Genealogy Research
Helping you find your roots in Camden County is one of the projects at our museum. We have collected thousands of obits and death certificates over the years, and these are available for your viewing or copying. Our in-house data base contains information on over 157,000 people – mostly from Camden County. New names are added every week.
We have census and cemetery records from Camden and other nearby counties. Also, a listing of the graves that were moved to higher ground due to the formation of the lake in 1931. Most of the cemeteries in our county have been walked and documented.
Many family histories have been donated to the museum and are ready to help you find your elusive ancestor. If you have a history of your family, we would love to have a copy. You never know who you will help get over that infamous “brick wall”.
Please remember that we are self supporting and need your donations for maintenance of records, building, cemeteries and exhibits.
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Our research volunteers are happy to assist you in If you are unable to visit us in person, send us an email with your inquiry. Camden County Historical Society If you write to us, please include a daytime phone # so we can contact you with any questions. Our records include:
Donations of books, family histories and documentary materials pertaining to Camden County and its people are always welcome! We are happy to help you with your Camden County family research as long as this information is in our archives. |
| Life in the Past Lane… by our Research Specialist TRUTH OR FICTION (from the January 2014 Newsletter) You have decided to trace your family tree. You have accumulated a lot of facts, stories and family documents. You are ready to start. If you want an accurate record of your ancestry, you must prove each fact and work from the present backwards, from the known to the unknown. If you take the information on just one record as fact, you might follow an incorrect family when researching. Just because a person has the same name as the ancestor you are looking for doesn’t make him the correct individual. Do not start from a person generations ago and follow the lines down to the present. It’s nearly impossible to research this way. It will not work! When your ancestry is laid out for ten generations, there are 512 couples that are directly responsible for your existence. If any one of these 1,024 individuals had not lived, you would not be here! Pretty amazing. This applies to everyone, not just those with large families. Most family stories have some truth to them but are rarely backed up with documentation. It’s your job to verify the validity of all the information you have found. Pay close attention to the recorded information. Do the dates make sense? Does the chronology make sense? Divide the information into several categories. Vital records are primarily birth, marriage, or death records for certain time periods. They may also include baptisms, divorces, adoptions, and immigration, military, etc., or any other fact that is legally recorded or verifiable with official records. Vital records were not always required or kept in the same format or locations as they are today. Determine where the record might be. You will find records at almost every Governmental division within any given state. Some states keep them at the town or county level. There are many books and Web sites available for family research that make it much easier than it was ten years ago. One of the most used records is the census. Keep in mind, birth, death or marriage dates can be inaccurate for many reasons. Has the record you need survived to this day? Fires, natural disasters or just plain neglect have caused records to be destroyed or simply lost over the generation. In many cases an obituary or death notice, no matter how brief, may provide you with names, ages, surviving family members, church affiliation, funeral home and place of burial. All in all, you must always be skeptical of any unverified information. |
Families that have donated their family trees to us
Also the number of names on our
in-house genealogy database is 164,000
ANDERSON
AKER
BANISTER
BARNHARDT
BECHTEL
BECKER
BLACK
BLANKENSHIP
BOLES
BOONE
BROWN
BURNS
CARNAHAN
COLLICOTT
COX
CRAIG
CRAIN
CREACH
CYRUS
DAUGHERTY
DAWSON
DORITY
DOYLE
DRISKILL
EDDE
ELDRED
ELKENBERRY
FRISBIE
FROST
FUDGE
FULBRIGHT
GARRISON
GERHARDT
GREEN
HANKINS
HERRING
HICKS/HIX
HOPKINS
JEFFRIES
LONG
LUCY
LUTTRELL
MAHER
MARIDAHL
MCCAIN
MCCLANAHAN
MORGAN
MOULDER
NICHOLSON
NORTH
O’MOONEY
OWSLEY
PARRACK
PARRICK
PARRISH
PHILLIPS
POPE
PURVIS
RITTER
ROACH
ROGERS
ROOFFENER
RUSSELL
SALSMAN
SELBY
SHARP
SHIPMAN
SHUBERT
SKAGGS
SMITH
STARK
STIDHAM
TOBEY
TRAW
VINCENT
WALLS
WATKINS
WOODALL
WOOLSEY
YADON
YOUNG