Granville County, North Carolina Genealogy

Guide to Granville County, North Carolina ancestry, family history, and genealogy birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, family history, and military records.

County Courthouse
Granville County Courthouse 101 Main Street Oxford, NC 27565-3318 Phone: 919-693-6314 Clerk Superior Court has divorce, probate and land record  Register of Deeds PO Box 427 Oxford, NC 27565 Telephone: 919-693-6314 Fax: 919-693-6314 Website  Clerk of Superior Court 101 Main Street Oxford, NC 27565 Telephone: (919) 690-4800  The first court sessions for  Granville County were held in the home of William Eaton. In 1749, a court house and jail were built by contract, for £150 Virginia currency. The dimensions of the court house were 32 feet long, 20 feet wide, and 11 feet pitch, with two windows on each side, and one window in each end above stairs, with shutters, but without glass. The jail was 20 feet long and 10 feet wide. That remarkable good order prevailed in Granville at this early period, is naturally inferred from the scanty provision made by the court for the safe keeping of criminals.

The court house was located in what is now Warren county, seven miles above Gaston, on Rocky Creek, near Boiling Spring. Bute county was formed from Granville in 1764, which was, in 1779, divided into Warren and Franklin, and the name of Bute was obliterated from the list of counties in North Carolina. Granville being reduced in 1764 to its present dimensions, the place for holding its courts was removed some two miles above the town of Henderson, at the mouth of Mr. Brodie's lane, on the road leading to Oxford, where one or two terms of the court were held, when it was removed to Harrisburg, and after holding one court, it was removed to Oxford about 1769.

History
Granville County was formed in 1746 from Edgecombe County, in honor of the Earl of Granville, "the owner of the soil". As Edgecombe came out of Craven about 1733, Granville is therefore a grandson of Craven. When it was first established in 1746 Granville embraced for a period of five years, until 1751, all of present Warren, Franklin and Vance, most of Orange, including the present Person, Caswell, Orange, and Wake, Chatham, Durham, Alamance, a part of Guilford and perhaps all of Rockingham, a vast territory, of which one William Person was the first Sheriff. After 1751 Orange County and Granville dominated this wide Virginia line area until Wake and Chatham were formed around 1770, for the evident purpose of forestalling the restless and embryonic "regulator" element, who were becoming enraged over the aggravating fees and burden levied by the prosperous "office holders" of the two large domains. In 1764, Bute County was established out of the territory now embraced by Warren and Franklin Counties, and thus Granville's size was again appreciably reduced. From 1764 until 1851, a period of eighty-seven (87) years, Granville County included its present boundaries plus most of present Vance Co. The first officers of the County were Wm. Person, 1st Sheriff; Robert Foster, Clerk; Robert Jones, Jr., King's Attorney; Wm. Eaton, William Person, James Payne, Edw'd Jones, Edw'd Martin, John Wade, Lemuel Lanier, Gideon Macon, John Brantly, West Harris, Lemuel Henderson, and Jonathan White, Justices of the Peace. According to the earliest records of North Carolina, the area that became Granville was first settled around 1715, at which time most of the Native American Indians migrated to other locations leaving it ripe for new settlements. Among the first settlements in Granville were those along the northern border on Nutbush and Grassy Creek, and on Tar River.

Parent County
1746--Granville County was established 28 June 1746 from Edgecombe County. County seat: Oxford

Boundary Changes
Granville County has gone through many boundary changes over the years since it was originally an extremely large area that engulfed much of the northern Piedmont section of the territory along the Virginia border. As stated above, most of the counties in the area were once a part of Granville, first when Orange was formed from parts of Granville, Bladen &amp; Johnston in 1752, and then in 1764 when Bute County was formed. Both Orange and Bute Counties spawned new counties of their own over the succeeding years, and current day Granville only covers a small portion of its once vast holdings.

Then in 1786, there was another slight variation in County lines. While Bute County had been retired in 1779 when it was divided to form Franklin County from its sourthern half and Warren from the northern half, there was a further change a few years later. According to "Formation of the NC Counties 1663-1943", by David Leroy Corbitt, part of Granville was annexed to Warren in 1786 "Beginning at the point where the line of division between Warren and Granville counties shall touch the line of division between this State and the State of Virginia, and running thence west along the said line to Nutbush creek; thence up said creek it meanders to the mouth of Anderson's swamp, thence to Stark's mill, thence by a line to be run due south until it shall touch the aforesaid line of division between Warren and Granville, be, and the same is hereby annexed to and shall remain a part of the county of Warren..."

This same area later became a part of Vance County in 1881 when that county was formed mostly from Granville and parts of Warren County.

