Understand Lincoln County & Rowan County, NC. Home of the Jenkins

 Like I stated last week, I needed to stop and wrap my head around some of the timeline of records for Lincoln and Rowan County, NC. Land, marriage, and census records seem to be the only records that go back far enough to aid in my search for Lincolnc County. However, Rowan County will have a great deal more information.

What was the timeline for historical records in Lincoln County, NC?

 

Lincoln County, North Carolina Record Dates[edit | edit source]

Information for this chart was taken from various sources, often containing conflicting dates. This information should be taken as a guide and should be verified by contacting the county and/or the state government agency.

Known Beginning Dates for Major County Records[4]
Birth*	Marriage	Death*	Court	Land	Probate	Census
1913	1779	1913	1920	1763	1869	1784
*Statewide registration for births and deaths started in 1913. General compliance by 1920.

Record Loss[edit | edit source]

·        1797 Fire in home, small record loss For suggestions about research in places that suffered historic record losses, see: ·        Burned Counties. By Michael John Neill at 24-7 Family History Circle. ·        When the Records are Gone. By Arlene Eakle at Arlene Eakle's Tennessee Blog. ·        Burned Counties Research in the FamilySearch Research Wiki. ·        List of counties in the United States with Record Loss

Boundary Changes[edit | edit source]

·        1778 Lincoln County was created 14 April 1778 from Tryon County. Tryon County was abolished in 1779. ·        County seat: Lincolnton[5] For animated maps illustrating North Carolina county boundary changes, "Rotating Formation North Carolina County Boundary Maps" (1664-1965) may be viewed for free at the MapofUS.org website. Source: Lincoln County, North Carolina Genealogy • FamilySearch

Though Lincoln became a county in 1778, the lack of records until the mid 1800, makes it difficult to find county records. May need to search Rowan as well. I may need to find other sources such as churches for records.

 

On Family Search Tryon only has one book of wills from 1769-1779. I’ll search that for any Jenkins. There were no Jenkins in the handful of wills that existed.

 

What was the timeline for historical records in Rowan County, NC?

 

Rowan County, North Carolina Record Dates[edit | edit source]

Information for this chart was taken from various sources, often containing conflicting dates. This information should be taken as a guide and should be verified by contacting the county and/or the state government agency.

Known Beginning Dates for Major County Records[4]
Birth*	Marriage	Death*	Court	Land	Probate	Census
1913	1753	1913	1753	1753	1743	1784
*Statewide registration for births and deaths started in 1913. General compliance by 1920.

Record Loss[edit | edit source]

1865 Some of the records were destroyed during the Civil War. For suggestions about research in places that suffered historic record losses, see: ·        Burned Counties. By Michael John Neill at 24-7 Family History Circle. ·        When the Records are Gone. By Arlene Eakle at Arlene Eakle's Tennessee Blog. ·        Burned Counties Research in the FamilySearch Research Wiki. ·        List of counties in the United States with Record Loss

Boundary Changes[edit | edit source]

·        1753 Rowan County was created from Anson County. ·        County seat: Salisbury[5] From the 1750s, up to the time of the American Revolution, Rowan County included most of the frontier area of Western North Carolina. All or portions of the present-day counties of Alexander, Alleghany, Ashe, Avery, Burke, Caldwell, Catawba, Davidson, Davie, Guilford, Iredell, Lincoln, McDowell, Madison, Mitchell, Randolph, Rockingham, Stokes, Surry, Watauga, Wilkes, Yadkin, Yancey fell within its bounds at that time. For animated maps illustrating North Carolina county boundary changes, "Rotating Formation North Carolina County Boundary Maps" (1664-1965) may be viewed for free at the MapofUS.org website.

Also note that Lincoln County was once part of Rowan county, so my research does need to go to Rowan County to find the starts of the Jenkins family in the area.

• North Carolina Probate Records, 1735-1970 
• Rowan 
• Bonds, 1753-1830 

Searching page by page. 

What this tells me is that the early research of the Jenkins may also have to be conducted in Anson and Tryon Counties because of the early boundary changes, so I will need to include those two counties in my research as well.