Knox County Public Library

United States Tennessee  Archives and Libraries  

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 * McClung Historical Collection [[Image:Customs-house-knoxville-tn1906.jpg|right|375px|Customs-house-knoxville-tn1906.jpg]]

Contact Information
E-mail: Ask a librarian form.

Address:


 * 601 South Gay Street 3rd Floor
 * Knoxville, TN 37902

Telephone: 865-215-8801

Hours:


 * Sun:1:00 – 5:00 Mon:9:00 – 8:30 Tues:9:00 – 8:30 Wed:9:00 – 5:30 Thurs:9:00 – 5:30 Fri:9:00 – 5:30 Sat:9:00 – 5:00

Directions, map, and public transportation:


 * MapQuest Directions and Map
 * KAT City Buses: Knoxville Station, hub of the city bus system, is four blocks east of the library. Routes 10, 11, 17, and 42 all cross Gay Street at or near Church Street, one block south of the library.

Internet sites and databases:


 * Knox County Public Library hours and locations, go to catalog, explore the collection, calendar and programs, about, local and family history, kid zone, teen central, news, and events.
 * KCPL catalog online has keyword, author, title, subject, or series searches, and in WorldCat.

Collection Description
The Knox County Public Library's McClung Historical Collection on the 3rd floor of the East Tennessee History Center is the premier genealogy repository for this part of Tennessee featuring an index to early Tennessee and North Carolina families. This is the best family history and genealogy index for these two states.

The McClung Historical Collection’s primary focus is east Tennessee; it holds one of the country’s leading research collections about the region, including Internet genealogy databases, more than 75,000 books, 3,000 genealogies, manuscripts, censuses, state and local government records, newspapers, Knoxville city directories, maps, and photos.

Court records include deeds, marriages, tax lists, guardian records, vital records, wills, and estates from the east Tennessee counties of Anderson, Bledsoe, Blount, Bradley, Carter, Campbell, Claiborne, Cocke, Cumberland, Grainger, Greene, Hamblen, Hancock, Hawkins, Jefferson, Johnson, Loudon, McMinn, Marion, Meigs, Monroe, Morgan, Polk, Rhea, Roane, Scott, Sevier, Sullivan, Unicoi, Union, and Washington.

In addition to the east Tennessee material, the collection also contains research guides and census indexes for many states in the United States, especially 11 states in the South.

The Knox County Public Library also offers the free online Calvin M. McClung Digital Collection.

Guides

 * Local and Family History Calvin M. McClung Historical Collection, Knox County Archives, East Tennessee Historical Society and Museum, Historical Resources A - Z, Getting Started with Genealogy, Events, and New at McClung.

Tips
Many photographs are online in the McClung Digital Collection.

Alternate Repositories
If you cannot visit or find a source at the , a similar source may be available at one of the following.

In the Same Building


 * East Tennessee Historical Society has for over 175 years recorded stories, collected artifacts, and educated visitors with lectures, and publications such as First Families of Tennessee, and the new Civil War Families of Tennessee. The original submission files for First Families of Tennessee and surname files are accessible to the public.
 * Knox County Archives since 1792 collects history and county government records such as marriages, divorces, deeds, probates, County-Chancery-Circuit-Criminal-Juvenile-Superior court, tax, and school records, and online databases.
 * Museum of East Tennessee History showcases the history of 35 regional counties.

Overlapping Collections


 * National Archives at Atlanta records of federal agencies and courts for Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee, censuses, ships lists, naturalizations, Indian records, and military records.
 * Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville, African Americans, vital records,censuses, county records, tax lists, local histories, school censuses, manuscripts, military records, Native Americans, newspapers, obituary lists, maps, state agency records, petitions, Tennessee postcards, city directories, prison inmates, and TN county historians.

Similar Collections


 * Chattanooga Public Library Downtown, has the Upper South's largest family folder collection which is heavy on North Carolina, Internet genealogy databases, census, newspapers, obituary index, county records, 30,000 books, manuscripts, and genealogical periodicals.

Neighboring Collections


 * Knoxville Public Library, online genealogy databases like Cyndi's List, Ellis Island, FamilySearch, and Rootsweb.
 * Knox County Library, cardholder access to databases like Footnote.com, HeritageQuest, and TN Sanborn maps.
 * Knox County Clerk, probates since 1789; marriages, divorces, court records since 1792; tax records since 1806.
 * Knox County Register of Deeds, land records since 1791.
 * Knox County Clerk of the Circuit Court, court records since 1792; probate records since 1792.
 * U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Tennessee, Knoxville, recent civil and criminal court records.
 * University of Tennessee Hodges Library, Knoxville, manuscripts, biographies, genealogies, county histories, church records, federal records, American Indians especially Cherokees, and river traffic.
 * Repositories in surrounding counties: Anderson, Blount, Grainger, Jefferson, Loudon, Sevier, Roane, and Union.
 * Watauga Association of Genealogists, Johnson City, meetings, services, publications, genealogists.
 * The Hermitage Museum, Nashville, Pres. Andrew Jackson's home, to learn about TN lifestyles.
 * Historical Foundation of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, Cordova, official repository.
 * Methodist Church Archives, Nashville, records and histories of Tennessee congretations.
 * Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives, Nashville, central archives of SBC records.
 * Tennessee DH Vital Records, Nashville, births since 1914; marriages-divorces-deaths since 1964.
 * Tennessee Historical Society, Nashville, collection is at the [Tennessee State Library and Archives].
 * Tennessee Genealogical Society Library, Germantown, Internet genealogy databases, 14,000 books, censuses, tax lists, vital statistics, early newspapers, and family charts.
 * Repositories in other surrounding states (or provinces): Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Virginia.
 * North Carolina State Archives, Raleigh, NC, census, military, courts, bond, deed, estate, vital record, tax, wills. Many early Tennessee settlers were from Virginia and North Carolina.
 * Allen County Public Library, Fort Wayne, IN, premier periodical collection, genealogies, local histories, databases, military, censuses, directories, passenger lists, ethnic collections, and Canadians.
 * Bristol Public Library, Bristol, VA, not a big library, but important for finding families traveling the Great Valley Road into Tennessee and Kentucky.
 * Clayton Library, Houston, TX, censuses, military, passenger lists, periodicals, family histories, maps, Texas and Southern U.S. records, veritcal files, British vital records index, German, Canadian records.
 * Family History Library, Salt Lake City, UT, holds 450 computers, 3,400 databases, 3.1 million microforms, 4,500 periodicals, 310,000 books of worldwide family and local histories, civil, church, immigration, ethnic, military, and Mormon records.
 * Library of Virginia, Richmond, large genealogy collection including births and deaths 1853-1896, marriages before 1936, histories, biographies, newspapers, Bibles, and huge manuscript collection (about half online), military and Civil War records, deeds, wills and other court records. Many early Tennessee settlers were from Virginia and North Carolina.
 * Santa Cruz Public Library Downtown, CA, holds the Tina Brayton Collection which is equivalent to the Draper Manuscript Collection  but larger and with a better index, and many compiled genealogies of Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia  families.