Mississippi Genealogical Archives - It is wise to acquaint yourself with any repository which you might visit by writing to the appropriate archive or library in advance. Every repository has published materials that introduce its collections and research policy. State archives and historical agencies also have Internet sites that provide the same information. Some even have downloadable databases for some or parts of their collections.
Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Ph. (601) 576-6850, fax (601) 576-6964 Physical Address: 200 North Street, Jackson, MS 39201 Mailing Address: P. O. Box 571, Jackson, MS 39205-0571
Historic Jefferson College, Mississippi Department of, Archives and History U.S. Highway 61 North, PO Box 100, Washington, MS 39190; Phone: 228.442.2901
"Genealogists are generally positive and energetic, and most are ready to share their findings or research experience with anyone they can help. There are hundreds of genealogical societies at the grass-roots level. Knowledge of the genealogical community will place you in the midst of much activity, increase your productivity, and alert you to the importance of research standards and etiquette." Sandra Hargreaves Luebking,
Editor of FGS Forum, Co-editor of The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy
Mississippi Historical & Genealogical Societies - Because family history research relies greatly upon records found at the county level, many local societies represent counties. Organizations also form around shared interests. Ethnic or religious origins account for many groups, such as the Polish Genealogical Society of America and P.O.I.N.T. (Pursuing Our Italian Names Together). Societies also form around common locales of origin for members’ ancestors; hence, the Palatines to America and Germans from Russia societies. To locate these and other societies, consult Juliana Szucs Smith’s The Ancestry Family Historian’s Address Book. It lists addresses, telephone and fax numbers, and Internet addresses of thousands of organizations throughout the United States.
For almost every state there is a state genealogical society, a state genealogical council, or both. In addition to their own work, state-level groups sometimes help coordinate the efforts of local societies within the state. Their publications, newsletters and quarterlies, supplement those produced by the local societies.
Family Research Association of Mississippi, P.O. Box 13334, Jackson, MS 39236-3334
Mississippi Genealogical Publications - There are many good periodicals and newsletters published by local historical societies throughout the state. A listing of these organizations is kept at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
Over 2,000 newspaper titles have been published in Mississippi since the first paper, the Mississippi Gazette, appeared in Natchez in 1799. With the completion of the Mississippi Newspaper Project, a grant initiated by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History and funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, surviving titles were identified, located, and microfilmed for preservation and research purposes. General bibliographic information was gathered along with detailed holdings data for courthouses, museums, and all types of libraries throughout the state. This information may be accessed through OCLC, a national online database found in many public and academic libraries, or through the Mississippi Union List of Newspapers.
Since it records documented events including births, deaths, and marriages, the newspaper is a source that should not be overlooked by researchers. Furthermore, some titles of newspapers are the only surviving documentation of the existence of a community or town [ see specific county page for individual county list ]
Mississippi Newspapers - "The earliest newspapers in the state were located
in the Tombigbee-Mobile area and included the Mobile Sentinel,
Fort Stoddert, 1811; Mobile Gazette, Mobile, 1812; Halcyon,
St. Stephens, 1815; and Blakeley Sun and Mississippi Advertiser,
Blakeley, 1819. Early newspapers from the Tennessee Valley
included the Madison Gazette, Huntsville, 1812; Florence
Gazette, Florence, 1820; and Tuscumbia Advertiser, Tuscumbia,
1821. Other pre-statehood papers included the Cahawba Press
and Mississippi Intelligencer, Cahawba, 1819; Mississippi Courier,
Claiborne, 1819; and Tuscaloosa Republican, Tuscaloosa,
1819.
Mississippi law requires that all county newspapers that carry
legal notices be maintained by that county's probate judge.
Few of the county collections are complete.
The Mississippi Department of Archives and History has participated
in a National Endowment for the Humanities project to preserve
old newspapers. A statewide inventory of all repositories
was followed by a project to microfilm newspapers of historic
significance. A national union list is available for the
project, which indexes newspapers by name, place of publication,
language, and date of publication. Each entry indicates
which issues of the newspaper are extant and the repository
which houses those issues. Larger libraries and archives
should have the publication United States Newspaper Project
National Union List, Microfilm: June 1987, 2d ed. (Dublin,
Ohio, 1987)."
While records of birth, marriage, and death are the most commonly sought and the most consistently helpful records, only the genealogist’s imagination and resourcefulness limit newspapers’ usefulness in supplying clues about historical events, local history, probate court and legal notices, real estate transactions, political biographies, announcements, notices of new and terminated partnerships, business advertisements, and notices for settling debts.
Newspapers can provide at least a partial substitute for nonexistent civil records. For example, a person’s obituary may have appeared in a newspaper even when civil death records for that person do not exist. And newspapers are an important source of marriage records, particularly in those states where civil recording of marriages was essentially nonexistent until the twentieth century.
Unlike official records, newspapers are not limited to a particular geographical area. They often include reports of the weddings of local citizens (even those that occurred in a neighboring county or another state), and they sometimes report visits of geographically distant relatives or the visits of former local residents. They often published death notices of individuals who had left the area long before but who still had local family or friends as well. In each case the newspaper account can identify the date and place of an event, thus opening the possibility of turning up additional documentation in other sources.
The first step in searching a newspaper is to identify those which served the area of interest and which have survived. The three most necessary tools are bibliographies (What was published?), inventories of library and depository holdings (Where is it?), and indexes (How do I find what I want in it?).
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