A PROGRAM FOR MICROFILMING COUNTY RECORDS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP73-00402R000100140004-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 19, 2006
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: August 5, 1969
• Content Type: PAPER

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WORLD CONFERENCE
ON RECORDS
AND GENEALOGICAL SEMINAR
Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S.A.
5-8 August 1969
A PROGRAM FOR MICROFILMING COUNTY RECORDS
By
H.G. Jones, Ph.D., F.S.A.A.
"Record Protection in
an Uncertain World"
0402R000100140004A EA - 11
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By
H.G. Jones, Ph.D., F.S.A.A.
The governments of the fifty states of the United States of America, while basically alike
in constitutional organization, vary greatly in administrative structure. Each state has evolved
its own traditions, directions, and agencies. Nowhere can this diversity be demonstrated more
clearly than in the varying patterns of archival administration and records management among
the states.
These differences notwithstanding, counties constitute a most important level of
government in all areas except New England, where towns are more significant. Louisiana, of
course, calls parishes what other states refer to as counties.
In the area of recordmaking and recordkeeping, counties daily touch the lives of our
citizens. In the county courthouses are recorded our birth, our marriage, our voting privilege,
our property ownership, our death, and the settlement of our estate. In the same courthouses
are adopted our local taxes and our local ordinances. In short, county government is personal
government; it protects, in writing, our rights and privileges as citizens. These records concern
us from birth to death, and they concern our descendants after we have passed on.
The importance of the protection of these records can hardly be exaggerated. The loss of
our courthouse by fire, of records by theft or other destruction, of legibility of records by
humidity or poor recording mediums, affects each of us intimately. Our citizenship can be
brought into question, the title to our property can be placed in jeopardy, our right to vote
can be nullified. In short, while federal and state records are important to us, local records are
indispensable in our daily lives. These must be protected. Yet, ironically, county records in
every state have suffered major losses from disaster, neglect, and deliberate destruction.
North Carolina, one of the original thirteen colonies, serves as an example of what has
happened in most of the states. From the issuance of the Carolina Charter in 1663, laws
required the keeping of local records. The care with which these laws were carried out varied
with the competence and conscientiousness of the local officials. For the first half-century,
there were no courthouses, and records were kept in private homes. Even with the building of
courthouses in the eighteenth century, disaster continued to strike, for fireproof construction
was unknown. But there were other enemies to preservation: some officials, untrained for their
job, simply had little respect for their records; some relegated records to over-dry or too-damp
storage areas where they suffered from the elements or from vermin and insects; some officials
failed to turn over the records to their successors; some records were scattered or soaked by
hurricanes; others were recorded on inferior papers with impermanent ink; and some were lost
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in the movement from town to town or from one builidng to another. During wars invading
forces destroyed and carried off some records. There was no central colonial or state authority
to oversee the proper keeping of the records.
Notwithstanding heavy losses--at least half of our 100 counties have suffered--a
remarkable accumulation of county records has survived in North Carolina. But as the
twentieth century emerged, the dangers of the past continued to threaten. The realization of
the value of the records and fears of their destruction helped bring about the establishment in
1903 of the North Carolina Historical Commission of which R.D.W. Connor was the first
secretary. Its organic law gave it only the authority to accept local records, and the
commission sought to bring into the State Archives records not being properly cared for in the
county courthouses. By 1920 some records from 47 counties had been brought to Raleigh,
arranged, and made available to researchers. A good start had been made, but there was still no
state law placing in the agency the authority necessary to oversee the proper care of records
still in the counties. A.R. Newsome, then secretary of the Historical Commission, wrote in
1932 that the "failure of North Carolina to make systematic provision for the preservation of
public records has resulted in untold losses from fire, water, rats, carelessness, deliberate
destruction to make space for rapid accumulations of new records, and by gifts and unreturned
loans by public officials to private individuals."
It was at Newsome's urging that in 1935 the first comprehensive Public Records Act was
passed by the General Assembly. The law defined public records; fixed legal responsibility for
their care; prohibited their destruction, sale, loan, or other dispostion without the approval of
the Historical Commission; required officials to deliver all public records to their successors;
required legal custodians to demand records from anyone in illegal possession of them;
enjoined officials to make their records available to the public and to keep them in fireproof
safes or vaults; and empowered the Historical Commission to examine into the condition of
public records and to aid and advise officials in their records problems.
Armed with legislation of its own writing, the commission might well have launched a
comprehensive archival program in 1935. But the bugaboo of all archivists--lack of
funds--raised its ugly head. Thus, except for progress possible with the meager funds available,
emphasis on a local records program had to await a better day.
That better day came in the form of outside assistance: the Historical Records Survey in
the 1930's and the microfilm program of the Genealogical Society of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints, beginning in the 1940's.
The HRS, a project of the Works Progress Administration (later the Work Projects
Administration), conducted a program of inventorying the records in all courthouses, and, in
some instances, of arranging and making more accessible the records. More than a hundred
workers were employed on this project at one time or another, and the inventories, when
completed, were published in three thick volumes titled The Historical Records of North
Carolina: The County Records, edited by Dan Lacy and Christopher Crittenden. North
Carolina, incidentally, appears to have been the only state to publish its county records
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inventories in letterpress format. For the first time the actual holdings of the state's 100
county courthouses were known.
The Historical Commission endorsed plans of the Genealogical Society of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to microfilm records of genealogical value, and in May 1941,
this work was begun in North Carolina. The commission served as liaison agency with the
county governments and, in turn, received a positive microfilm copy of all filmed records for
use in its Search Room. Despite the problems of wartime, the program continued sporadically
for more than a decade. Some filming was done in 67 counties.
Because of its broadened authority in the preservation of historical materials, the name of
the Historical Commission was changed in 1943 to the State Department of Archives and
History. Following the war the department entered the new field of current records
management on the state level, but except for the accumulation in Raleigh of valuable records
of no further administrative use and for authorizing disposition of useless records, it did not
have sufficient staff to permit it to extend records management services to the counties.
I had been State Archivist of North Carolina only a short while until I began to
understand the need for a concerted statewide program for the preservation of county records.
Our department, charged with the responsibility, needed a staff to assist local officials with
their current records problems as well as with the preservation of the older records. An
archivist quickly learns that the greatest enemy to preservation of the important records is the
attempt to save everything. Yet we had no overall state plan to encourage the orderly disposal
of purely housekeeping records so that the permanently valuable ones could be better
preserved. Though we had continued to bring to Raleigh the important records which were
not needed in the daily administration of the counties, many significant records were required
to remain in the courthouses--records such as will books, deed books, and marriage registers.
Some of these records had been filmed by the Genealogical Society, but the quality. of the
earlier filming was inferior due to poor equipment and supplies available during the wartime
period, and the cutoff dates'varied from county to county. Furthermore, the Genealogical
Society had filmed only records of genealogical interest; other important historical records
such as election records and court actions were generally not included.
In a poorly mimeographed letter dated January 23, 1958, I proposed to each clerk of
Superior Court, register of deeds, and county attorney a state-financed program of
reinventorying, scheduling, and microfilming the permanently valuable county records. The
results of my request for comments were surprising. Replies were received by mail or in person
from one or more officials in 53 counties. Of these, only three were noncommittal and just
one was opposed (the latter gentleman promised actively to fight the idea which he viewed as
"just another effort at centralization in Raleigh").
Armed with this overwhelming sentiment, we carried the proposal to the various
statewide associations of county officials. These influential organizations adopted 'the proposal
as their own and made it a part of their legislative program. We wanted the legistlation to come
from the county officials rather than from us. We wanted to be able to stand back and say,
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"Why, that's a fine idea. Give us the funds and we will be glad to carry it out."
In August, 1958, we created a position of Public Records Examiner with the primary
responsibility of working with county officials in developing a statewide program. Despite the
fact that I had been a Yeoman Second Class in the Navy during World War 11, I found myself
with a retired Rear Admiral - A.M. Patterson - as my assistant. The choice was a happy one, for
the Admiral, a native North Carolinian, has done more than any other person in the past
decade to build the program about which I am talking today. The program is, in reality, what
he has made it. Within six months either he or I or both had visited every courthouse in the
state, and when the bill was considered by the 1959 General Assembly, there was not a single
vote against it. It carried an initial biennial appropriation of $147,410, a figure that has grown
to more than $300,000 for the 1969-1971 biennium.
The program was popular from the beginning. Counties vied for top priority, but it was
decided that no favorites could be played. Consequently, after starting the program with three
nearby counties, the schedule thereafter included counties in the order of their
creation--beginning with the counties formed in the 1660's.
Our procedure for bringing a county into the program is as follows. First we clear the
plan with the Board of County Commissioners who, in turn, commit their county officials to
cooperation. These formalities taken care of, Admiral Patterson and members of his staff go
into every county office that holds official records, and there they inventory each series of
records by title, dates, quantity, and location. To this inventory is added a
retention/disposition schedule for each series, indicating how long it is to be
preserved--whether permanently or for a speicified number of years. The document is
subsequently edited, mimeographed, assembled in bound form, and distributed to each
recordkeeping office in the county. Each custodian then has at hand a guide for the further
preservation or disposition of his records. Adherence to these schedules results in the
preservation of valuable records and the timely disposal of nonessential records, with resulting
economy in space, personnel, and money and with improved efficiency in office operation.
The schedule also indicates which original records should be transferred to the State Archives
and which records are to be microfilmed.
Upon receipt of original records in Raleigh, they are cleaned, fumigated, repaired,
arranged, and described for use in the Search Room.
During the inventorying, the staff selects for restoration those deteriorating permanently
valuable records that are required for daily administrative use in the courthouse--such as will
books and deed books--and temporarily transfers them to the department's Document
Restoration Laboratory in Raleigh where they are deacidified, laminated by the Barrow
process, and rebound, after which they are returned to the county.
