Conducting Research in the Search Room
How to request information while visiting the Search Room. There is also an introduction to doing genealogical research in the State Archives of North Carolina.

Fee Schedule
Fees for photocopies, copies of photographs and other duplication services.

Requesting Information by Mail
Requesting information and/or copies by mail or email, guidelines for questions that can and can not be answered by mail, search and handling fees.

Security Procedures
List of materials not allowed in the Search Room, rules for the use and handling of materials, and other regulations.

Types of Records Available
An introduction to County, State Agency, Veterans, and Non-Governmental records available at the State Archives and links to various guides, container lists, and other finding aids.

Container Lists of Selected County Records
Container lists for some county records are available. These include listings of estates papers that related to the settlement of a person's estate, filed first by county and then in folders arranged by name and date. Also included are lists for some civil actions, divorces, guardians records, marriage licenses, and wills. At this time, the container lists do not link to images of the actual documents.

Guide to Research Materials in the State Archives of North Carolina: County Records
A listing of more than 9,000 bound volumes and 21,000 boxes, as well as over 24,000 reels of microfilm of county government records and documents available to researchers in the State Archives; the 2002 Version is available online and the 2009 version is available for purchase from the NC Historical Publications Shop

MARS (Manuscript and Archives Records System) Catalog
MARS is the online catalog for the State Archives and has recently been upgraded to provide access to many new features including images of some documents. In order to view images you will need a DjVu Viewer Browser Plug-in, available for free download from LizardTech. The plug-in works with Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator and is available for Windows, Mac OS X and 9, and UNIX.

North Carolina Newspaper Digitization Project
In 2009, the State Archives of North Carolina completed a project to digitize newspapers from it's collection that were, up until that time, only available on microfilm. These materials include papers dating from 1752-1890s - a total of 23,483 digital images that are keyword searchable. The project was made possible by a LSTA grant provided by the State Library of North Carolina.

Also available: Guide to Newspapers on Microfilm

Online Finding Aids
Finding aids are detailed narrative guides to collections. Currently, the State Archives of North Carolina is creating online finding aids for private collections, photographic collections, and select organization and state agency records. These finding aids enhance the descriptions found in MARS, particularly for those collections that have been described only to the collection level.