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Theme

Families, Land & Genealogy

Families, deeds, cemeteries, marriages, wills, and land records.

In briefDeeds, wills, marriages, cemeteries and the county’s shifting boundaries are the raw material of family history here, and the index gathers the genealogies and land records that libraries hold. The storylines follow how the county’s boundaries changed between 1771 and 1881 and the farm families of Cedar Grove and rural northern Orange.

969 indexed works are connected with this theme. 106 held at OCPL →

Search these works Research sources View indexed works ↓
Old Town Cemetery, Hillsborough.

Indexed works

Related works found in catalogs and archives across North Carolina, the most widely held first, novels aside. Each links to the institution that holds or provides it.

Narrow these works. Each link opens the search already limited to this theme. Counts are indexed works, not copies on a shelf; a work can carry more than one period or place.

Material

Genealogy 406Histories 353Letters & correspondence 64Photographs & portraits 47Biography 43other types 225

Period

Colonial era (to 1775) 1117th century 1618th century 153Revolution (1775–1783) 7519th century 169Civil War (1861–1865) 5520th century 74World War II era 12

Place

Orange County 727North Carolina (statewide) 518Hillsborough 204Chapel Hill 192Durham County (neighboring) 57Chatham County (neighboring) 43

Widely held

To Free A Family

Nathans, Sydney · 2012 · Harvard University Press

Sydney Nathans's biography of Mary Walker, an enslaved woman from Orange County who escaped to the North in the mid nineteenth century and spent the following decades in Cambridge, Massachusetts, working to free the family she had left behind. Chapter titles trace her flight, her years among Northern friends, a rescue plot, a long silence, and the reunion that gives the book its close. Published 2012 by Harvard University Press, 330 pages with 20 pages of plates, illustrations and maps.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Families.

Reviewed in Choice Reviews Online (2012), Civil War Book Review (2012).

✓ Held at OCPL · BIO WALKER NAT NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State NCCU Durham Chapel Hill PL Library of Congress Davidson Methodist Wingate UNCSA

Miss Mary's Money

Jones, H. G. · 2014 · McFarland & Co.

H. G. Jones follows the fortune of Mary Ruffin Smith (1814-1885), the unmarried heiress whose Orange and Chatham County lands passed at her death to the University of North Carolina and the Episcopal Church. Chapters profile her grandfather Francis Jones, then trace the bequest through a quarrel among Episcopalians over Price Creek, the Chapel of the Cross and the university's buildings. A December 1885 New York Times report called the gift money; Jones shows it was land. Published by McFarland in 2014, 231 pages.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Families.

✓ Held at OCPL NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State NCCU Durham Library of Congress Wake Forest Davidson Methodist CH Historical Society

Kinship and Neighborhood in a Southern Community

Kenzer, Robert C. · 1987 · University of Tennessee Press

Robert C. Kenzer's study of kinship and neighborhood in Orange County between 1849 and 1881, the decades before and after the Civil War, tracing family ties and neighborhood networks through the county's records. Published by the University of Tennessee Press in 1987, 251 pages with illustrations, maps, portraits and a bibliography. Topics include kinship, neighborhoods and social conditions in the county in the nineteenth century.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Orange County (N.C.) -- Genealogy.

Reviewed in Choice Reviews Online (1988), Journal of American History (1988), The American Historical Review (1989), The Journal of Southern History (1989), Civil War history (1989), Journal of Social History (1989).

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 306.097 KEN NC Cardinal UNC Duke NC State Durham Library of Congress Wake Forest Davidson CH Historical Society

Piedmont Plantation: The Bennehan-Cameron Family and Lands in North Carolina

Anderson, Jean Bradley · 1985 · Historic Preservation Society of Durham

Jean Bradley Anderson's history of the Bennehan and Cameron families and their plantations, Stagville and Fairntosh, on lands that lay in Orange County until Durham County was formed from it in 1881. Published by the Historic Preservation Society of Durham in 1985, the book follows plantation life and ownership across several generations, with genealogical tables, a map, portraits, a bibliography and an index; 227 pages plus plates.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the Duke record: Cameron family.

Reviewed in South Atlantic Quarterly (1987).

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 929.209 AND Duke NC State NC Cardinal Durham Chapel Hill PL NCCU CH Historical Society Library of Congress

The Age of Orange: Political and Intellectual Leadership in North Carolina, 1752-1861

Blackwelder, Ruth · 1961

Ruth Blackwelder's study of political and intellectual leadership in Orange County and North Carolina from 1752 to 1861, published in Charlotte by W. Loftin in 1961. Topics include state politics and government, intellectual life before the Civil War, and county genealogy. It runs 216 pages with illustrations and a bibliography. Part of the Wall Local History Collection.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Orange County (N.C.) -- Genealogy.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 975.656 BLACKWEL UNC Durham Library of Congress Davidson DPLA CH Historical Society NC Cardinal

Hillsboro, Colonial and Revolutionary

Nash, Frank · 1953

Francis Nash's history of Hillsborough in colonial and Revolutionary times, first published in 1903 and reprinted in 1953 by Edwards & Broughton with an index and a sketch of the author. Topics include the Regulator Insurrection of 1766 to 1771, the Revolution and local genealogy.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Genealogy.

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 975.656 NAS NC Cardinal UNC Durham Library of Congress Wake Forest Davidson DPLA
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Orange County, 1752-1952

Lefler, Hugh Talmage; Wager, Paul W. · 1953

Hugh Talmage Lefler and Paul W. Wager's history of Orange County across its first two centuries, 1752 to 1952, prepared for the county's bicentennial. It covers government and politics, biography and the county's families, and doubles as a genealogical reference. Published in Chapel Hill by the Orange Printshop in 1953, 389 pages with illustrations and an index; this copy is a later reprint.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the NC Cardinal record: Genealogy.

Reviewed in The Journal of Southern History (1954).

✓ Held at OCPL · NC 975.656 ORA NC Cardinal UNC Chapel Hill PL Library of Congress Davidson CH Historical Society

The Cloudbuster Nine

Keene, Anne R. · 2018

Anne R. Keene's history of the Cloudbusters, the baseball team of the Navy Pre-Flight School at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill during the Second World War, on which Ted Williams played in 1943. The chapters move from a batboy's trunk of keepsakes through the pre-flight training program to the players' lives after the war, and Keene's own family is part of the story. Published by Sports Publishing in New York in 2018, 340 pages with sixteen pages of plates.

Why this is here: Catalog heading in the UNC record: Families.

UNC Durham Chapel Hill PL NC Cardinal Library of Congress CH Historical Society

Recently indexed: Address by Edwin A. Alderman ... on the life of William Hooper, "the prophet of American independence" : Guilford Battle Ground, July 4, 1894 (1894) · The Chapman family, or, The descendants of Robert Chapman : one of the first settlers of Say-Brook, Conn. : with genealogical notes of William Chapman, who settled in New London, Conn., Edward Chapman, who settled at Windsor, Conn., John Chapman, of Stonington, Conn., and Rev. Benjamin Chapman, of Southington, Conn. : [extracts relating to Robert Hett Chapman] (1854) · Chief Justice Little : with some account of his descendants (1895) · The Hanes collection of rare books (1957) · The Mason bequest (1895) · The Mason-Morgan family (1895)

Search all 969 indexed works →

Start at OCPL

Books in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection whose titles, catalog subjects, or descriptions match this theme. The Friends’ recommended starting points are labelled. Books marked Wider context cover the broader subject rather than this theme itself.

  • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 929.375 ORANGE Granville Proprietary Land Office: Deeds & Surveys, 1761-1763 1989

    Deeds and surveys issued by the Granville Proprietary Land Office between 1761 and 1763, covering the district that took in Orange County before the Revolution. The Granville District ran across the northern half of colonial North Carolina, and these entries name the grantees and describe their tracts. Published in 1989, with material on land grants, deeds and county genealogy.

  • Foundational · NC 929.375 REG Register of Orange County, North Carolina Deeds, 1752-1768, and 1793 Weeks, Eve B. · 1984

    Eve B. Weeks's register of Orange County deeds for 1752 to 1768 and 1793, the earliest years of the county's deed books together with a later gap year. Published by Heritage Papers in Danielsville, Georgia, in 1984, 69 pages, it lists the parties to each conveyance. The spine carries a shortened form of the title.

  • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 929.375 ORANGE Deed Books: 8 & 9 1993

    Abstracts of Orange County deed books 8 and 9, published in 1993 as part of a series covering the county's early land records. Each abstract condenses a recorded conveyance to the parties, the land and the date, which is what land title researchers and family historians usually need. Subjects include deeds for Orange County and county genealogy.

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  • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 929.375 ORANGE Deed Books: 6 & 7 1993

    Orange County deed books 6 and 7 in abstract form, issued in 1993 alongside companion volumes for the adjoining books in the series. Deed abstracts name grantor and grantee, describe the tract and give the date of record, so they can carry a family through generations of land transfers when other county records are thin. Topics include deeds and county genealogy.

  • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 929.375 ORANGE Granville Proprietary Land Office: Deeds & Surveys, 1752-1760 1989

    Covering the years 1752 to 1760, this volume abstracts deeds and surveys from the Granville Proprietary Land Office, which granted land across the northern half of colonial North Carolina, Orange County among the counties formed there. Published in 1989.

  • Wider context · NC 929.375 HOL Anson County, North Carolina, Deed Abstracts, 1749-1766, Abstracts of Wills & Estates, 1749-1795 Holcomb, Brent · 1980

    Brent H. Holcomb's abstracts of Anson County deeds from 1749 to 1766 and of wills and estate papers from 1749 to 1795. First issued in three volumes at Clinton, South Carolina, in 1974 and 1975, the abstracts were combined, repaged and given a new index by the Genealogical Publishing Company in 1980; 170 pages. The spine reads Deeds and Wills of Anson County, N.C.

  • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 929.375 ORANGE 4 Orange County, North Carolina Deed Book: 4, 1787-1793 2018

    William D. Bennett's abstracts of Orange County Deed Book 4, the conveyances recorded between 1787 and 1793, published in 1991. It is one of a series that works through the county's early deed books in order.

  • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 929.375 ORANGE 12 Orange County, North Carolina Deed Book: 12, 1805-1807 2018

    William D. Bennett's abstracts of Orange County Deed Book 12, the deeds recorded from 1805 to 1807, published in 1991. Deed abstracts give grantor, grantee, acreage, watercourse and adjoining landowners, so the volume serves land-title research as well as family history for the county in the early nineteenth century.

  • Rebecca Wall Collection · NC 929.375 ORANGE 10/11 Orange County, North Carolina Deed Book: 10 & 11, 1801-1806 2018

    William D. Bennett's abstracts of Orange County Deed Books 10 and 11, the deeds recorded between 1801 and 1806. Deed abstracts condense each recorded land conveyance to its essentials, so the volume serves land-title researchers and family historians tracing households in the county in the first years of the nineteenth century. Published in 1991 as a companion to his abstracts of Deed Books 6 through 9.

In the chronology

Storylines in this theme, earliest first. Each has its own page.

Occaneechi Town and the Great Trading Path1680–2024 · 48 events · Occaneechi Town on the Eno, occupied from about 1680 to 1710, was where John Lawson stopped in 1701 on the trading path that ran from Virginia to the Catawba. Archaeologists located the village at the Fredricks site in 1983, and the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation, recognized by the state in 2002, rebuilt a replica village there and dedicated a highway marker in 2024. Cedar Grove and rural northern Orange1755–2013 · 80 events · The crossroads communities north of Hillsborough grew around Eno Presbyterian, organized in 1755, the Hughes Academy of 1845, the Pope farm of the 1870s and Ellis Store of 1923, with nearly half the county’s Black-owned farms in Cedar Grove Township by 1940. The Schley Grange brought telephones in 1948, the schools were consolidated and desegregated in the 1960s, and the branch library came and went between 2004 and 2010. How Orange County’s boundaries changed, 1771–18811771–1881 · 11 events · Between 1771 and 1777 the legislature carved Guilford, Wake, Chatham and Caswell counties wholly or partly out of Orange, then took Alamance from its west in 1849 and Durham from its east in 1881. Records filed under Orange County before those dates can therefore concern places that now lie in other counties. The Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation today1984–2024 · 27 events · The Eno-Occaneechi Indian Association formed in 1984, took the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation name in 1994 and won state recognition in 2002 after a decade of petitions and a court ruling. The band bought land for its tribal grounds near Pleasant Grove in 2004, rebuilt the replica village at Hillsborough, and dedicated a state highway marker in 2024.

Dated events connected with this theme: sixteen of 189, the highlights and a sample of the rest spread across the years, in date order. See all 189 dated events in the chronology →

Earliest first. Scroll sideways, or use the arrows.

16 dated events

  1. Occaneechi Town on the Eno is largely abandoned

    Closing or ending · Hillsborough and the Eno River

    By 1713, when the Occaneechi signed a peace treaty with Virginia at Williamsburg, their town on the Eno near present-day Hillsborough was almost empty. They moved north to Fort Christanna in Virginia, and some Saponi families later resettled in North Carolina.

  2. Gilbert Strayhorn's grant on Prestwood Creek is entered

    Property or economic transaction · Prestwood Creek

    Strayhorn's Prestwood Creek tract was one of many grants entered along the county's streams in its first years.

  3. Orange is the most populous county in the province

    Statistic or record · Orange County

    In 1767 Orange County still ran over land later taken into Wake, Chatham, Guilford, Caswell, Person, Randolph, Rockingham, Alamance and Durham, and had the largest population of any county in North Carolina. Successive divisions cut it to about 7,560 people by 1779.

