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Societies Partner on County Records Project
ty date to the county’s founding	county clerks and museum staff,
in 1811. Over time the number of To date, records in thirty-three records in the courthouse grew	counties have been inventoried,
and eventually many older ones	including Adams, Amite, Attala,
were moved to large, portable	Carroll, Claiborne, Clarke, Copi-
MDAH Records Management Specialist Sumner Holmes evaluates records at the Lauderdale County circuit clerk’s offices.
Staff from the Department of Archives and History have worked with local historical societies across the state on two surveys of county records. The societies partnered with their local officials and MDAH to identify and catalog official records that date as far back as 1763.
MDAH began the Territorial Records Inventory project in
2010.	The yearlong, $100,000 initiative focused on the records of the fourteen counties that pre-date Mississippi statehood. The department’s Local Government Records Office coordinated the project, with the goals of identifying and inventorying the records in those counties and helping local officials care for them going forward.
Following the success of the initial survey, the department launched the County Records Inventory in 2011. The ongoing project focuses on Mississippi counties formed between 1818 and 1833 and their pre-1920 records. These older official records can provide invaluable data for historians and genealogists.
“Daily business generates new records every day for county clerks to process, and clerks have limited time and resources to care for old records,” said Tim Barnard. Local Government Records Office director. “This is an area where the department and local historical societies can help.”
Societies who have participated in the projects include the Historic Natchez Foundation, Greene County Historical Society, Lauderdale County Department of Archives and History, Inc., Marion County Historical Society, and Vicksburg and Warren County Historical Society.
The Historic Natchez Foundation has partnered with Adams County since 1992 to house and manage most of the county’s pre-1900 records. MDAH staff worked with the foundation to train student volunteers in the
care and handling of historic archival material.
“Adams County courthouse records at the Historic Natchez Foundation include circuit and chancery court case files, court minutes books, probate papers, inventory books, chattel mortgages, voting precinct ledgers, land rolls, naturalization records, teacher payment records, and an assortment of personal papers and objects that are associated with case files, including evidence in nineteenth-century murder trials,” said Mimi Miller, HNF executive director.
The Greene County Museum and Historical Society oversaw a conversion of the old jail on the top floor of the courthouse into a museum, then worked with county officials to have many records of historical interest moved into the new climate-controlled space. Although Greene County lost all its records in a courthouse fire in 1874, many important older records still exist there, including a variety of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century docket books and court minutes. Through this project, MDAH was able to provide an accurate inventory of those older county records and help improve storage conditions.
The Lauderdale County Department of Archives and History, Inc., preserves and makes available to researchers inactive Lauderdale County records and many early records from the City of Meridian stored at the Raymond P. Davis Annex Building. The department’s inventory found that most of the older records were in good condition. The county archives, established in the 1980s, was a pioneer in preserving local government records and has provided a model for other groups to follow. County staff and historical society volunteers jointly operate the archives.
The records in Marion Coun-
storage containers. The department worked with county officials and the Marion County' Historical Society to inventory and evaluate those records, including a docket book from the Civil War that was signed by Union officers on their way through Marion County.
Most of the books that were stored in the containers are now in the care of the society. The records that land researchers use regularly are still in the clerks’ offices. Both sets of records are of interest to historical and genealogical researchers and are available to the public.
Warren County’s ongoing preservation programs with the Vicksburg and Warren County Historical Society provided the department access to records in the society’s collection in the Old Court House Museum. MDAH staff inventoried records that had been stored in the Old Court House attic since 1940, giving copies of the inventory to both
ah, Covington, Franklin, Greene, Hancock, Holmes, Jackson, Jasper, Jefferson, Jones, Kemper, Lauderdale, Lawrence, Leake, Madison, Marion, Monroe, Neshoba, Perry, Pike, Rankin, Scott, Simpson, Smith, Warren, Wayne, and Wilkinson. Records from Choctaw, Hinds, Lowndes, Noxubee, Oktibbeha, Tallahatchie, Washington, Winston, Yalobusha, and Yazoo will be inventoried in 2012.
Funding for the projects was made possible by grants from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission through the Mississippi Historical Records Advisory Board, with matching support provided by MDAH.
Historical societies wishing to help facilitate local genealogical and historical research through the preservation of these records should contact Tim Barnard at 601-576-6894 or by email at tbamard@mdah. state.ms.us.