Georgia Archives and Libraries

United States Georgia Archives and Libraries

These repositories preserve sources, maintain indexes, and provide services to help genealogists document their ancestors who lived in Georgia.

Online Records

Links to online databases and indexes that may include vital records, biographies, cemeteries, censuses, histories, immigration records, land records, maps, military records, naturalizations, newspapers, obituaries, or probate records.

National

National Archives at Atlanta
5780 Jonesboro Road
Morrow, Georgia 30260 USA
Phone: 770-968-2100
Fax: 770-968-2547
E-mail: atlanta.archives@nara.gov
Internet: National Archives at Atlanta

Records from over 100 federal agencies and courts in Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. Also includes Vice Admiralty Courts of SC, evolution of federal courts, Constitutional rights, Revolutionary War, Civil War, reconstruction, World Wars I and II, and space exploration. Microfilms for censuses, diplomatic missions, military service records, bounty-land applications, passenger arrival lists, naturalizations, American Indians, and African Americans.

Dallas Public Central Library
1515 Young St.
Dallas, TX 75201-9987 USA
Telephone: 214-670-1433
E-mail: genealogy@dallaslibrary.org
Internet: Dallas Public Library Genealogy

Outstanding genealogical collection with records for more than Texas, including Georgia, Oklahoma, the South, Mid-Atlantic, and New England states.

Statewide

Georgia Archives
5800 Jonesboro Road
Morrow, GA 30260
Telephone: 678 364-3710
Fax: 678-364-3860
E-mail: Ask an Archivist form
Internet: Georgia Archives

Holdings include state government records, county records, and Georgia histories. This is the best place to start family history research in Georgia. They preserve genealogies, county histories, newspapers, tax digests, private papers, church records, cemeteries, Bible records, a few municipal records, census, maps, land plats, photographs, Georgia Confederate service and pension records, colonial, headright, and bounty land grants, land lottery, and Georgia county records.

Georgia's Virtual Vault provides virtual access to historic Georgia manuscripts, photographs, maps, and government records housed in the state archives. It includes Colonial will books, Confederate pension applications, County maps, County tax digests, Georgia death certificates, headright and bounty plats, marriage records, Spanish-American War service summary cards and more.

Two helpful guides to the collection are:

• Georgia Department of Archives and History. A Preliminary Guide to Eighteenth-Century Records Held by the Georgia Department of Archives and History (Atlanta, Ga.: GDAH, 1976). WorldCat 5089484 FHL Fiche 6100334; Book 975.8 A3pg.
• Robert Scott Davis Jr. Research in Georgia (Easley, SC: Southern Historical Press, 1981). WorldCat 7406263 FHL Book 975.8 D27d.

Georgia Historical Society
501 Whitaker Street
Savannah, GA 31401
Telephone: 912-651-2128
Fax: 912-651-2831
E-mail: ghslib@georgiahistory.com
Internet: About the Research Center

They have almost as many genealogical sources as the Georgia Archives.

Georgia Genealogical Society
P.O. Box 550247
Atlanta, GA 30355-2747
E-mail: Contact form
Internet: Georgia Genealogical Society

They provide research advice, but have no library collection or building of their own.

Regional

Athens-Clarke County Library Heritage Room
2025 Baxter Street
Athens,GA 30606
Telephone: 706-613-3650 ext 350
E-mail: heritageroomref@athenslibrary.org
Internet: Heritage Room

This book, map, microfilm and archival collection spans the southeastern United States and up the East Coast, with limited holdings pertaining to New England. Local history holdings include vertical files, surname files and newspapers. The Heritage Room is a department of the Athens-Clarke County Library, part of the Athens Regional Library System, and the Reading Room maintains separate hours of the rest of the Library. Registration with a government-issued photo ID is required.

Atlanta History Center
130 West Paces Ferry Road NW
Atlanta, GA 30305
Telephone: 404-814-4000
E-mail: Contact Us form
Internet: Atlanta History Center

Sources for studying Atlanta and southern regional history and culture. The 42,000 square foot library possesses over 15,000 cubic feet of records, including 33,000 published volumes, more than 2,000 manuscript and photograph collections, and 7,800 rolls of microfilm.

Atlanta-Fulton Public Library Central Library
Special Collections
One Margaret Mitchell Square
Atlanta, GA 30303
Telephone: 404-730-1896
E-mail: referenceline@fultoncountyga.gov
Internet: Special Collections

Their Historic Georgia, and Genealogy collections are large with good coverage of the Southeast United States. They have county histories, family histories, limited indexes to wills, deeds, military rosters, passenger lists, and Atlanta city directories, Georgia censuses 1820-1930, local histories, and Georgia newspapers.

