Tennessee County, Tennessee Genealogy

United States Tennessee  Tennessee County

Tennessee County was organized in 1788 on land in the modern state of Tennessee, but which at the time was part of North Carolina. It was formed from part of the old Davidson County. In 1789 when North Carolina ratified the new Constitution and entered the union, North Carolina ceded its western area, now Tennessee, to the federal government.

In 1796 the modern state of Tennessee was admitted to the union. That was when Tennessee County gave up its name for use by the new state. Tennessee County was then divided into Montgomery and Robertson counties. The land of the extinct Tennessee County now forms the modern Humphreys, Montgomery, and Robertson counties and portions of Stewart, Dickson, Cheatham, and Houston counties.

The records of extinct Tennessee County are now found in Robertson County, Tennessee.

1790 Census- Lost, only statistics survive, but substitutes are available:


 * Eakle, Arlene. Tennessee Research. 2010. Purchase information at Arlene Eakle's Tennessee Genealogy Blog. [Includes a reconstructed 1790 census, sources: "Contemporary lists–tax lists, militia rolls, land grants and deeds, claims for pre-emption lands, names recorded in diaries and journals. And numerous histories compiled by local historians from records that we have not seen or read ourselves."]
 * Fulcher, Richard Carlton, comp. 1770-1790 Census of the Cumberland Settlements: Davidson, Sumner and Tennessee Counties (In what is now Tennessee). Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Pub. Co., 1987. Available at FHL US/CAN Book 976.8 X2f; digital version at World Vital Records ($).
 * McGhee, Lucy Kate. Partial Census of 1787 to 1791 of Tennessee as Taken from the North Carolina Land Grants. 3 Parts. Microfilmed in 1990. FHL US/CAN Films 1728882 Item 4 and 1683130 Item 3.

The following book identifies residents of Tennessee County:


 * East Tennessee Historical Society. First Families of Tennessee: A Register of Early Settlers and Their Present-day Descendants. Knoxville, Tenn.: East Tennessee Historical Society, 2000. FHL US/CAN Book 976.8 H2ff. [Identifies families that had settled in Tennessee before it achieved statehood in 1796.]