Orange County Indexed · Research guide
What the county record collections are for, how they connect, and how to take what you find to the library
The historical records section brings together five kinds of Orange County records: deeds, court minutes, wills, tax lists, and the records that name enslaved people. Each one is a searchable finding aid made from published abstracts and transcriptions, and for two of the tax lists from our own reading of the original pages. They help you find a person, a piece of land or an event in the county's records, and they tell you exactly where the record is. They do not replace the record. This guide explains what each collection holds, how the collections link to one another, and how to follow what you find to the books, microfilm and databases at the Orange County Public Library.
Features used in this guide: Historical records · At OCPL
Family historians tracing someone who lived in the county between the 1750s and the late 1800s. Descendants of enslaved people looking for a first name, an age or a family tie. Anyone following a house, a farm or a tract of land from owner to owner. Students and teachers who want primary sources about a place they know. Local historians, and library staff answering a question at the desk. You do not need to know how county records work to begin; the collections are searched by name, and each record explains what kind of document it comes from.
Every record gives the names as the source spells them, a date, and a citation to the book and page or the list it comes from. The table below shows what each collection covers and where the original is.
| Collection | What it covers | What a record tells you | Where the original is |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deeds | Deed Books 1 to 42 and the Register of Orange, 1752 to the 1870s | Buyer and seller, the land and its neighbors, price, witnesses, dates | The deed book page at the Register of Deeds, linked from each deed; microfilm at OCPL |
| County court minutes | The Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, 1752 to 1766 and 1777 to 1818 | Who came before the court and why: deeds and wills proved, estates, guardians, apprentices, roads, taverns, suits | The minute books, on microfilm at OCPL |
| Wills | Will Books A to H, 1752 to 1893 | Family, executors, witnesses, land and goods, and to 1850 the enslaved people bequeathed or freed | The will books, on microfilm at OCPL |
| Tax lists | 1755, 1779, 1780 to 1781 and 1790 | Every taxpayer, with land, polls or the value of property | The manuscripts at the State Archives of North Carolina; 1779 to 1827 on microfilm at OCPL |
| Enslaved people in records | Sales, gifts, mortgages, divisions, wills and the 1755 tax list, 1754 to 1867, and the marriages registered in 1866 | First names, ages, family ties the record states, and the enslavers | The deed, will or tax list each record cites |
Search a name once on the Historical records page and send it to any collection; the search of books and archives, Search Indexed Records, also shows how many records in each collection match your words. The collections point to one another where the records themselves do:
A shared name is a lead, not proof. Two or three men of the same name often lived in the county at the same time, so check dates, places, neighbors and family before deciding a record is about your person.
Spelling was not fixed, and the same family can appear as Faucett, Faucit and Fawcett on one page. The deed, minute and will searches forgive small spelling differences, and the tax lists match abbreviations (Thomas finds Thos.). Most enslaved people are recorded by a first name alone, so search the enslaver's surname as well. Search one distinctive name first, then narrow by years. Keep the dates apart: a deed was made on one day, proved in court later and recorded later still, and a will was written years before it was proved.
Before you leave a record, copy its citation exactly: the deed book and page (ODB 11/338), the will book and page (OWB A/49), the court term, or the tax list's year and image number. The citation is what takes you to the original, on microfilm, at the Register of Deeds or at the State Archives. Cite what you found shows what else to keep.
The Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection at the Main Library in Hillsborough holds the county's own record books on microfilm, printed abstracts of many of them, and databases for following a person beyond these collections. The plan of the room shows where each is.
Read and scan microfilm at the research computer in the room; scans are saved to a USB thumb drive, so bring one. Staff can show you how the film is arranged.
When did a family first appear in the county, and in which tax district did it live? Who were its neighbors, judging by the adjoining landowners in its deeds? Who witnessed its deeds, served as executors, or posted bond, since these were often relatives? What happened to the people a household held when the enslaver died: who received them in the will, the estate division or the sale? How did a tract pass from one owner to the next? What did the court order about a road, mill or tavern near a place you know? A good question names a person or place, a span of years and the record most likely to answer it.
They point you to the record, gather several kinds of record under one name, keep the names as the source spells them, and describe each record in plain words. They do not replace the original: an abstract leaves things out (boundaries, signatures, notes in the margin) and can misread a name or figure, so check the page before relying on a detail. They do not cover every year or every kind of record: the court minutes here run 1752 to 1766 and 1777 to 1818, the deeds stop in the 1870s, the tax lists cover five years between 1755 and 1790, and North Carolina kept no statewide birth or death records before 1913. They do not prove that two records concern the same person. And they record some people far more than others: women often appear under a husband's name, and enslaved people mostly as property, by a first name. Our descriptions use plain terms where the records use the racial labels of their time; the originals keep their own wording.
A citation for each record you found, the original to check for each one, and a short list of the records to look at next, in the room or online.
Trace a family and Research a house work through these records with an example, and Get help at the library explains how to book time with the Local History Liaison.
This guide applies the Reference and User Services Association's 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).
