Arkansas: State Archives: Wonderful Local Sources for Genealogical Research

http://archives.arkansas.gov/

I am starting my nationwide tour of all of the state archives with a visit to Arkansas. My thanks to Jeanne Rollberg of the Friends of the Arkansas State Archives for her valuable information about the Arkansas State Archives. Much of the information I include below, came from her.

The way that archives are organized varies considerably across the United States. In the case of the Arkansas State Archives, the agency is part of The Department of Arkansas Heritage.

http://www.arkansasheritage.com/

For genealogists, the main attraction of state archives is that they are usually responsible for storing and preserving state records. Here is a description of the Arkansas collections:

The Arkansas State Archives houses approximately 13,000 cubic feet of state records and manuscript collections pertaining to the history of Arkansas and its people. These materials have been described and inventoried for ease of access. These inventories, called finding aids, are keyword searchable. You may also browse these finding aids alphabetically using the links below. Click the collection's title to view the finding aid. 

Separated Materials:  Some archival collections contain materials that have been stored separately from the bulk of the collection due to those items' preservation needs. Generally, this affects collections that include artifacts that have been moved to the archives' museum collection, and the existence of artifacts in a collection has been noted in that collection's finding aid. Due to the nature of artifact and other separated materials, we require researchers to fill out an Artifact Access Form and send it in to state.archives@arkansas.gov, to schedule an appointment to view artifacts from the museum collection.  

In Arkansas, there are three divisions of the State Archives: the main archives located in Little Rock, Arkansas, the Northeast Arkansas Regional Archives located in Powhatan, Arkansas and the Southwest Arkansas Regional Archives located in Washington, Arkansas. The physical division of the archives will mandate that a researcher spend some time locating the particular records needed for research to avoid unnecessary travel. In any state, it is important to determine the location of the record collections since it common that some records are maintained locally in cities, towns, and counties and other collections of records may only be available at the state level.

I would start my search by looking at the records available online. Here is the section called Arkansas Digital Ark-ives:

http://ahc.digital-ar.org/

This page also provides access to Arkansas History Commission Resource Guides.

http://ahc.digital-ar.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p16790coll13

In beginning this exploration, I was contacted by a very helpful genealogist who is a member of the Freinds of the Arkansas State Archives.

https://ararchivesfriends.org/

After spending about a year working 8 hours a day, five days a week (except for holidays and some personal time days) am I considerably more familiar with the inner workings of archives than I was previously. One thing I do know for sure is that visiting an archive for genealogical research requires a considerable amount of preparation. Do not expect to walk in and start working immediately without finding out whatever is possible from their online resources. It also helps to talk to someone who has had some experience with the archive. Hence, the Friends of the Archives.

The Arkansas State Archives has started a Genealogy Day. Here is a link to a video with some images of the 2018 Genealogy Day. It might also be a good idea to see if anyone has uploaded a video to YouTube.com or Vimeo.com about the archives. In fact, the Arkansas State Archives has a YouTube.com Channel.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh0N747O9AYPYfdVPifqOTw

Note the video on the Foodways Symposium.

Another important resource in addition to the Archives is the Arkansas Genealogical Society. Here is a screenshot of their publications page. You might try finding some of these publications in libraries through WorldCat.org or order them directly from the Genealogical Society.

https://www.agsgenealogy.org/publications/default.html

Note the Arkansas Prior Birth Index which appears to be a valuable resource. I found a copy of this book listed in the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah for example.

The Arkansas State Archives is also digitizing their collection of newspapers that will become available on the Library of Congress Chronicling America website. From this example, you can see that using the resources of a state archive should be fully integrated with broad and in-depth research methodology. Quoting from the information supplied to me by Jeanne Rollberg of the Friends of the Arkansas Archives about the Archives' newspaper project:

Newspaper digitization has been a top priority the last few years. Here is an item about some completed digitization last year: Archives partnership digitizes 24 Arkansas newspapers.  Here is about upcoming digitization. NEH grant goes to state archives for newspaper digitization. 

"The project will take two years to complete. Once digitized, the newspapers will be housed online through the Chronicling America website hosted by the Library of Congress (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/) and will be accessible to the public for free. An announcement of which Arkansas newspapers are to be digitized will be made at a later date following the work of a selection committee. 

The State Archives holds the largest and most extensive Arkansas newspaper collection in existence. Its total newspaper holdings include an estimated twenty million pages from almost 1,800 titles representing all seventy-five counties in the state."

I had the opportunity to speak at a Lunch and Learn presentation here in the Maryland State Archives and I was happy to learn that the Arkansas State Archives has a similar program in the Arkansas Writer Series called Pen to Podium lectures four times a year. The next presentation will be on November 13, 2018. 

I am sure as I continue to write about these wonderful organizations, that I will discover many interesting and useful resources for genealogists.