North Carolina Genealogical Society

NCGS is pleased to announce that we will be partnering with FamilySearch on the Loose Estates Records Project.

The Loose Estates Records Project is using volunteer efforts to create a decedent surname index of all extant loose estates found within the North Carolina Archives county record series in addition to those found within the colonial records of the Secretary of State and District Courts.

The new partnership with FamilySearch will streamline the indexing process through on online interface that should be in place by mid-summer. The microfilm rolls will be digitized by FamilySearch and will be freely accessible to everyone online.

Volunteers have made great progress over the past six months completing indexes of the estate records that were microfilmed at the North Carolina State Archives in the 1980s. The following counties have been indexed from film: Avery, Camden, Cleveland, Edgecombe, Macon, Davie, McDowell, and Wilson.  Pasquotank and Union counties should be completed by May. These counties represent 359 reels of film, or 10% of the microfilmed series. Local volunteers are needed to complete the second phase of this project, which is to verify these indexes against the current holdings at the North Carolina State Archives.  There have been a number of accessioned estates records since this collection was filmed, and we hope to identify all those that are currently available through the county records series.

We need you! Additional volunteers will help move this project closer to completion. Whether you have an hour or two, or five, your efforts will help other researchers gain access to this valuable resource.

Contact This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to volunteer or to ask a question about the project.

The NC Loose Estates Records indexing project was just updated!  There are now 3,371,321 images that are indexed and freely available!

As of January 29th, 68 out of 100 North Carolina counties have been indexed by decedent, in part or in whole! Currently, there are 138,899 individual estates that are indexed!

Check out this valuable resource for your North Carolina ancestral research:

http://www.familysearch.org/searchapi/search/collection/1911121

Also available at our shortened link:

http://bit.ly/nc-loose-estates

Don't see your county of interest? Please consider joining as a volunteer indexer! All you need is a computer and internet access. The software is provided, and a video tutorial and Wiki page have been created to answer any questions. Will you donate a little of your time?

For more information, or to volunteer, please contact Vickie Scott at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .