The nickname of the state of Tennessee is “The Volunteer State”. Are you searching for more information about your ancestors who once lived in Tennessee? It’s always nice to have a volunteer help you with your research. Lacking that, you could try using some of these Tennessee genealogy resources instead.
Ancestry.com has a page that is filled with links to all of their Tennessee genealogy collections of records. In order to access these records, you will need to have an Ancestry.com membership. Sometimes, a collection will be offered for free. Return to their page often. Ancestry.com does a great job of making it clear when a collection is new, has been updated, or is currently being offered for free.
FamilySearch has a Wiki page about the state of Tennessee. You can find links to more FamilySearch Wiki pages about each county in Tennessee. There are also links to more information about several major repositories of Tennessee records. Scroll down the page quite a bit, and you will find links to more FamilySearch Wiki pages that each are about a specific collection of Tennessee records.
Facebook has a Community Page for FamilySearch Genealogy Research. This is a good resource for genealogists who want to connect to other genealogists who are working on Tennessee genealogy right now. It is also a good resource to check for links for relevant FamilySearch records that are for Tennessee.
GeneaLinks has a search engine at the top of the page. Put the first name and the last name of your ancestor into it. Select which type of record you want to search through. Choose from: vital, birth, death, marriage, divorce, or “Genealogy”. GeneaLinks also has helpful information for genealogists who are new to Tennessee genealogy. It points out that Tennessee records are hard to acquire, and to expect to hit some “roadblocks”.
Interment.net has cemetery records online. Start by putting the first and last name of your ancestor into the search engine at the top of their page. Or, you can start by selecting one of the counties in the state of Tennessee. If there is a link, it means that Interment.net has information about records from cemeteries that are located within that county. At a glance, it looks like about half the counties have links attached.
Cyndi’s List might be the most comprehensive list of genealogy links online. If it is on the internet, then Cyndi’s List probably has a link to it. They have a page called “United States – Tennessee”. Start by choosing one of the many categories to browse through. Some include: “Birth, Marriage, Death”, “Census”, “Counties”, “Military”, “Newspapers”, and more!
Image by Ed Uthman on Flickr