Since I haven’t visited the ArGenWeb lately, I thought I would do so and review one county every day. Let’s start with the overall “State” page and the “Unknown County” page. The ArGenWeb is run by Betsy Mills, ARGenWeb State Coordinator; Jeff Kemp, ARGenWeb Asst. State Coordinator; and Gina Heffernan, ARGenweb Archives Coordinator. All three have maintained this website for 8 plus years and work hard to keep all 75 counties (& coordinators) running smoothly.
Main resources that cover the entire state:
And then you have the “Archives” section. This is where you will find hundreds of transcriptions for census records, marriage records, military records, cemeteries, etc. This can be hit or miss but well worth checking out.
Under the “Unknown County” listing:
There is not a lot of information listed but there are two very good databases that should help you find the county where your ancestor might have been located.
- Geographic Nameserver Database – This is great for looking up cemeteries in a county. It may not list all of them, but it will get you close. You can also list churches, post offices, schools and other land features.
- Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names – Wonderful for looking up places…maybe you were looking for Bayou Meto. Searching will find two inhabited locations. One in Lonoke County and one in Arkansas County. So if you are researching ancestors from Bayou Meto, you might look in both locations.
There is also a link for the “Arkansas Unknown County Message Board“ which you should use if you have no idea where in the state your ancestor might be or where you should start.
Tomorrow will be my review of “Arkansas County.”