For animated maps illustrating North Carolina county boundary changes, "Rotating Formation North Carolina County Boundary Maps" (1664-1965) may be viewed for free at the MapofUS.org website.

Record Loss
Many early Marriage Bonds missing. Will Books from 1746-1772 missing, although 71 unrecorded wills for that time period are on microfilm. Court Minutes 1746-1780 missing. Many Court Minutes from 1780-1820 are missing.

Neighboring Counties

 * Durham
 * Franklin
 * Halifax County, Virginia
 * Mecklenburg County, Virginia
 * Person
 * Vance
 * Wake

Cemeteries

 * Good Hope Baptist Church - Youngsville, NC
 * Shiloh Cemetery

Baptist

 * Flat River. Meeting held by 1773.
 * Grassy Creek. Established by 1757. "A History of Grassy Creek Baptist Church" online at Internet Archive
 * Tab's Creek. Constituted 1775.
 * Tar River. Church built 1765. Edwards published a list of early members in Materials Towards a History of the Baptists... (1772), 139.
 * "History of the Baptists in North Carolina" - by David Benedict (1779-1874), Colonial &amp; State Records, Documenting the American South
 * "History of the Presbyterians in North Carolina" - by Wm. Henry Foote (1794-1869), Colonial &amp; State Records, Documenting the American South

Church of England

 * Granville Parish. Established 1746. St. John's Church aka Nutbush Church was located in this parish. It is currently situated in Vance County.

Court

 * Patterson (Peterson) vs Cheek 1754
 * Brown vs Brady-1812
 * Jones vs Jones -1812
 * Horton vs Reavis -1818
 * James M. Burton vs Jesse Dickens-1819
 * Jeter &amp; Jeter vs Littleton-1819
 * Maurice Smith vs Woodson Daniel -1819
 * John Taylor vs Mary Lanier-1819
 * Vass vs Hicks-1819
 * Hamilton vs Wright &amp; Parrish-1826
 * Robert W. Burton vs James Stamper-1849
 * Justices of the Peace Appointed 1778

Land
The Register of Deeds Office exists to provide proper maintenance, storage, recording, and indexing of the County’s public records. The Department files and indexes vital records (birth, death and marriages) and issues marriage licenses. Real Estate documents (deeds, deeds of trust, plats, etc.) are recorded, indexed and scanned for permanent records. Military discharges are filed and indexed. The office provides copies of all documents when requested. Oath of office is given to notaries commissioned in the county.

Granville County Register of Deeds 101 Main Street P. O. Box 906 Oxford, NC 27565 919-693-6314

Granville County Property &amp; Plat Search Page

A number of Granville County deeds have been transcribed, these are links to them:


 * Granville County Deeds 1746-1751, Pt. 1
 * Granville County Deeds 1746-1751, Pt. 2
 * Collection of Bradford Family Deeds
 * Deed William Smith Boyd
 * Lloyd Deeds
 * Searcy-Searcy Deed

Maps

 * Colonial homesites in Granville County
 * North Carolina in 1779
 * Historical Map of Granville 1741-1931
 * 1868 Granville County Survey Map
 * 1880 Granville County - just before formation of Vance Co.
 * Paths and Towns of North Carolina 1779
 * North Carolina Formation of Counties
 * Early Map of North Carolina 1685
 * Historic Overlay Maps - selected maps from NC Maps Project can be viewed layered direction on top of current road maps
 * 1895 Granville County

Revolutionary War

 * 1779 - 1782 - at FamilySearch — index and images

Civil War
Online Records
 * 1861 - 1865 - at FamilySearch.org — index and images
 * 1861 - 1865 - at FamilySearch.org — index and images
 * 1861 - 1865 - U.S., Confederate Soldiers Compiled Service Records, 1861-1865 at Ancestry — index (free)
 * 1861 - 1865 - U.S., Union Soldiers Compiled Service Records, 1861-1865 at Ancestry — index (free)
 * 1885 - 1953 - at FamilySearch — index and images


 * -8th Regiment, North Carolina Infantry
 * - 12th Regiment, North Carolina Infantry, 2nd Company D
 * - 12th Regiment, North Carolina Infantry, Company B
 * - 15th Regiment, North Carolina Infantry, formerly the 5th Volunteers, Company E
 * - 1st Brigade, North Carolina Reserves, Company B
 * - 1st Regiment, North Carolina Junior Reserves, Company B
 * - 3rd Battalion, North Carolina Senior Reserves, Company C
 * - 8th Regiment, North Carolina Infantry, Company D

World War I

 * 1917 - 1919 - at FamilySearch — index and images

World War II

 * 1940 - 1948 - at FamilySearch — index and images

Newspapers

 * Granville County residents in the newspaper - name listing of people from the county as located in misc. newspaper articles; time span varies. Articles indexed in the NC People in the Papers database.
 * North Carolina Newspaper Abstracts-a Bibliography

