County Histories

County histories give the frame the individual records sit inside. They cover when a county was organized and which older county it was cut from. They also note where the courthouse stood and what became of its records. Read the county history first if a family seems to appear from nowhere.

This matters in practice. A family that never moved can still appear in three counties on paper, purely because boundaries shifted around them. Knowing when a courthouse burned explains a gap in the record that otherwise looks like a family vanishing.