  4. Thomas Burke dies at Tyaquin

    Life event · Hillsborough

    Thomas Burke died at his farm near Hillsborough after serving as North Carolina’s governor.

    Subject: Thomas Burke’s grave (Tyaquin)

  5. Indian families from Virginia settle the Texas community in northern Orange County

    Migration or settlement · Orange County

    Charles Whitmore, Jesse Whitmore and Jacob Jeffries appear on the Orange County return used for the 1790 federal census, which was compiled from a tax list of 1787. Families of the same names had moved southwest from Greensville County in Virginia, and by 1820 the settlement later called Texas, or Pleasant Grove, was intact, with the Corn and Jeffries families holding tracts of several hundred acres.

  6. Suit by William Kirkland and others leads to the sale of Hannah and her children

    Slavery and freedom · Hillsborough, Market House

    Legal proceedings brought by William Kirkland, Catlett Campbell, Jacob Greer and Isaac Mordecai against Robert Bell placed Hannah and her children Jenny and David in the hands of the sheriff. Sheriff Samuel Turrentine sold the three at public auction at the Hillsborough Market House to Duncan Cameron for 200 pounds.

    People: Duncan Cameron · William Kirkland

  7. Texas community families leave Orange for Sugar Fork in Macon County

    Migration or settlement · Texas community (northern Orange County)

    In the 1820s, after the Cherokee cession opened the land, a group of Guy, Whitmore, Jeffries and Gibson families from the Texas community moved to the mountains and formed the Sugar Fork settlement in Macon County. It stayed distinct for many years; letters of 1869 and 1872 to the Indian Office described its people as Catawba who had come from Orange County.

  8. Peter Brown Ruffin buys the land that became Margaret Lane Cemetery

    Property or economic transaction · Margaret Lane Cemetery, Hillsborough

    According to the Alliance for Historic Hillsborough, Peter Brown Ruffin, owner of Occoneechee Farm, bought the land now called Margaret Lane Cemetery as a burial ground for people enslaved by him and his neighbor Cadwalader Jones. Plaques placed in 1987 date burials there from before 1852, and it remained a burial ground for Black residents of Hillsborough until 1931.

    Subject: Margaret Lane Cemetery · Occoneechee Farm

  9. Washington Morrow, Thomas Jefferson Morrow and Daniel Morrow are lynched

    Violence or armed conflict · Countywide

    Early on August 7, 1869, about 100 disguised white men took Washington Morrow and his brother Nelson from the Hillsborough jail, where they were held on barn-burning charges, and shot Washington as they fled; he died of the wound. On October 14 a mob hanged their father, Thomas Jefferson Morrow, and their uncle, Daniel Morrow.

    Part of Racial-terror lynchings in Orange County · 17 events

    People: Washington Morrow · Daniel Morrow · Jefferson Morrow

    Subject: Orange County jail, Hillsborough

  10. John and Mary Jane Pope build their farm near Cedar Grove

    Construction or physical change · Cedar Grove

    John S. Pope, a Confederate captain, and his wife Mary Jane McDade Pope built a two-story I-house on land she inherited from her father's estate in 1869; it was likely finished by 1874, when her brother's share brought the tract to about 73 acres. Tobacco was the farm's main cash crop, and its oldest surviving barn dates to about 1875.

    Subject: John S. Pope Farm

  11. John U. Kirkland is appointed a magistrate of Hillsborough township

    Appointment, election or service · Hillsborough

    When James B. McDade resigned as one of the township's magistrates, the board of trustees appointed John U. Kirkland to fill the vacancy, a choice the Recorder called admirable.

  12. Brothers John and Page Couch add a frame front to a log house on Cornwallis Road

    Construction or physical change · Cornwallis Road

    Around 1910 a small frame house was built onto the front of a one-room log house for the brothers John and Page Couch. A log barn and a log building that may have housed tenants stand behind.

  13. The Texas community asks the Bureau of Indian Affairs for an Indian school

    Protest or organizing · Pleasant Grove Township

    Clayton Jeffries, Charles Will Jeffries and others retained a lawyer, drew up a list of Indian families, made contact with the Indian community in Person County that already had a state sponsored school, and wrote to Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Collier seeking a federal school for their children. A bureau agent visited and reported the families to be Indian, and the bureau's letters called the settlement an Indian community, but no assistance was ever given.