Next, a team of cameramen sets up the Recordak MRE planetary cameras in spaces
provided by the county, and the filming begins. Two pages are filmed at a time on 35 mm. film
usually at a reduction ratio of 16 tot. The film is sent to the department's own Microfilm
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Processing Laboratory in Raleigh where it is processed by a Houston Fearless Labmaster. Local
Records Section staff members then proof the film. If errors are found, orders for corrections
are sent to the cameramen; these corrections are later spliced into the master negative. When
the filming has been completed for a particular county, the reels are forwarded to the
Genealogical Society here in Salt Lake City where three additional copies are made--one for
the department and two for the society (one for its underground vaults, another for its
research library).
When the work in a county has been completed, the following results have been
accomplished: (1) An inventory-schedule for each record series in every county office has been
published, showing title, dates, quantity, location, and recommended retention period for each
series; (2) officials have been furnished with schedules to use as a guide for the destruction of
records of no further value; (3) records of permanent value have been microfilmed, and the
master negative film has been stored in a security vault (both in Raleigh and Salt Lake City)
for reproduction purposes should the original records be lost, and duplicate copies have been
made available for research; (4) original records of permanent value no longer needed in the
day-to-day operations of the county have been transferred to the State Archives for
preservation; (5) records in need of repair have been laminated and rebound; and (6) the role
of the Department of Archives and History in advising and assisting county officials in their
records problems has been demonstrated.
What has been accomplished in the past decade is gratifying not only to our department
but to county officials and to researchers. We have completed the work in 85 of the 100
counties; only 15 post-1850 counties remain to be covered, and these will be completed within
the next biennium. Thereafter we will go back to the counties covered in 1959 and subsequent
years and bring the program up to date. Within approximately five years we should be able to
return to each county once a year, thus providing security to within a twelve-month period at
all times.
Let statistics speak: To date we have brought into the State Archives 5,500 volumes and
5,000 cubic feet of loose papers; we have laminated and rebound 1,800 volumes of county
records; we have filmed an estimated 63,000 volumes (these, along with some loose papers
such as marriage records fill 29,500 reels of microfilm); we have constructed beneath our new
building a specially-designed security vault for the housing of our master negatives, and we
have loaned our film to the Genealogical Society which has made two additional copies of each
reel--one for storage in its underground vaults, the other for research use. For the first time in
history the information contained in our most important county records is assured of
preservation, and for the first time researchers can study the records without the necessity of
visiting 100 county seats. Indeed, more than 10,000 researchers are served each year in person
or by mail through our Search Room in Raleigh; additional untold thousands use the film
copies available here in Salt Lake City and in the Genealogical Society's branch archives.
Writers of scholarly history, who in the past have ignored county records because they were
not conveniently available, no longer have that excuse.
You will recall that in the beginning I mentioned the need for advice and assistance to
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county officials in relation to their current records problem. I am glad to report that, after
slow and still limited services, we are now able to do more along these lines. We have one staff
member whose duty is to make recommendations on recording equipment, supplies, and
techniques. At a time when great changes are taking place in the means of recording, we will
need to give even more emphasis to these problems, for, although the genealogist is usually
interested in old records, the genealogist and historian of tomorrow will be just as interested in
today's records. We must make sure that current records are created in forms and on mediums
that will lend themselves to preservation and use by the researchers of tomorrow.
I have attempted to give you the story of how a program of microfilming county records
was developed in one state. Inherent in what I have said is my belief that microfilming alone is
not enough. Whether conducted by a state agency, a county, or an organization, the care and
reproduction of county records involves identification, appraisal, and the establishment of
retention/disposition schedules for the original records. Without the inventory/schedule, the
substitution of microfilm for the original records can become an end in itself. If this should
come to pass,. we will ultimately face the same problem that is so evident in the care of paper
records: We will have such a vast amount of microfilm copies of valueless records that the
sheer quantity alone will interfere with the preservation and use of the valuable filmed records.
True, microfilm miniaturizes records and allows great volumes to be stored in a small space;
but it is equally true that microfilm is difficult to use unless the materials are filmed in proper
sequence and unless definitive indexes are available. Microfilm is a partner in a well-conceived
program of archival preservation--a very important partner. To make it the sole element,
however, would be to substitute one problem for another.
During the discussion period I shall be glad to answer questions concerning the specific
procedures and techniques in the North Carolina program. Let me leave you for the moment
with one lesson that we have learned: There is a practical way of preserving and making
available valuable county records. The North Carolina way was through a state-financed
program administered by the State Department of Archives and History under the state's
uniform public records act. In states where such funding is not feasible, similar results can be
obtained, if not uniformly, then certainly in the more enlightened counties, by the
formulation of a comprehensive program outline by the cognizant state archival agency and
the "selling" of this program to the county officials. It can be done.
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