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County Resources
New! We've posted free state death record indexes at the end of each county's page. Just click on the county you're interested in and scroll down. County-level resources are some of the most valuable for genealogists because those are the local-level records for our ancestors. The county courthouse is where our ancestors went to pay taxes, file deeds, apply for marriage licenses, serve as jurors, and conduct their other day-to-day business. If you can identify the county where your ancestor lived, it's time to search everything available for that area. Remember, our county boundaries changed over time. Most of what is now Arkansas was a part of Missouri Territory before 1819, when Arkansas became a territory. We started with five counties, Lawrence, Arkansas, Hempstead, Pulaski, and Clark. As population grew, we subdivided until we had 75 counties, the last of which was Cleburne County, formed in 1883. Your ancestor who settled in the eastern part of what is now Stone County, may have lived in Lawrence, and later Independence Counties without ever moving. He may have purchased land from the Batesville land office before the Civil War and homesteaded the plot next door through the Harrison land office after the War. The change in jurisdiction for all levels of government means the records you're after today are in more than one place. While many of the records survive for Independence and Lawrence Counties, if your ancestor crossed White River to get a marriage license in Izard County, those records are long-gone. He may have filed a copy of his land patent at the county level, but the papers associated with his application are in the National Archives because those were federal records. If he applied for donation lands from the state, those records are in a different place. If he served in the Confederate military service, his service record is in Washington, D.C., but his pension application is in Little Rock. So when you're doing research, you have to look at the right county records for time period when your ancestor lived there. And you have to consider records from other jurisdictional levels. We've created pages for each county in Arkansas and have added information about parent and progeny counties and notes about the records. For some counties, we've moved outside government records and have included newspaper abstracts, cemetery inscriptions, funeral home records, and other resources. We've added a link at the bottom of each county's page to a map showing section, range and township. Click on your counties of interest in the table below.
Contact us: Arkansas Research, Inc., PO Box 303, Conway, AR 72033 |
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Arkansas