Contact: Maridith Geuder
An 1864 marriage license, 19th century voter registration records, a 1910 report on convict laborers, and many other historic documents are part of a local records exhibit featured at Mississippi State University.
On display through the end of the month at Mitchell Memorial Library, "Preserving the Past for Future Generations: Saving Mississippi's Local Records" commemorates Mississippi Archives Week celebrated each November. The display is located in the third floor atrium.
Kept by various offices, the records concern "key details of the personal and business lives of citizens and the business of local government," said Mattie H. Sink of the library's Special Collections.
Considered extremely valuable resources by historians, genealogists and other researchers of the past, the accounts typically chronicle land purchases, marriages and other personal events, tax payments, election records, deaths and inheritances, among others.
Sink said Mississippi's local records management law, which was amended in 1996, specifies the kinds of non-current local records to be kept and how they are to be preserved.
Prior to that time, state courthouses and city halls often were "filled to overflowing" with the old files, she said. "As a result, while some records were destroyed or lost to fires and other disasters, most were the victims of poor storage conditions and neglect."
For more information on the MSU exhibit, telephone (601) 325-7679.