Selected materials at TSLA are now available for delivery by e-mail.

• Electronic Delivery of Documents
• Certification of Documents

Early Marriages in Tennessee (Prior to 1861)

Tennessee counties were not required to record marriages in bound record books until 1838. While not required to do so, many counties in Tennessee did record their early marriages. The early marriages were recorded in ledgers by the County Court Clerk. The clerk usually recorded only the names of the bride and groom, the minister or justice of the peace and (sometimes) the bondsman.

A list of extant (in existence) marriage records in Tennessee for the years 1780-1861 has been published. You may e-mail TSLA with the name of the bride or groom, the approximate year of the marriage and (if known) the county where the marriage took place. Please send only one e-mail search request at a time for a single marriage record search. We will check the index and send a reply by e-mail at no charge notifying you if a listing for the marriage record is found. TSLA will respond to e-mail requests promptly; response time may vary, depending on the amount of research required to answer your question and the unique nature of your request. If you need immediate assistance you may call the reference desk at (615) 741-2764 or visit us in person.

Tennessee Marriage Records 1861 - June 30, 1945

Marriages 1861 - June 30, 1945 can be found in the records of each county. There is no state-wide index to marriages during this time period. We can search the microfilmed county records for a marriage record if given the names of the groom and bride, county of marriage, and the date of the marriage or a 5-year date span. If the marriage occurred in one of the four metropolitan counties (Davidson County, Hamilton County, Knox County and Shelby County), then a 3-year date span must be specified. PLEASE NOTE that TSLA does NOT have Davidson County marriage records for May 1941 - June 1945. These records are available through the Metropolitan Archives of Nashville and Davidson County.

Tennessee Marriage Records July 1, 1945 - December 31, 1949

For the dates July 1, 1945 - December 31, 1949, there is a year-by-year statewide microfilm index to Tennessee marriage records. The index is arranged by the name of the groom. A request for a marriage record search for the years dates July 1, 1945 - December 31, 1949 must include the name of the groom. TSLA will, for a fee, search a five year range in this index. The search request requires the name of the groom and the date of the marriage (or we will search the five year range 1945-1949); the name of the bride & the county of marriage are not required, but should be included if known.

Tennessee Marriage Records 1950-1964

For the years 1950-1964, there is a year-by-year statewide microfilm index to Tennessee marriage records. This index can be searched by either the name of the bride or the name of the groom. TSLA will, for a fee, search this microfilm index. The search request should include the name of the bride or groom (or both), the county where the marriage took place (optional), and the date of the marriage (or we will search a five year range).

Tennessee Marriage Records 1965 - Present

For marriage records from 1965 to the present, contact the Office of Vital Records.

PLEASE NOTE : Marriage records in Tennessee have changed during its statehood. In many cases, the marriage license itself was given to the bride and groom. The official marriage record on file in the state will be an entry made into a marriage ledger book by the County Court Clerk. Generally, the clerk recorded only the names of the bride & groom, the minister or justice of the peace, and (sometimes) the bondsman. A limited number of counties began issuing duplicate marriage licenses in the 1880s. The information on marriage records can vary county by county. Some counties began listing the names of the parents of the bride & groom in the 1880s; some counties did not include this information until the mid 1920s. When you request a search for a marriage record from TSLA, we will check to see if there is a marriage license on file. If there is no license on file, then we will send the entry from the county's marriage ledger book.

ORDERING INFORMATION AND FEES:

In the early days of Tennessee, divorce requests had to be approved by the Tennessee General Assembly.  The  Index to Names in the Acts of Tennessee 1796-1850 will allow you to search if there is a listing for a particular individual.  TSLA can, for a fee, copy up to three chapters from the published Acts of Tennessee.  If an act is located, we can also check to see if a legislative petition is on file for the divorce.

Court minutes are another location to search for records concerning the granting of a divorce.  We recommend that you read the document “Courts Where Tennessee Court Cases Were Tried” to find the types of cases heard by the courts.  The list of Earliest County Records and the Inventory of Local Records on Microfilm will give the dates of the court minutes in our collection for the counties of Tennessee.  You must provide the name of the husband & wife, the year of the divorce (or a five year range to search), specify one county, and specify one court to be searched.      If the divorce took place after 1834, and involved a dispute over the division of property, then it would have been heard in the Chancery Court;   if the divorce did not involve a dispute over the division of property, then it would have been heard in the Circuit Court.  (See the section on ordering a search of the court minutes for additional information.)

