Awaiting My Bright and Shiny Objects: Two Books on Anderson County, Tennessee

This is the kind of stuff that excites me.  Keeps me off the streets I guess!

I believe I've reached a point where online research is not going to reveal any more about my mysterious 4th great grandparents Mahlon Hibbs (1747-1852?) and his wife Nancy LNU (1764-1846).  They appeared to have spent about 20 years in Anderson County, Tennessee (about 1801-1823) before showing up in Putnam County, Indiana in about 1824, and may have been in Tennessee at least as early as 1785.

I think it is time to buy more books!

A few years ago I purchased Anderson County, Tennessee, County Court Minutes, 1801-1809 and 1810-1814. Two Volumes in One by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) published by Mountain Press***, which revealed a lot of names to research as well as a few mentions of Mahlon and likely family members (jury duty and several court cases).

I'm hoping the next two books I've purchased will help me tie together some of the information I've gleaned from the court minutes one as well as various census and other records.  These books may or may not have specific information about my ancestors, but even if they don't I hope they will help me understand the family groups and communities better in Anderson County, Tennessee in its earliest years.

Anderson County, Tennessee Land Deed Genealogy, 1801-1831

This East Tennessee County was formed in 1801 from parts of Knox and Grainger counties. It lies partly in the valley of East Tennessee and partly on the Cumberland Plateau. This book contains abstracts of the deeds for this county running from 1801 and going through 1831 with some references going back into the late 1700's.

Anderson County, Tennessee:: History Revealed Through Biographical and Genealogical Sketches of its Ancestors

This features a brief but fascinating history of the county, as well as numerous biographical and genealogical sketches of many Anderson County ancestors. Included are nearly forty Revolutionary War veterans that made their home here. Among the personal sketches, you will also find many fully transcribed wills. Through these sketches an interesting history of Anderson County, Tennessee is revealed!

***By the way, a big shout out to Mountain Press publishing.  Their works each have an online description including a complete index of all last names mentioned in that work.  REALLY helpful if you need to quickly assess if a particular book will have relevant info for you.




© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Fantastic Find: Discover the Inventory of Counties, Cities, and other Organizations throughout the United States using Historical Records Survey Reports

From the New Deal Programs: Selected Library of Congress Resources:

The Historical Records Survey was inaugurated in 1935. Employing white-collar workers, the project inventoried and published state and county historical records. It surveyed and indexed selections of manuscript collections held in public and private depositories, prepared a bibliographic record of books published before the copyright law of 1876, surveyed federal records in state depositories, and undertook related historical projects designed to provide scholars with a more detailed account of public and private records throughout the country.

Oooh!!  This is helpful!

I stumbled upon these works when I kept noticing that that at the top of the FamilySearch catalog results list, for any given county I was researching, there seemed to be a "Historical Records Survey" work, available to view online no less.

These can be used in conjunction with FamilySearch's Wiki pages, Red Book: American State, County, and Town Sources, and The Source: A Guidebook to American Genealogy, to discover what types of records can be found in any given area.

A few ways to access these works:
FamilySearch Catalog results page for author search: Historical Records Survey
The Online Books Page by author: Historical Records Survey (U.S.)



For example, using FamilySearch to see what they have on Anderson County, Tennessee (where my Noslers and Hibbs were in the early 1800's), I found the following:

I've been under-utilizing the catalog section of FamilySearch.  It pays to spend some time to see what works exist.

There's that Inventory entry.  I wonder what that means?

I love instant gratification: "To view a digital version of this item click here" 

There is page after page of sourced information about the county, some information reflecting the contemporary conditions when the report was created, and some include historical overviews:

Names, sources, all kinds of things to play with.

© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.