Genealogy

Ancestry® Library Edition, distributed exclusively by ProQuest and powered by Ancestry.com, delivers billions of records in census data, vital records, directories, photos, and more. Ancestry Library Edition brings the world’s most popular consumer online genealogy resource to your library. It’s an unprecedented online collection of individuals from North America, the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia, and more. Answers await everyone—whether professional or hobbyist, expert or novice, genealogist or historian—inside the more than 7,000 available databases. Here, you can unlock the story of you with sources like censuses, vital records, immigration records, family histories, military records, court and legal documents, directories, photos, maps, and more.

Access to primary source information, including birth and death records, ship logs, and cemetery records.

Digital Library on American Slavery (DLAS) is a freely available and searchable database focused on bringing to light the names of enslaved individuals from court petitions, historical newspapers, and deed records held by Register of Deeds offices across North Carolina.

The Digital Public Library of America empowers people to learn, grow, and contribute to a diverse and better-functioning society by maximizing access to our shared history, culture, and knowledge.

Digital Sanborn Maps (1867-1970) for North Carolina provides digital access to 816 large-scale maps of 158 North Carolina towns and cities, including Asheville, Charlotte, Durham, Raleigh, Winston-Salem and many others. Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps are the most frequently consulted maps in public and academic libraries. Founded in 1867 by D. A. Sanborn, the Sanborn Map Company was the primary American publisher of fire insurance maps for nearly 100 years. The maps were originally compiled to help insurers assess the value of property, identify risk factors, and underwrite losses. These maps contain detailed data such as building outlines, size, use, construction details, and function of structures. They also give street names, street and sidewalk widths, property boundaries, house and block numbers, and other features like pipelines, railroads, wells and dumps. Historians, urban planners, architects, environmentalists, geographers, genealogists, and others will find the maps a valuable tool for exploring the grid of everyday life in the United States across a century of change.

Explore the history and culture of North Carolina through original materials from cultural heritage repositories across the state.

Treasury of American genealogical sources: unique primary sources, local and family histories, and finding aids. Includes historical census, PERSI, Revolutionary War records, and more.

3.5 million pages of digitized content from over 1,000 NC county newspapers.