North Carolina State Archives, also known as the North Carolina Division of Archives and Records, are the main governmental archive for the state of North Carolina in the United States. As with all state archives in the US, they are based in the state capital rather than the largest urban center and so are found today in Raleigh rather than in Charlotte. The state archives trace their origins back to 1903 when the North Carolina Historical Commission was established. It has passed through various iterations since then. Today the archives house millions of records at three sites. The main site is at Raleigh, while two ancillary sites are located in Manteo and Asheville, the latter two being the Outer Banks History Center and the Western Regional Archives respectively. As with many other state archives in the United States and archives generally today, more and more records held by North Carolina State Archives are being digitized every year and there is a growing body of material which can be consulted remotely online.[1]
History of North CarolinaHistory of North Carolina
As is the case with all the US state archives, the records held by North Carolina State Archives are intimately connected with the state’s own history. In the case of North Carolina it has the most extensive documentary history of any US state. Although the colony which Sir Walter Raleigh attempted to establish in the mid-1580s on the East Coast of America is typically understood to have been part of ‘Virginia’, in reality the failed settlement was located at Roanoke in North Carolina. As such the first English attempt at establishing a colony in what would become the United States was undertaken in North Carolina in the late sixteenth century before more permanent settlements were founded at Jamestown in Virginia and in New England in the early seventeenth century.[2]
Carolina flourished as a center of tobacco production in the seventeenth century as the Virginia colony expanded southwards from the reign of King Charles I onwards (Carolina comes from Carolus, the Latin for Charles). The colony split into North and South Carolina in 1712. In April 1776 in the early stages of the American Revolutionary War, the North Carolina Provincial Congress had the distinction of first calling for independence from Britain through the Halifax Resolves, paving the way in the process for the promulgation of the Declaration of Independence that summer. Therefore, while North Carolina did not produce a Founding Father of the esteem of Virginia’s Thomas Jefferson or George Washington, or Massachusetts’s John Adams, it did play its own important part in the formation of the United States.[3]
Like the surrounding states North Carolina was opposed to ending slavery in the nineteenth century as its economy was based on tobacco and cotton cultivation. It seceded from the Union in mid-May 1861, by which time the American Civil War had been underway for nearly six weeks already. The Thirteenth Amendment was introduced here in 1865 and it was restored to the Union in the summer of 1868.[4] In the twentieth century North Carolina is notable for being the site of the first successful flight of a powered, heavier-than-air airplane by the Wright Brothers, Orville and Wilbur, at Kitty Hawk in December 1903.[5]
Extent of collections at North Carolina State ArchivesExtent of collections at North Carolina State Archives
The North Carolina State Archives’ holdings reflect the state’s extensive history. Most of the material pertaining to the abortive Roanoke colony such as the drawings and maps produced by John White are deemed to be of sufficient historical value that they are housed in the British Museum in London today,[6] though listings of those involved in the expedition are provided through the website of the North Carolina National Park Service. Accordingly, the State Archives’ earliest records date to the first half of the seventeenth century.[7] Some of these earliest records were produced concerning ships arriving to the Carolinas and are useful for tracing ancestors back to the earliest days of the colony where passengers and crew were listed.
Others pertain to the government of the colony in the seventeenth century. Thereafter there are millions of records of varying kinds, including everything from maps, government records, wills, church records, newspapers, military archives and collections of private correspondence which have been donated to the State Archives, all of which can shed light on genealogical studies and family history in North Carolina. County records and court records are especially useful for the eighteenth century prior to the undertaking of the first national census in the nascent United States in 1790. These are also records of a state census which was specific to North Carolina and carried out between 1784 and 1787.[8]
Finding material at North Carolina State ArchivesFinding material at North Carolina State Archives
The holdings of the North Carolina State Archive can be accessed through the MARS online catalogue, MARS standing for ‘Manuscript and Archives Reference System’. This incorporates search data for material stored in all three sites at Raleigh, Manteo and Asheville.[9] The archives’ website contains a number of finding guides which lay out how to search through various types of records, notably indexes of wills which will prove useful for family history research. A series of FAQs concerning the online catalogue are also of some utility.[10] Finally, the archives advise researchers conducting work on genealogy and family history to consider contacting the North Carolina Government and Heritage Library.
See alsoSee also
Explore more about North Carolina State ArchivesExplore more about North Carolina State Archives
- North Carolina Marriages record collection on MyHeritage
- Researching Your North Carolina Ancestors at Legacy Family Tree Webinars
- North Carolina Quakers: Their History and the Records They Left Behind at Legacy Family Tree Webinars
References
- ↑ https://archives.ncdcr.gov/
- ↑ https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/roanoke-colonies-the/
- ↑ https://www.ncpedia.org/history/usrevolution/halifax-resolves
- ↑ https://www.ncpedia.org/history/cw-1900/civil-war
- ↑ https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/wright-brothers-kitty-hawk
- ↑ https://www.ncpedia.org/culture/art/white-john
- ↑ https://www.nps.gov/fora/learn/education/a-list-of-participants-in-the-roanoke-voyages.htm
- ↑ https://archives.ncdcr.gov/search-catalog/search-doc
- ↑ https://archives.ncdcr.gov/search-catalog/search-doc
- ↑ https://archives.ncdcr.gov/documents/doc-search-guides