Probate
Online Probate Records


 * 1660 - 1790 - North Carolina Will Abstracts 1660-1790 at Ancestry.com — index and images $
 * 1663 - 1979 - at FamilySearch — index and images
 * 1665 - 1998 - North Carolina Wills and Probate Records 1665-1998 at Ancestry.com — index and images $
 * 1735 - 1970 - at FamilySearch.org — images
 * 1760 - 1800 - North Carolina Will Abstracts 1760-1800 at Ancestry.com — index and images
 * 1749 - 1771 - Images of Wills and Estates (unrecorded) North Carolina Pioneers ($)

Granville County Courthouse 101 Main Street Oxford, NC 27565 Clerk of the Superior Court (919) 693-2649

The courthouse has copies of Wills, Estate Records, etc. starting from 1746. Contact the County Clerk's office for details and pricing.


 * Pre - 1790 - Pre-1790 Wills stored at the North Carolina State Archives are online - free. Website tips.


 * 1749 - 1771, 1945 - 1961 - have been digitized by FamilySearch - free.

A number of websites have indexed or transcribed wills and estate records for Granville County:


 * 1746 - 1919 - Index to Loose Estate Papers of Granville Co., 1746-1919
 * Index to transcribed Granville County Wills
 * Index to Unpublished Wills abstracted by Z. H. Gwynn

Taxation
Copies of transcribed Tax Records can be found at following websites:


 * 1755 Tax Roll for Granville County
 * 1788 Granville County Tax List
 * 1845 Voters List-Brassfield
 * 1845 Voters List-Youngs Crossroads
 * Emory Surnamed Tax Lists
 * Lloyd Surnamed Tax Lists
 * George's Genealogical Filing Cabinet - many early Granville tax lists

Vital Records
Copies of Birth, Death and Marriage Records can be obtained from the Register of Deeds. Birth &amp; Death records start at 1913, Marriage records started in 1758; contact the office to verify copies of specific records are available:

Granville County Register of Deeds 101 Main Street P. O. Box 906 Oxford, NC 27565 919-693-6314

Birth

 * 1800 - 2000 - at FamilySearch.org — index
 * 1866 - 1964 - at FamilySearch.org — index
 * 1870 - 1890 - Granville County Delayed Birth Records, 1870-1890
 * 1891 - 1900 - Granville County Delayed Birth Records, 1891-1900

Death

 * Granville County Executions
 * 1898 - 1994 - at FamilySearch.org — index
 * 1906 - 1930 - at FamilySearch.org — index and images
 * 1908 - 2004 - North Carolina Death Indexes 1908-2004 at Ancestry.com — index $
 * 1909 - 1975 - North Carolina Death Certificates 1909-1975 at Ancestry.com — index and images $
 * 1931 - 1994 - at FamilySearch.org — index

Divorce

 * 1926 - 1975 - at FamilySearch — index and images
 * 1958 - 2004 - North Carolina Divorce Index 1958-2004 at Ancestry.com — index $

Marriage

 * 1741 - 2004 - North Carolina, United States Marriages at FindMyPast — index $
 * 1746 - 1961 - Granville County Marriage Index 1746-1961 in International Genealogical Index at FamilySearch - free.
 * Pre - 1825 -Granville County Marriages to 1825 (sorted by bride)
 * 1826 - 1847 - Granville County Marriages, 1826-1857: Brides  (partial)
 * 1826 - 1847 - Granville County Marriages, 1826-1857: Grooms (partial)
 * 1867 - 1872 - Granville County Marriage Register 1867-1872
 * Granville County Assorted Marriages
 * Granville County Freedmen's Marriages
 * 1741 - 2004 - North Carolina Marriage Index 1741-2004 at Ancestry.com — index $
 * 1759 - 1979 - at FamilySearch.org — index
 * 1762 - 1979 - at FamilySearch — index and images
 * 1763 - 1868 - at FamilySearch — index and images

Yearbooks

 * Granville County Yearbooks

Societies and Libraries
Granville County Genealogical Society, Inc PO Box 1746 Oxford, NC 27565 Website

Granville County Historical Society PO Box 1433, Oxford, North Carolina 27565

Tar River Connections Genealogical Society PO Box 8764 Rocky Mount, NC 27804 Website

Granville County Public Library

Websites

 * Granville County, NC History, Records, Facts and Genealogy (Genealogy Inc)
 * USGenWeb Project. May have maps, name indexes, history or other information for this county. Select the state, then the county.
 * Granville County NCGenWeb Project
 * Granville County USGenWeb Archives