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Forgive me if you've already thought of all the below, but . . .
The pre 1790 Federal census period can be challenging, but to me, that makes it more fun! You just have to be willing to spend a lot of time hunting and maybe even do some travelling.
On the Federal level, there ARE pre-1800 records: military (militia) and land records and even the regional Federal court records can be good sources. You should be able to find source lists of available records and order the microfilm of these records via a larger public library in your area or via a nearby Family History Center.
On the state level in Tennessee and North Carolina, good sources include land and militia records, court cases, newspaper articles, and maps. I LOVE historic plat maps! If you can find neighbors with the same surnames who might be relatives you can try to track THOSE lines to see if you can find intersecting ancestors. Take a fun trip to Nashville or Raleigh!
On the local county(counties) level there could also be a lot:
Have you hunted through wills and probate? I love probate - if the family owned anything at all, even a feather bed, there will probably be probate records that list creditors and heirs - who may be "cousin Hattie in Charleston" - and then you go record hunting there!
Have you walked every cemetery in the area or tried to find published cemetery records for that area? Yes, that awful sandstone has lost us all kinds of info - but maybe you'll luck out and find that someone in 1972 recorded a tombstone on which was inscribed: "born in X county in 1778".
I think it's unlikely that your ancestors weren't connected with some kind of church in 1800 - it was just an accepted part of life then. Find out if there are Baptist or Methodist repositories in that area and contact them - nothing beats marriage or baptismal records for finding parents names!
You might even have to do some guessing based on probable migration patterns, and hunt blind in South Carolina or Virginia.
Finally and most importantly - Have you been to or contacted the genealogical societies or public libraries in that region? They will have a good idea of what the available pre-1790 sources are, and they will also have books and periodicals containing work previous genealogists have done about that region. There's SO much material that hasn't made it on-line yet!
And if you can't find anything on that line, put it aside and work another. In all probability eventually something will jump out at you that takes you back to the other family and breaks the gridlock.
There weren't any formal towns in the area (within a hundred miles or so) at the time my g-g-g-grandparents were born, well, other than the Cherokee towns, more of a loose regional association of farmers living in groups of two or three extended families at any given site. Going "to town" meant Knoxville which was a very small town at the time, more of a trading post really. I doubt they were paying taxes to anyone before 1805 unless it was federal. This branch of my family also didn't belong to an organized religion as far as I can tell. They buried their dead on family land in sandstone tents. Not sure if that's common anywhere else but that's what the oldest graves around here are. Two slabs of sandstone about six feet by two feet leaned together with smaller blocks covering the ends. Sometimes marked with names and dates sometimes not. The oldest graves are all family plots. I don't think church cemeteries were ever as popular here as in New England, at least not among my family. They went from burying in family plots to non-denominational "town cemeteries".
The main thing that bugs me about this line is that as much oral history as was passed down about their early lives here ab-so-lut-ly nothing was included about where they came from.
That IS frustrating. Maybe if it's not too common a name you could start somewhere way back and work forward? I don't know if anyone ever does that or if it works but what else can you do?
I don't know what dates you're stuck on, but war records, or immigration records. Assuming that they started in the east and worked their way west there might be a shred somewhere. There's so much information available online now to get clues from.
churches kept records and towns kept records. That's how it is in New England anyway. I was helping someone from the midwest and there were cemetary burial records kept at a university.
That's true in New England because it got populated quickly and more densely compared to some areas. Research in the south is often more difficult in earlier times.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EnricoV
Have you ever looked at what constitutes the Mid-West? Most of it's not even in the west, much less being the middle of it.
I'll restart this:
Before our Independence vital birth, marriage and death/burial records were mostly kept by churches, though in southern New England many towns also kept a copy from pretty early days of European settlement.
In Massachusetts each town kept these vital records in a register book and old towns like Dedham have these going back to about 1639 or so (as do many towns around Boston) though not all are complete. Towns in other New England states also kept vital records in colonial times as well, but not all.
In the southern states as a rule the churches kept these records and not the gov't, and these sometimes did not survive the ravages of time. This is where you will encounter more difficulties, though there are other records which one can consult to try and figure out children's names, death dates, married names of daughters, etc.
Old wills and probate records are good to examine as they tend to give details of children, in-laws and such. Deeds and land grants are also helpful in determining kin relations. But it is more 'hit or miss' with the southern states because of the lack of extant vital records in many cases.
Some colonies (and just cities) in the colonial period did conduct censuses. To name a few, the colony of Rhode Island did in 1774, Maryland also around that time, North Carolina did in the mid-1780s. Old tax lists and records can also be helpful in leiu of a census. Then you have petitions relating to soldiers' pay, disability pensions and widows pensions in the American Revolution which can be loaded with biographical information--these could be files many years after service.
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