TSLA has a state-wide divorce index which covers the dates July 1, 1945 - December 31, 1964.  If the divorce took place during this time period, TSLA will search a five year range state-wide for a divorce. You must  to provide us with the name of the husband & wife, the date of the divorce or a five year range to search, and (if known) the county where the divorce was granted.

If the divorce took place prior to July 1, 1945, then TSLA will search a five year range in ONE specified county for a divorce. You must  to provide us with the name of the husband & wife, the date of the divorce or a five year range to search, and specify ONE county where the divorce was granted.

Tennessee Divorce Records 1965 - Present

For divorce records from 1965 to the present, contact the Office of Vital Records.

ORDERING INFORMATION AND FEES:

A list of extant (in existence) wills in Tennessee for the years 1779-1861 has been published. You may e-mail TSLA with the name of the individual, the approximate year of the will and (if known) the county where the will was probated. Please send only one e-mail search request at a time for a single probate record search. We will check the 1779-1861 index and send a reply by e-mail at no charge notifying you if a listing for the probate record is found. TSLA will respond to e-mail requests promptly; response time may vary, depending on the amount of research required to answer your question and the unique nature of your request. If you need immediate assistance you may call the reference desk at (615) 741-2764 or visit us in person.

Microfilm copies of pre-1861 probate records are also available free on interlibrary loan. For more information, visit our web site for a list of county records that can be loaned to other libraries.

Wills after 1861 are found in the microfilmed county records; there is no published index to wills in Tennessee dated after 1861. There is a fee to search for a will or probate record on microfilm. TSLA will search a five year range in ONE specified county for a probate record. If the record is found, we will mail a copy to you. This fee covers the cost of copying up to twenty pages. If the record is not found, you will be notified by mail. The fee is not refundable.

ORDERING INFORMATION AND FEES:

• There is a $10 fee to search for a will or probate record. If the record is found, a copy will be mailed or e-mailed to you. This fee covers the cost of copying up to 20 pages; each additional copy beyond the initial 20 copies is 50¢. The fee is not refundable. Payment in advance by check, money order or credit card is required. Send your request to Tennessee State Library and Archives, Research Department, 403 Seventh Avenue North, Nashville TN 37243-0312.  [GO TO FORM SS-2237 -- Microfilm Copy Order]
• Please submit each search request on a separate form. Orders will be filled promptly and in the order that they are received. Most requests are answered within two weeks of the time they are received by TSLA; however, response times may vary depending on the volume and nature of your request.
• TSLA can, for an additional $5.00 fee, certify a document in our collection.
• Some printed indexes and microfilmed records are available for delivery via e-mail through TSLA E-Docs.

Records of the County or Quarterly Court are available for each county, for varying years. These records are often not indexed. We can search only those which are indexed, and clients should understand that the indexes may be incomplete. County Court minutes contain information about estates, guardianships, small court cases and routine county business matters.

Records of the Circuit Court are available for each county, for varying years after 1809. They contain records of criminal law suits, some divorces, debt cases, and offences against the public.

Records of the Chancery Court are available for each county, for varying dates after 1836. They contain records of equity cases, some divorces, estate disputes and other private suits. These records generally have a partial index. 

We can search the indexes to these records for a particular surname and copy relevant pages from the record. Provide us with the surname, county, and a 5-year date span.

ORDERING INFORMATION AND FEES:

To search for a deed, you will need to provide us with the name of the individual to be searched, the county and a 5-year date span. When a deed search is requested, we follow these procedures:

We locate the cumulative index (if available), usually in a book separate from the deed books. If there is no cumulative index, we use the index appearing in each volume of deeds.

We check to see if the index indicates the date of the deed. If it does, we search the portion of the index covering the dates requested for the name requested.

If the dates are not shown in the index entries, we determine which deeds books were in use during the dates requested in the search. For example: if the request is for a deed dated 1860-1865, and we find that Deed Book C covered 1856-1861 and Deed Book D covered 1861-1866, we would search that portion of the index that includes entries for Deed Books C and D.

Within the time period requested, we look for deeds matching the name of the person requested. Both grantor (seller) and grantee (buyer) indexes are searched. Deed indexes are not always completely alphabetized, but only grouped under each letter of the alphabet. For example: to locate deeds for Jasper Bates, we scan the entire letter "B" in the index.