  14. St. Mary's Chapel is listed in the National Register

    Naming or commemoration · St. Mary's community

    St. Mary's Chapel, the brick Gothic Revival Episcopal chapel on St. Mary's Road northeast of Hillsborough, built in 1859 for a congregation dating to the late 1750s, was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on July 12, 1978.

    Subject: St. Mary’s Chapel

  15. North Carolina recognizes the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation

    Law, policy or court · Orange and Alamance counties

    Following the 2001 appeals ruling, the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation became the eighth tribe officially recognized by the State of North Carolina through the Commission of Indian Affairs.

  16. Carrboro Town Council adopts a nondiscrimination ordinance covering sexual orientation and gender identity

    Law, policy or court · Carrboro

    Six weeks after the state's moratorium on local employment and public accommodation ordinances expired on December 1, 2020, the Council unanimously adopted Ordinance No. 10/20-21, adding to Chapter 8 of the Town Code a ban on discrimination in employment and places of public accommodation that covers sexual orientation and gender identity or expression. The ordinance took effect on adoption and cited the town's March 26, 2016 pledge to seek such protections.

    People: Lydia Lavelle · Jacquelyn Gist · Randee Haven-O'Donnell · Sammy Slade · Barbara Foushee

Places in this theme

Buildings, schools, churches and other sites named in the dated events on this page, the most often named first. The map shows the 35 with a known location.

Map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors. Site locations from the N.C. State Historic Preservation Office survey, Open Orange and OpenStreetMap; town and community pins mark the middle of their mapped buildings.

Show 26 more

All places and the county map →

Research sources

Background context 7

Background from selected state and local sources

Show all 7

Places to visit 5

Maps, surveys, and the ground itself

Show all 5
  • Orange County GIS Town or county website Parcels, owners, and aerial imagery, with historic layers

Read contemporary evidence 13

Newspapers, photographs, and records of the time

Show all 13

Search beyond the index 14

Other catalogs, databases, and guides worth searching

Show all 14

Ask locally 5

Local organizations that preserve the story and can help you go further

Show all 5

Background reading at OCPL

Held in OCPL’s Rebecca B. Wall Local History Collection. Selected because their titles or catalog subjects provide wider historical context for this theme; they may not discuss the Orange County theme directly.

  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection Caswell County, North Carolina Will Books, 1814-1843: Guardians' Accounts, 1819-1847, 1850 & 1860 Census Mortality Schedules, Powers of Attorney From Deed Books, 1777-1880 Kendall, Katharine Kerr · 1983

    Caswell County, formed in 1777 from the northern part of Orange County, is the setting of Katharine Kerr Kendall's abstracts of its will books for 1814 to 1843, with guardians' accounts of 1819 to 1847, the 1850 and 1860 census mortality schedules, and powers of attorney recorded in deed books from 1777 to 1880. Mary Frances Kerr Donaldson made the index, and maps line the endpapers. Published by the compiler in 1983; 226 pages.

    Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: Caswell County (N.C.) -- Genealogy; Registers of births, etc -- North Carolina -- Caswell County OCPL call number: NC 929.375 KEN
  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection Wake County, North Carolina, Abstract of Record of Wills, Inventories, Settlements of Estates, 1771-1802 Wynne, Frances Holloway · 1985

    Wills, estate inventories and settlements recorded in Wake County, abstracted by Frances Holloway Wynne in two indexed volumes covering 1771 to 1802 and 1802 to 1812. They appeared in 1984 and 1985, the first from Oracle Press of Baton Rouge; the second carries a slightly different title. Wake was created in 1771 out of parts of Cumberland, Johnston and Orange counties.

    Subjects in the OCPL catalog record: Registers of births, etc. -- North Carolina -- Wake County; Wills -- North Carolina -- Wake County; Inventories of decedents' estates -- North Carolina -- Wake County OCPL call number: NC 929.375 WYN
  • Background reading · Rebecca Wall Collection Abstracts of Will Books I, IA, and II of Iredell County, North Carolina, 1788-1845 Schneider, Lois · 1989

    Will abstracts from Iredell County, North Carolina's first three will books, I, IA and II, covering 1788 to 1845, compiled by Lois M. P. Schneider with an index. First published at Statesville in 1980; this printing of 1989 has 162 pages. Her companion volume abstracts the county's unrecorded wills of 1788 to 1915 and Will Book III, 1845 to 1868.

    Subjects in the Library of Congress catalog record: Wills -- North Carolina -- Iredell County; Iredell County (N.C.) -- Genealogy OCPL call number: NC 929.375 SCH

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Related themes

Wars & Military Service →Politics & Government →Law, Courts & Justice →UNC & Campus Life →Schools & Education →Everyday Life & Traditions →

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