Category: New Collections

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Church record book from Harris County covering the years 1828-1915 now available online in the Digital Library of Georgia

A record book covering the years between 1828-1915 of the Sardis Church of Christ is now available in the Digital Library of Georgia. The Sardis Church of Christ, associated with the Primitive Baptist Church, was one of the first churches to be established in Harris County, in west-central Georgia. This resource belongs to the Chipley Historical Center of Pine Mountain, Georgia, and has been made available online thanks in part to the DLG’s Competitive Digitization grant program, a funding opportunity intended to broaden DLG partner participation for statewide historic digitization projects.
 
The record book and descriptive information are available at:
 
 
Harris County was established in 1827, carved from Muscogee and Troup Counties, and from lands ceded by the Creek Nation in the 1825 Treaty of Indian Springs, and reaffirmed in the 1826 Treaty of Washington. A year later, in 1828, the Sardis Church of Christ was formed.
 
For the most part, the Sardis Baptist Church of Christ records follow a predictable format of when a meeting was held, who preached at the meeting, and that an invitation was given. The records also contain names of those that joined by declaration or by letter, and those that left by their own choice.
 
The Sardis Church also had African American members. Before the Civil War, these members are often listed only by their first names and are often denoted as “property of,” indicating their status as enslaved individuals. After the Civil War, the notations change to “colored” or sometimes “freedman” and their last name was often included. However, no matter what race, the Church always referred to a member as Brother or Sister.
 
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the church minutes in the record book become shorter and shorter for each meeting, and membership declines. This is probably due to the establishment of other churches nearby and the increased reliability of roads and transportation.
 
Although the Sardis church no longer exists, the church record book is a valuable tool for both those researching Primitive Baptists in regions other than the wiregrass region of Georgia or for those researching very early Georgia churches.
 
Malinda Brooks, a member of the board of directors of the Chipley Historical Center, notes:
 
“Personally, I have used the Sardis minutes in preparation of two published family genealogy books…Researchers are excited to find out when their family members entered and exited the Sardis membership, including the death dates of some members. These death dates, especially those that have not been found elsewhere, are treasures to researchers. Most recently, a woman researching her family for her Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) membership application was able to find ancestors in the Sardis record book which helped strengthen her DAR research, especially given that the DAR was unable to track the correct ancestor.”
 
About the Chipley Historical Center of Pine Mountain

The Chipley Historical Center is located in Pine Mountain, Georgia next to City Hall in the original city hall building, built just after the turn of the twentieth century, and still contains the original jail cells. Learn more at the Chipley Historical Center’s web site at chipleyhistoriccenter.org.

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Digitization of city directories for Albany, Georgia, dating from 1922-1950

New online records are now available for people researching their families in Albany, Georgia. The Digital Library of Georgia has just added a collection of city directories housed at the Dougherty County Public Library, dating from 1922-1950. The collection, Albany, Georgia City Directories, is available at dlg.usg.edu/collection/zgn_albcd and contains eleven directories covering Albany during intermittent years from 1922 to 1950, and one 1937 directory from Americus.

City directories existed before telephone directories and often listed the names, addresses, occupations, and ethnicities of people in American towns and cities. Because they contain so much detailed information, they are vital resources for researchers, genealogists, and the general public. According to the Library of Congress, city directories “are among the most important sources of information about urban areas and their inhabitants. They provide personal and professional information about a city’s residents as well as information about its business, civic, social, religious, charitable, and literary institutions.”

Christina Shepherd, head of reference for the Dougherty County Public Library describes the relevance of Albany’s city directories to the researchers in her library: 

“Several patrons have asked to use the directories to see who lived in their house, to trace an ancestor’s life, verifying use of land or to see who ran what businesses.  A specific example is in 1940 there was a tornado that came through and destroyed a lot of downtown Albany. While these directories do not show that event, they show the city stayed strong after that event. The directories have the addresses where businesses were before the tornado in 1939 to where they had to relocate in 1941. Just think, those directories were the same books that our relatives, our city leaders, and others used to find an address or phone number!”

J. Douglas Porter, a writer based in Albany Georgia notes: “Much of the material I have been looking at has been digitized and is searchable. This has not only been a useful time-saver, but it has also proven to be more reliable than my visual scans of many pages of materials. The city directories have a high level of historic value and potential for reuse by multiple audiences well into the future. In fact, they will become even more valuable as time passes and the paper copies crumble.”

Link to featured images:

Albany, Georgia city directory 1934-35 containing an alphabetically arranged list of names, a classified business directory, a street directory, and much useful miscellaneous information

dlg.galileo.usg.edu/do:zgn_albcd_dir-albany1934-35 

1934-1935 city directory for Albany, Georgia containing information that identifies Albany residents, their occupations and local businesses.

Albany, Georgia city directory 1934-35 containing an alphabetically arranged list of names, a classified business directory, a street directory, and much useful miscellaneous information, page 12

Albany, Georgia city directory 1934-35 containing an alphabetically arranged list of names, a classified business directory, a street directory, and much useful miscellaneous information, page 213


Albany, Georgia city directory 1934-35 containing an alphabetically arranged list of names, a classified business directory, a street directory, and much useful miscellaneous information, page 222

About Dougherty County Public Library

The Dougherty County Public Library’s mission is “To Strengthen our Community by Inspiring, Encouraging, and Supporting Life-long Learning for all.”  The goals of the library are to select, assemble and administer organized collections of educational and recreational library materials; to serve the community as a center of reliable information and a place where inquiring minds may encounter original, unorthodox, or critical ideas in our society; to provide opportunities and encouragement for individuals to continue their educations; to supplement and help formal education programs; to seek, continually, to identify community needs; to support civic groups, cultural activities, or cooperate with other agencies as they work for community good; to maintain and disseminate public information encouraging to individuals to better use the libraries as well as to contribute to the field of professional librarianship; to enhance interest and research in local history; and to provide opportunity for substantive recreational and constructive use of leisure time through the use of literature, music, films, and other forms. Visit docolib.org/  

About the Digital Library of Georgia

Based at the University of Georgia Libraries, the Digital Library of Georgia is a GALILEO initiative that collaborates with Georgia’s libraries, archives, museums and other institutions of education and culture to provide access to key information resources on Georgia history, culture, and life. This primary mission is accomplished through the ongoing development, maintenance, and preservation of digital collections and online digital library resources. DLG also serves as Georgia’s service hub for the Digital Public Library of America and as the home of the Georgia Newspaper Project, the state’s historic newspaper microfilming project. Visit the DLG at dlg.usg.edu.

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