Orange County Indexed · Research guide
A method for any local history question
Orange County Indexed is a finding aid. It points you to sources about Orange County and to the libraries, archives and people who hold them; it does not replace those sources. The steps below work for most questions, whether you begin with a family name, a building, a place or an event. Each worked guide applies them to one example.
Features used in this guide: Search Indexed Records · The chronology · People · Places
A topic is a place to begin, but a question tells you what to look for. "The Eno River" is a topic; "Who pressed for a state park on the Eno, and when?" is a question. Write down what you already know and where each piece came from: a family story, a document, a book. Expect the question to change as you learn more. That is how research usually goes.
Read the page for the person, place, building or subject first. Its summary, dated events and storylines give you background, and they give you something more useful: the names, spellings and dates the records themselves use. Note older place names (Hillsboro as well as Hillsborough), earlier business names (the Orange Hotel before the Colonial Inn) and other forms of a person's name. You will need them when you search.
Search for one distinctive word before you add more, and change one filter at a time. When a search finds little, browse instead: the chronology by date, the storylines, the places in the chronology, the names index, deeds by book and records of enslaved people by decade. No search tool covers everything. An empty result means this search found nothing here; it does not mean nothing exists.
Every dated entry names its source, and most link to it. Open the source and read the passage, then look at what that source cites in turn. A page's Research sources section lists catalogs, archives and digitized collections chosen for it; on a person page, Search further runs ready-made searches in other catalogs, whose results nobody has checked.
An entry in the index is a summary written to help you find something. The evidence is in the source. Read the page image of a newspaper or record when one exists, since searchable text can misread names and numbers. Note whether you are reading an original record, a published abstract or transcription of it, or a later history.
Record each source with enough detail to find it again, the passage that supports each point, and the searches you tried, including the ones that found nothing. Those empty searches save you, or a librarian helping you, from repeating them. Cite what you found shows what to keep.
Library staff can help at any stage, and the earlier the better: before a search goes in circles, not after. Get help at the library explains how to reach the Local History Liaison and what to bring.
A short answer with the evidence for each part of it, a note of what remains uncertain, and a list of the next sources to try. A careful "we don't know yet, and here is why" is a real result.
Choose the worked guide closest to your question, or read Evaluate what you find before you draw conclusions.
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).