If an entry matching the request is found, we copy the deed and mail it to the client.

If more than one matching entry is found, we copy the index pages containing them and mail them to the client, with instructions to select one to be copied at the standard fee.

If no related entry is found, we advise the client that the index was searched, indicating the dates covered by the search.

POINTERS

Deeds are not always recorded in the year they are written, so a deed written in 1865 but not recorded until 1875 will not be located using this search strategy. We have no way of ascertaining whether a deed was recorded when it was written.

Name of grantor is not always the expected name; some properties are sold by power of attorney, sheriff or court clerk to satisfy a legal judgment, so the deed would be indexed under the name of that person.

For more information on deeds, visit our web site for a list of county records that can be loaned to other libraries.

ORDERING INFORMATION AND FEES:

There are tax lists for scattered dates for most Tennessee counties. Most tax lists are available on microfilm. A list of early Tennessee tax records at TSLA can be found on our web site. Contact us to inquire what tax lists are available for a particular county.

Most tax lists are not indexed. We cannot search an unindexed tax list for a name. Some early tax lists have been published in book form. If the tax list you want checked has been published, we will search for the name of one specified individual. E-mail TSLA with the name of the individual, the county, and the year of the tax list. TSLA will respond to e-mail requests promptly; response time may vary, depending on the amount of research required to answer your question and the unique nature of your request. If you need immediate assistance you may call the reference desk at (615) 741-2764 or visit us in person.

PLEASE NOTE: Ancestry.com, in partnership with the Tennessee State Library and Archives, has added an index to and scanned images of Tennessee tax records for the years 1783 - 1895. The indexes to these records at Ancestry.com's Tennessee State Library and Archives web page can be viewed by all. RESIDENTS OF TENNESSEE who are not members of Ancestry.com can view the scanned copies of the records by first going to the Tennessee Electronic Library page at http://tntel.tnsos.org/, clicking on the Genealogy tab, and then clicking on Tennessee Records; the scans of the tax records can then be viewed after a free log-in on the Ancestry site. The indexes and images are free to Tennessee residents. Individuals who subscribe to Ancestry.com can also view the scanned records.

ORDERING INFORMATION AND FEES:

A list of published and microfilmed school census records is available on our web site. 

A number of these school census records have been indexed.  Books and periodicals with school census information can be searched by TSLA staff.  E-mail your request to TSLA with the name of the individual you are researching, the year and the county;  please be sure to include the title and call number of the book or periodical. TSLA will respond to e-mail requests promptly; response time may vary, depending on the amount of research required to answer your question and the unique nature of your request. If you need immediate assistance you may call the reference desk at (615) 741-2764 or visit us in person.  Due to the number of requests received daily, we ask that you only submit one request at a time for a single name to be searched in one published source.   Only one request will be handled at a time.   Please do not send a second search request while you have a request pending.   Please do not send several searches in separate e-mail messages, or a request that asks to search multiple names.   When you receive a reply to your first look-up, you may send in your next  look-up request, and so on.  

School census microfilm reels which have been indexed can be searched by TSLA staff.  TSLA will not search unindexed school census records.     If the index is arranged by city, then you must specify one (1) city to be searched.

ORDERING INFORMATION AND FEES:

Some printed indexes and microfilmed records may be available for delivery through our e-mail service.  Requests to be delivered by e-mail, however, must be submitted in the same manner as our Services by Mail requests:  payment in advance by check, money order or credit card is required.  Send your request to Tennessee State Library and Archives, Research Department,  403  Seventh Avenue North,  Nashville TN  37243-0312.  If you request electronic delivery of a document, you must check the e-mail box under "Delivery Instructions". If no boxes are marked, or if more than one box is marked, the record will be photocopied and sent via US Mail.

Digital copies of records will be sent from the e-mail address reference.tsla@tn.gov . 

There are situations where a court, insurance company, Social Security Office, nursing home, or genealogical society may require an individual to submit a certified copy of a document. When TSLA certifies a document, the photocopy is marked with a stamp avowing that it is a true and exact copy of a document held at TSLA. The document is signed and dated by a designated TSLA staff member, and an embossed seal is placed over the signature and date.

Updated April 9, 2015