State library shares records with Ancestry.com

Friday, October 21, 2011, Vol. 35, No. 42

NASHVILLE (AP) — Millions of historical records from the State Library and Archives will be available for genealogy research online under a new agreement with Ancestry.com, an online family history resource.

Secretary of State Tre Hargett said in a news release Tuesday that Tennessee will start by sharing death records from 1908 through 1959 with the website and its paid subscribers. The database includes 1.2 million digital images and 3.4 million names.

Those records are also available free on the Tennessee Electronic Library website at http://tntel.tnsos.org .

The death records also include notable figures in Tennessee history, such as presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan who died after the Scopes Trial, former governor Austin Peay, Grand Ole Opry star Uncle Dave Macon and Gladys Presley, the mother of Elvis Presley.