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Survey of Extant Records - by Will Johnson (updated June 2006) | ||
| Fires | The courthouse in Franklin caught on fire 10 Jan 1944, but I'm unsure of what was lost if anything. | |
| County Court | The "County and Probate" Court Minutes start 1838. In Jan 1840 they were split into two courts. County Court Minutes are complete through at least 1850, I did not look further | |
| Probate Court | From Jan 1838 to Jan 1840 these were combined with the County Court and are complete. The seperate Probate Court Minutes start in Jan 1840. These are complete through at least 1855, I did not look further | |
| Other Probate Documents | There are also Administration Bonds, Annual Administration Reports, Loose Probate Files, and Probate Court Docket. Virginia McPhail has published a book of abstracts of the Loose Probate Files, called "Probate Papers". For the other items listed here, I have not yet surveyed these | |
| Marriages | The marriage book starts at the end of 1849. There was at least one marriage in Franklin before 1849 as I have a newspaper abstract stating it, so the first book of marriages must have been lost. | |
| Census | The first census of Franklin was in 1840 before that see the 1830 Crawford out of which Franklin was formed. | |
| Deed Index | For original Federal grants see Bureau of Land Management website. For the county, there is an index to deeds that starts in 1838, but appears to be spotty and I have yet to locate the actual deeds. This may mean the first deed book and associated indexes were lost and what I'm seeing is a later recreation. | |
| Deeds | For original Federal grants see Bureau of Land Management website. For the county, the first deeds I can find start in 1849. | |
| Tax Records | County tax records that I can find start in 1845, but Goodspeed's purports to list assessments from 1839, I cannot find the underlying source for that. | |
| Circuit Court | The first circuit court records start in 1852, its not yet clear if this means something was lost, or if the circuit court didn't exist before 1852 or was combined in some other court. | |
| Birth/Death | Birth and death certificates were not required in Arkansas until 1914, and I haven't found anything to indicate Franklin County required these any earlier. The county has maybe 50 to 100 delayed birth certicates that discuss births which predate this year. These documents actually mostly were generated *after* 1914, but they did require some sort of *proofs* to claim birth, so can, in some cases, be very useful. | |
| Tombstones | All tombstones appear to have been extracted by Virginia McPhail in two or three books, of which I have one called "North of Arkansas River" | |
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This page created and maintained by Will Johnson.