Wake County Genealogical Society Blog: June 2025

Wednesday, June 25, 2025

Wake Wednesday - FamilySearch Wiki - Wake County

Have you used the FamilySearch.org wiki for Wake county in your research. It is a great place to check for resource locations and contact points. You will find info on church, land, military and probate records, as well as maps and county history and border changes. Check it out. There is a wealth of information there. It is a good place to start if you are just beginning your Wake County research.

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Visit the wiki and be sure to scroll all the way down the page or you might miss something!

Wednesday, June 18, 2025

Wake Wednesday - Fort Family Builders

The Fort Family Builders, renowned for their carpentry and finishing settled in Wake county in the late 1700.

"...Frederick and Mary Ann Fort moved from Sussex County, Virginia, to Wake County in the 1780s, along with their son, William Knight. The younger carpenter sons, John and Elias, were born in Wake County and joined William—who was old enough to be their father—in the carpenter's trade, and they were probably trained by him as well. By the 1790s,William Fort was busy at his trade in Wake County, where he took several apprentices to the carpenter's and wheelwright's trades in 1798, 1804, 1809, and 1814. Another brother, Foster, also took an apprentice to the carpenter's trade in Wake County in 1804, but little is known of his work as a carpenter.

The Fort brothers' chief known work is the plantation complex at Fairntosh (1810-1822) in the section of Orange County that became present Durham County. It was built for Duncan and Rebecca Bennehan Cameron..."

The full family bio is here - Fort Family (1764-1845)

View detailed photos of their most famous work, Fairntosh.

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Wednesday, June 11, 2025

Wake Wednesday: Don't Forget, Wake Treasures Journal Access now open access for all

We just can't help reminding folks. This is such a great boon to researchers. Be sure to check the highlighted collections below.

All past issues of the WCGS Wake Treasures Journal are now available to all Wake researchers any time they need to browse! 24/7. All the time.

There are 31 years of valuable Wake-centric content stored at this link. If you have not checked the offerings yet, you better take a peek to see just what you are missing.

WCGS Publications > Wake Treasures. From the journal landing page, you can browse issues by year or check the subject index that is available for years 1-25 (1995 - 2015). There is an impromptu index that was created for another project. It was covers the years 2007—2022. I started with the year 2022 and works backwards. While not complete, you may still find it helpful for discovery of content and location. It is available in searchable spreadsheet form here. I hope to get this list completed with the earlier content and that from 2023 soon.

Just to show the power of the files available in the Journal, here are some Freedmen’s Records* found in these volumes found by searching freedmen in the newer index: vol. 17.1 (2007), 24.1 (2014), and 24.2 (2014).

Insolvent Debtors* can be found in these issues: vol. 18.2 (2008) all townships, 22.1 (2012), 22.2 (2012), and 28.3 (2018).

Divorce records* are found here - vol. 18.2 (2008), 19.1 (2009), 20.2 (2010), 21.1 (2010/2011), 26.3 (2016), and 27.2 (2017).

* This is a sampling of some of the record sets and topics covered in the journal and is not complete. You will want to browse further in the earlier issues. Check out both indexes described above. Hopefully all issues will be in an index soon.

Once you start browsing within the individual issues, they are searchable by any name, location or topic within. Have fun looking for your ancestors!

Wednesday, June 4, 2025

Wake Wednesday - 1914 Raleigh Street Car Map

This wonderful street car map from 1914 recently passed thru my Facebook Feed. Mike Legeros of Legeros Fire Blog shared his map with the "You know you grew up in Raleigh when..." group there.
His map is an annotated version showing the street car lines of the time. It is viewable at his website. Click map to see larger.

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The original is available via North Carolina Maps site from UNC-CH.

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