Orange County Indexed
How to research Orange County history with Orange County Indexed and the Orange County Public Library, step by step, with worked local examples.
These guides show how to turn a local history question into a supported answer: find sources, compare what they say, and record the evidence. Each worked guide follows an Orange County example and explains when library staff can help.
A tour of the index: what each part does and how to use it
A method for any local history question
What the county record collections are for, how they connect, and how to take what you find to the library
Questions to ask of any source
What the Local History Liaison can do, and what to bring
The Ruffin-Roulhac House in Hillsborough
Dennis Adams and Chancy in the 1866 marriage register
Central High School during the 1958 fire and rebuilding
Isaiah Spencer and the inn later called the Colonial Inn
Telling apart the Thomas Ruffins at St. Matthew's
The Colonial Inn construction date
Bellevue Manufacturing Company in West Hillsborough
Gathering a history of Cedar Grove
Land in the part of Orange that became Alamance
The arrival of University Railroad passenger service
How the Eno became a state park
Ways to continue your search
Record both the source and the route to it
For OCPL staff and volunteers
The Friends of the Orange County Public Library wrote these guides to apply the Reference and User Services Association's guidelines to Orange County Indexed and to the library's Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection: Guidelines for Behavioral Performance of Reference and Information Service Providers (2023); Guidelines for Developing and Maintaining Genealogy and Local History Collections (2022); Guidelines for Secondary Source Literacy for History (2023).