Coweta County Genealogical Society Research Library
8 Carmichael Street
Newnan, Georgia
Telephone: 470-215-1966
E-mail: info@ccgsinc.org
Internet: Research Library

Holdings include the best set of family folders in Georgia.

DeKalb History Center
Old Courthouse on the Square
101 East Court Square
Decatur, GA 30030
Telephone: 404-373-1088
Fax: 404-373-8287
E-mail: info@dekalbhistory.org
Internet: DeKalb History Center

Subject files, biographical files, DeKalb County cemetery index, maps, manuscripts, photographs, rare books, DeKalb County collection such as memoirs, yearbooks, and Atlanta City and suburban directories.

Ellen Payne Odom Genealogy Library
Moultrie-Colquitt County Library
204 5th Street, S.E.
Moultrie, Georgia 31768 USA
Telephone: 229-985-6540
E-mail: mccls@mccls.org
Internet: Ellen Payne Odom Genealogy Library

Emphasizes Scottish immigrants to America, but also has a good basic American genealogy collection.

Georgia Salzburger Society
Loest Research Library
2980 Ebenezer Road
Georgia Highway 275
Rincon, Georgia 31326
Telephone: 912-754-7001
E-mail: gaslzbrgr@aol.com
Internet: Genealogy

Histories, journals, genealogical records, and church histories.

Gilbert H. Gragg Library a Southwest Georgia Regional Library
301 S. Monroe Street
Bainbridge, Georgia 39819
Telephone: 229-248-2665
Fax: 229-248-2670
E-mail: librarian@swgrl.org
Internet: Gilbert H. Gragg Library

They have very good book, surname folder, genealogy, newspaper, and oral history collections.

Huxford-Spear Genealogical Library
Street address: 20 S. College St.
Mailing address: P.O. Box 595
Homerville, GA 31634
Telephone: 912-487-2310
E-mail: huxford.spearlibrary@windstream.net
Internet:Huxford Genealogical Society, Inc.

This collection covers the southeast United States well, including 14,000 files on families from south Georgia and north Florida.

Ladson Genealogical Library
Ohoopee Regional Library System
125 Church Street, Suite 104
Vidalia, GA 30474
Telephone: 912-537-8186
E-mail: fennelld@ohoopeelibrary.org Debra Fennell, Heritage Librarian
Internet: Ladson Genealogical Library

This is primarily a book collection, but their genealogical sources cover the entire Atlantic seaboard. Also has historic photos and school records of Toombs and Montgomery counties.

Thomasville Genealogical, History and Fine Arts Library
135 North Broad Street
Thomasville, Georgia 31792 USA
Telephone: 229-226-9640
Fax: 229-226-3199
E-mail: glibrary@rose.net
Internet: The Thomasville Genealogical, History & Fine Arts Library

Good collection of southern states family history material such as immigration records, marriages and deaths, Internet access, censuses, and state and county histories. Thomas County records include probate, marriage, land, Confederate pensions, Revolutionary War pension applications, newspapers, the Hopkins Collection, and African American obituaries.

University of Georgia Main Library
320 S. Jackson Street
Athens, GA 30602-1641
Telephone: 706-542-3251
E-mail: Ask a question form
Internet: UGA Libraries

They have the largest collection in the state of manuscripts about early Georgia settlers. Also, they hold county histories, county records, family records, biographies and newspapers.

Washington Memorial Library a Middle Georgia Regional Library
Genealogical & Historical Room
1180 Washington Avenue
Macon, GA 31201-1790
Telephone: 478-744-0821
E-mail: mgrlgh@bibblib.org
Internet: Genealogical & Historical Room

One of the best collections in Georgia for genealogy, African Americans, and local history. 32,000 volumes, 24,000 microfilms with an emphasis on the 13 American colonies, the American Revolutionary War, England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland.

For Further Reading

• Ellen Garrison, ed., Archives in Appalachia: A Directory (Boone, North Carolina: Appalachian Consortium Press, 1985). WorldCat 12712710; FHL Book 975 A3a. This work covers the states of Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. The record is arranged alphabetically by state, then by the name of the repository. Each entry lists the archive, its address, phone number, inclusive dates of the collection, the records of the collection, what subjects are covered by the collection, and the size of the collection.

References