Spotlight: North Carolina Family Records Online
by Valerie Beaudrault

The digitized records found in the North Carolina Family Records Online collection are from the holdings of the North Carolina State Archives (NCSA) and State Library of North Carolina (SLNC). The collection currently contains more than 200 Bible Records from the more than 2,000 copies of family Bibles donated to and held by the North Carolina State Archives. The scanned images in the collection were made from photocopies or photostats created over the past 80 years by the staff of the NCSA. The North Carolina Family Records Online collection also includes the SLNC's six-volume Marriage and Death Notices. This set contains indices of marriage and death announcements from five North Carolina newspapers for the period 1799 to 1893: the Raleigh Register, North Carolina State Gazette, Daily Sentinel, Raleigh Observer and News & Observer.

Researchers can browse through the digital collection’s images by family name or by location.

First click on the Browse by Family Name tab. This will open an alphabetical-by-surname index page. If more than one family name is listed in the title, there may be multiple links to the particular Bible record. It should be noted that only the family names mentioned in the record's title are listed in the index, which is, therefore, not all inclusive. Many family names mentioned in the text of the records, are not reflected here. Records having a red asterisk are new as of August 14, 2009. To view a record, click on the name link. This will open a page with links to the family record images.

First click on the Browse by Location tab. This will open a page with a map on which there are orange “people” icons indicating geographical locations mentioned in family records in the collection. Currently there are 711 records related to the United States, 35 related to Europe, 5 to Asia, and 1 each related to Australia and South America. Click on the cluster of icons to bring up an enlarged map showing groups of and individual icons. Click on the individual icon to open a box with a link to the specific digitized family Bible record.

The following descriptive information is provided for each record in the collection: title, date, subjects, place, time period, description, index terms, local call number, physical characteristics, collection, type, language, format, digital collection, digital format, and audience.

The collection can be searched by keyword, by topic, or by date. The keyword search can be limited by the fields found in the item description. Topics include, but are not limited to, African Americans, Air and Rail Transportation, various wars (American Revolution, American Civil War, Spanish American War, World War I and World War II), Governors, Legislators, Obituaries, Photographs, and Witchcraft. The date ranges in the date search comprise pre-1600, fifty-year increments to 1900, and post-1900.

The North Carolina Family Records Online collection is part of the larger State Library of North Carolina Digital Repository (http://digitalstatelibnc.cdmhost.com/cdm4/view/all.php). Click on the Resources link on the homepage to access these collections and many others. The collections in the digital repository look at various aspects of North Carolina life and history.