear that their research is flawed or biased. And everyone is chipping in which is great because there is so much work to be done. We are collecting deeds, wills, estate records, scanning them, and transcribing them and sharing all of this info and then trying to make sense of it all via email discussions. I am very thankful and fortunate to have met such a great group of researchers. Even if DNA does divide us in half. Well I never heard of that stopping anyone! 

Photo by Ginger R Smith, taken 28 Feb 2011, Raleigh, NC.
Oh yeah, did you like the little labels I used to put the lists of wills and estate files in? Well I got these graphics from rubyblossom's FLIKR page. 

The Will of Nathan Godwin, 1821, Sampson County, North Carolina

Will of Nathan Godwin, 1821, Sampson County, North Carolina

In 1821, Nathan Godwin recorded a will in Sampson County, North Carolina. The following children were listed in his will:

Jerusha Godwin
Jonathan Godwin
Teresa/Tressie + her two sons, Handy and Royal Godwin
John Godwin
Joel Godwin's heirs
Rachel Godwin
Fama Starling
Edna Layton
David Godwin

I've estimated these children were born between 1774 and 1800, so most of them would have been adults by the time this will was recorded.

Copies of this will was obtained from the North Carolina State Archives, 109 Jones Street, Raleigh, NC. The name of this collection is "Sampson County, NC, Series of Original Wills, 1778-1953." The will was found in box no. 7 in series of fibredex boxes. Information on how to obtain wills from the NC State Archives can be found in my post entitled "Looking For Wills at the NC State Archives."

Looking for Wills at the NC State Archives

This post has been updated with new screenshots from the NC State Archives website. Please refer to this 2011 post instead.

I consider Mitchell's "Will Index" to be my #1 resource material to researching NC families. It is a two volume set that sits out on the main counter at the NC State Archives. It can be searched online using the NC State Archives MARs search Engine. This is how I went about finding the last will and testament for Henry Williams:

Go to NC State Archives webpage

Click on the MARs Catalog link on the left side and a new window will open. It may take a couple of minutes to completely load. You will see the main search page. I have included a screen shot below:

Next I type in "Henry Williams" in the search box and I put a check mark beside the Mitchell Will Index listing. Then I click on the search button.

The database loads the Mitchell Will Index and reports back that there are 7 hits in the County Records Part 1 section and 9 hits in the County Records Part 2 section. This index is alphabetized by county name. Counties starting with a letter in the first half of the alphabet are in County Records Part 1 and those in the second half of the alphabet are in County Records Part 2. The actual published copy of the index is alphabetized by last name.

If I wanted to look for a will for Henry Williams in Caswell County, NC only, then I could type in "Henry Williams Caswell" into the search box and it would bring up 1 hit in County Records Part 1.

Click on the County Records Part 1 link and I get a display of 1 record for Henry Williams.

Click on the blue "I" icon in the first line

The record depicts information for this Henry Williams. The will was recorded 1786 in Caswell Co., NC. The call number and MARS Id number are not important.

Once you find the will date, person's name and county, you can go to the Archives and look through the will boxes. They are organized by county first, then alphabetized by last name. Before you can look through the records you have to fill out a call slip. The call numbers start with a 3-digit prefix assigned to the county of interest. Caswell County's 3-digit prefix is 020. Then the next 3-digits are assigned to document type. For wills, that number is always 801. The last number of the call number is the box number that contains your ancestor's file. This last number is left blank on the call slip. You will put your surname on the call slip instead. They will bring you the box that contains the surname for the county of interest. For example, I might find the will of Henry Williams, 1786, Caswell County, using the following call number: 020.801.25. Box 25 containing the surname Williams.

The archivist will give you the whole box and you can only take out 1 file folder at a time. You must keep all documents inside the folder in order at all times. You can request copies be made by filling out a copy request form. Copies are $0.10 a page. Information on locating estate records at the archives can be found in my post "Locating Estate Records at the NC State Archives."