Tennessee, United States Genealogy

United States   Tennessee Welcome to the Tennessee page, the Volunteer State Most unique genealogical features:
 * TN courthouse fires and disasters
 * Order many filmed county records from TN State Library and Archives
 * No civil birth records in TN before 1874. In some counties none til 1908
 * Short-lived State of Franklin created counties not recognized by NC or TN

Join a Community of Tennessee researchers! Ask questions, help others, and share your research successes on Facebook and/or Skype. NEW!

Counties
Extinct or Renamed Counties: State of Franklin | Caswell | Christiana | Cumberland (old) | James | Lewis (old) | Putnam (old) | Spencer | Tennessee | Wayne (old) Click on the map below to go to a county page.

Major Repositories
Tennessee State Library and Archives· East Tennessee Historical Society· Germantown Regional History and Genealogy Center· West Tennessee Heritage Study Center· National Archives Southeast Region (Atlanta)· Allen County Public Library

Directory Containing Archivist Contacts for Each County in Tennesse

Early Migration Routes
Cumberland River· Mississippi River· Tennessee River· Avery's Trace or Nashville Road· Black Fox Trail· Bolivar and Memphis Trail· Catawba Trail· Chattanooga-Willstown Road· Cisca and St. Augustine Trail or Nickajack Trail· Cisco and Middle Tennessee Trail· Cumberland and Great Lakes Trail· Cumberland and Ohio Falls Trail· Cumberland Trace· Georgia Road (Federal Road)· Great Indian Warpath· Great South Trail· Great Trading Path· Great Valley Road· Jackson's Military Road· Jonesboro Road· Kentucky Road· Lower Warpath or West Tennessee Trail· Mississippi and Tennessee River Trail· Nashville-Saline River Trail· Natchez Trace or Chickasaw Trail · Old Cherokee Path· Tennessee, Ohio, and Great Lakes Trail· Unicoi Trail· West Tennessee Chickasaw Trail· Wilderness Road

Did You Know?

 * Tennessee is informally segregated into three "Grand Divisions" that are topographically, politically, economically, and culturally different. East Tennessee even attempted to secede from the rest of the State during the Civil War. See maps and details at the TNGenWeb site.
 * Did you know that at least 20 counties in Tennessee did not begin registering marriages until 1838? For more information, see Tennessee Vital Records.
 * In 1820, Tennessee's top three manufactured goods were whiskey, blacksmith's products, and flour. Learn more at Tennessee Occupations.
 * Listen to our complete collection of audio files of Tennessee county name pronunciations flavored with local accents.
 * Even though many 1820 East Tennessee census population schedules have been lost, manufactures schedules survive for most counties. A free online index is available at Lineages.

Research Tools
Free online video classes are available for:


 * Cherokee Genealogy
 * Civil War Genealogical Research
 * Inferential Genealogy - Thomas W. Jones, PhD, CG, CGL, FASG, FUGA, FNGS teaches how to solve difficult Southern genealogy problems through interactive lessons.


 * The Tennessee GenWeb Project provides county information about formation date, parent county, county seat, bibliography, cemeteries, census, churches, towns, history, look ups, obituaries, queries, repositories, surname registry, and many Internet links.
 * Deaths 1914-1955 are now abstracted and indexed at FamilySearch. The original records are available at the Tennessee State Library and Archives. For more information about using death records see Tennessee Vital Records.

Wiki articles describing online collections are found at:


 * Tennessee Births and Christenings (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * Tennessee Deaths and Burials (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * Tennessee Death Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * Tennessee Probate Court Files (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * Tennessee County Marriages (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * Tennessee Marriages (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * Tennessee Probate Court Books (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * Tennessee Probate Court Files (FamilySearch Historical Records)
 * Tennessee State Marriage Index (FamilySearch Historical Records)

Things you can do
In order to make this wiki a better research tool, we need your help! Many tasks need to be done. You can help by adding the following resources to county pages: