Genealogy

The 1896 Atlanta City Census is indexed and organized alphabetically within each of the six city wards in which the person lived. Information on each individual can include name, street address, age, sex, race, and place of birth. (Note: you must be logged in to your free FamilySearch account to access these records.)

These records are not indexed but can be viewed page by page. Information on residents may include name, street on which they live, marital status, race, street taxes paid, and nominal information about children in the household. (Note: you must be logged in to your free FamilySearch account to access these records.)

Many, but not all, of these records are indexed and include cemetery surveys, obituary abstracts, and abstracts of Atlanta death certificates. Unindexed records can be viewed page by page and include probate records, court records and voting registers. Users can search indexed records by name on the collection landing page. For access to unindexed records, click on the “Browse all 35,684 images” link at the bottom of the collection description.  (Note: you must be logged in to your free FamilySearch account to access these records.)

The Georgia Genealogical Society offers a variety of online resources, including free webinars and links to other resources across the entire state.

The Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society Metro Atlanta Chapter offers many online resources for researching your Black ancestors, including links to digital collections such as African American Funeral Programs at the Digital Library of Georgia and research on African American church cemeteries in DeKalb and Fulton Counties.

RootsTech is an excellent source for free video-recorded genealogy conference sessions on a wide variety of topics including DNA and African American research. There are also regional webpages with links to conference sessions recorded in the language(s) of each region, such as Africa and Southeast Asia.

The Atlanta History Center is a founding partner with the Library of Congress in collecting the stories of our veterans in metro Atlanta. The collection contains over 800 interviews of veterans from World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Persian Gulf War, and the Global War on Terror. Your grandfather or aunt or cousin may be among them, but even if your veteran ancestor did not record an interview, someone who served in the same unit may have. His or her story can shed light on your ancestor’s experience. The interviews are searchable by name, conflict, branch of service, military unit, and other keywords.

The Kenan Research Center holds over 800 Genealogy Subject Files that can contain pedigree charts and other genealogical research.

There are over 3,200 Personality Subject Files in our collection that can contain newspaper clippings, magazine articles, copies of photographs, and other information about individuals.