Tennessee Bible Records

Online Resources

 * Tennessee Bible Records, Tennessee State Library and Archives

Online Records

 * The Family Bible Index - over 200,000 entries
 * The National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) has an index of over 40,000 digitized family Bible records and each day more records are digitized and added to the Index.
 * Index to Early Bible Records provides a free index to over 17,000 online and offline pre-1830 Bible records.


 * Tennessee Bible Records at: Bible Records

The best resource for Tennessee family Bible information is:


 * Daughters of the American Revolution (Tennessee). Genealogy Bible Treasures: A Digital Photo Preservation and Index of Pre-depression Era Bible Records. Knoxville, Tenn.: Tennessee Valley Pub., 2009. . Read Dick Eastman's review.

Another excellent list is Index to Early Bible Records (pre-1830; 17,000 entries).

Additional family Bible resources for Tennessee include:


 * Acklen, Jeannette Tillotson. Tennessee Records: Bible Records and Marriage Bonds. Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publications, 1967. . A surname index is included. The record contains Bible records, marriage bonds, various tombstone inscriptions, obituary notices, abstracts from wills, historical and biographical sketches, and pension records. The name, parents’ names, and date of birth of slaves are sometimes given.
 * Owens, Fae Jacobs. Bible Records, Hatchie Chapter, National Society, Daughters of the American Revolution Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tennessee. Bolivar, Tennessee: Bolivar Commercial Printing, 1977.. A surname index is included. The record includes birth, marriage, and death information.
 * Tennessee State Library and Archives, Manuscript Section. Bible Record Collection, ca. 1700–1970. Nashville, Tennessee: State Library and Archives, 1974. . The records are arranged alphabetically by family name, then given name. They contain birth, death, and marriage dates of immediate family members, and occasionally dates of servants, slaves, and others. They also include the years the records cover, the county where the Bible was found, and the owner’s name and city.
 * Watauga Association of Genealogists. Tennessee Bible and Family Records. Johnson City, Tenn.: Watauga Association of Genealogists, 1996..

Bible records donated to the Tennessee State Library and Archives since 1970 are included in the library’s vertical file. A card file at the archive provides access.

The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) collection also contains many Tennessee Bible records. This collection is described in the Tennessee Genealogy wiki article. A partial index of these records is in:


 * Bible Records of Families of East Tennessee and Their Connections from Other Areas. Three Volumes. Knoxville, Tennessee: Genealogical Records Committee of Knoxville Chapter, Daughters of the American Colonists and James White Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, 1959–1960., . An index is included with each volume.

Also useful for locating Tennessee Bible records:

Many periodicals publish family data from Bible records. They can be identified by using Allen County Public Library's PERiodical Source Index (PERSI), which is available online at both Ancestry ($) and Heritage Quest Online ($).
 * Kirkham, E. Kay. An Index to Some of the Family Records of the Southern States: 35,000 Microfilm References from the N.S.D.A.R. Files and Elsewhere. Logan, Utah: Everton Publishers, 1979.

Copies, or abstracts of old family Bibles that are no longer known to exist, may survive in Revolutionary War Pension application files at NARA, Washington, D.C., which are available online at three commercial websites: Ancestry, Fold3, and Heritage Quest Online.

Published Tennessee Bible information and sources can be found in the Place Search of the FamilySearch Catalog under:

TENNESSEE - BIBLE RECORDS

TENNESSEE, [COUNTY] - BIBLE RECORDS

Tennessee Bible Records
A Bible was often given by relatives to a bride as a wedding gift, where she recorded information about her immediate family and close relatives. Relationships were seldom stated but were often implied. Names of parents, children, and their spouses, including maiden names, were frequently given along with dates of birth, marriage, and death. Sometimes the age of a person was given at the time of death. Many families kept Bible records from the 1700s (and sometimes earlier) to more recent times, although few have survived. Some have been donated to local libraries or societies.

Many families traditionally recorded genealogies in their family Bible. These are a good source of information about immediate family members and relatives, including names of parents, children, their spouses, and their dates of birth, marriage, and death. For some families, Bible records may have the only recorded vital statistics information. Family Bibles that are no longer in possession of the family may be at a historical or genealogical society.