Governors Papers

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Photocopies of items in the papers of Tennessee's governors can be ordered, if the box and file number are provided. Visit the Ask Us a Question! web page to contact the Library and Archives and we will check to see if there is a listing for the subject in the index at no charge. We will notify you of the cost to make a copy of the record if found. The Library and Archives will respond to e-mail requests promptly; response time may vary, depending on the amount of research required to answer your question and the unique nature of your request. If you need immediate assistance you may call the reference desk at (615) 741-2764 or visit us in person.

Many of the governors' collections are available on microfilm and can be borrowed on interlibrary loan free of charge.

Land Grants

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Indexes and digital images of the Library and Archives' North Carolina and Early Tennessee Land Records 1753-1931  and  North Carolina and Tennessee Revolutionary War Land Warrants 1783-1843 can be found on Ancestry.com's Tennessee State Library and Archives web page.  RESIDENTS OF TENNESSEE who are not members of Ancestry.com can view the scanned copies of the records by first going to the Tennessee Electronic Library (TEL),  clicking on the Genealogy tab, and then clicking on Tennessee Records; the scans of the land records and land warrants can then be viewed after a free log-in on the Ancestry site. The indexes and images are free to Tennessee residents. Individuals outside of Tennessee who subscribe to Ancestry.com can also view the scanned records.

For those who are not in Tennessee, the Library and Archives has a printed index which lists the names of individuals who received North Carolina land grants in Tennessee and land grants obtained directly from the state of Tennessee. Visit the Ask Us a Question! web page to contact the Library and Archives with the name of the individual, and we will check to see if there is a listing in the index. The Library and Archives will respond to e-mail requests promptly; response time may vary, depending on the amount of research required to answer your question and the unique nature of your request. If you need immediate assistance you may call the reference desk at (615) 741-2764 or visit us in person.  A copy of the original land grant document can be purchased, once the index has been used to identify the volume, page and district showing where a grant is recorded.

The area we now know as the state of Tennessee was at one time the western part of North Carolina. In 1784, North Carolina ceded those lands back to the United States, setting aside a military reserve to be given as land grants to North Carolina Revolutionary War veterans and other individuals who had been involved in surveying the area. In 1790, Tennessee became part of the “Territory South of the River Ohio.” With increased settlement in the area, in 1796 the population reached the threshold required to become the sixteenth state.

This collection includes land records relating to the settlement of the areas of Tennessee outside of the Military Reserve. A land grant is the government’s first deed to a purchaser and not always a gift. The information a researcher can expect to find for each grant includes the name of the grantee, acreage, grant number, date of grant registration, location of the land, and book and page number. A land grant contains little or no genealogical information. It may, however, serve to place an individual in a specific location at a given time. Heirs of a grantee are seldom named in a grant.

Learn More about North Carolina and Tennessee Land Grants
For a detailed history of land grants in early North Carolina/Tennessee, see the Resource Guide Early North Carolina / Tennessee Land Grants at the Tennessee State Library and Archives.  Additional materials related to the grant may also be available at the Library and Archives. Researchers have free access to the indexes, and the grant books are available upon request.

State Penitentiary Records

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Photocopies of items in record groups, including the State Penitentiary records, can be ordered, if the location of the information is provided (volume and page or box and folder number). The Index to Inmates of the Tennessee State Penitentiary 1831-1850 and Index to Inmates of the Tennessee State Penitentiary  1851 - 1870 are available on the Library and Archives web site.

The Tennessee State Library and Archives will search the two published volumes of Tennessee Convicts: Early Records of the State Penitentiary, 1831-1870 for a listing of a name.  The entries in these two volumes are verbatim transcripts of the original records.  If the individual was in the state penitentiary during 1831-1870, visit the Ask Us a Question! web page to contact the Library and Archives and we will check to see if there is a listing for the subject in the index. There is no charge to check this published index, and the Library and Archives will notify you of the cost to make a copy of the record if found. The Library and Archives will respond to e-mail requests promptly; response time may vary, depending on the amount of research required to answer your question and the unique nature of your request. If you need immediate assistance you may call the reference desk at (615) 741-2764 or visit us in person.

If the individual was in the state penitentiary after 1870, you will need to submit a written request with the following information:  name of individual and a five year date range.  The Library and Archives does NOT accept e-mail requests to search prison records dated after 1870.

 

Supreme Court Records

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Original case files of the Tennessee Supreme Court are housed at the State Library and Archives. Card files for East, West and Middle Tennessee provide a partial plaintiff / defendant index. An online index to these records can be found here. You can visit the Ask Us a Question! web page to contact the Library and Archives with the citation for the case and we will notify you of the cost to copy a case file. The Library and Archives will respond to e-mail requests promptly; response time may vary, depending on the amount of research required to answer your question and the unique nature of your request. If you need immediate assistance you may call the reference desk at (615) 741-2764 or visit us in person.

 

Legislative Acts and Petitions

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From the time Tennessee was a territory of the United States (1790 - 1796), its legislature has passed laws affecting the lives of its citizens. From acts legitimizing children to those granting divorces, from authorizing turnpikes & ferries to compensating a citizen for services rendered the government, the legislature has touched the lives of citizens in thousands of ways in its 200-plus years. The Tennessee State Library and Archives has indexed personal names appearing in the Acts of Tennessee, 1796-1850. You can search the Index to Names to see if a particular individual is listed in the acts.

This name index to the Acts passed by the Tennessee legislature is intended to help provide access to this vast source of early Tennessee history & genealogy. Used in conjunction with the journals of proceedings of the Tennessee House and Senate, and the petitions of citizens to the legislature, the index can provide the means to interpret some of Tennessee's richest source material.

The index covers names in the first 50 volumes of the published Acts. The names of members of the legislature were not indexed.

The Acts, journals and petitions are on file at the Tennessee State Library and Archives. A copy of an act can be obtained upon request.  Please see Ordering Records.

Many Acts of the legislature were passed in response to petitions which had been presented by a citizen or citizens. In some cases, the Library and Archives will have the original petition pertaining to a specific act. Subjects of petitions include county formations, divorces, manumissions, and legitimations, among many other topics. A rough index to legislative petitions, covering the years 1799-1865, can be browsed on the Library and Archives website. If you have any questions about legislative petitions, you may contact the reference desk by email, phone (615-741-2764), or visit us in person.

The microfilmed petitions are also available on interlibrary loan.