A collection that I am aware of – yet, often forget to search in – are the Genealogical Records Committee (GRC) reports. I really need to drill this into my brain that this record collection should to be included in every “reasonably exhaustive research” research plan.
According to the DAR’s information page about the GRC Reports, the call to members began in the 1910’s to transcribe previously unpublished records to help preserve them. This caused many ladies and chapters to head out to cemeteries to conduct headstone readings, court houses to create name indexes of records and deeds, collect and transcribe family bibles, and more. I remember once hearing that it became a competition between the different chapters as to who could contribute more info to the GRC!
The transcriptions the ladies would collect were turned into their chapter which, in turn, was turned into their state. The state would then compile all of the reports together into a volume or volumes to turn into the GRC office to add to the DAR library.
Early editions were not indexed, so after a certain number of volumes, index books were created. For example, in NY after the first 110 volumes of the Cemetery, Church, and Town Records and were published, an index was made. Eventually, the DAR did start requiring an internal index to be in the back of each book, too. Other versions of indexes were made, however it wasn’t until the 2000s, that the ladies worked really hard at indexing the entire collection (by hand, not OCR) across all of the states and came up with an all-encompassing National Index!
This was especially useful as a record from one state could have been submitted to another state’s report. For example, think about a Daughter submitting a transcription of a family bible record in her possession. She lived in Pennsylvania and submitted it to her chapter in that state. However, the people mentioned in the family bible had lived in Vermont at the time the record was made. Likely, somebody wouldn’t think to search the Pennsylvania GRC Reports for a record created in Vermont. With the National Index, a name could be searched for across all of the states!
According to the DAR website, there are over 20,000 volumes and 67,000,000 names in the GRC! To search the index, go to:
https://services.dar.org/public/dar_research/search
If you find a name of interest in the search results, there are a few options of how to retrieve the report:
- Visit the DAR Library in Washington DC. The GRC Report collection is too large for them to house the physical books, so they have digitized the entire collection. You can print off pages for 50¢ each.
- Side note, when you are at the DAR Library in person, you can only access the collection on their computers. It is not accessible on your own computer even if you are on their WiFi.
- For a fee, you can order copies from the DAR Library. Learn more at: https://www.dar.org/library/services/search-services.
- Look for the collection at other libraries. Many states often placed a copy of the GRC Reports somewhere within their own state. For New York, a copy of the collection is available at the NYS Library in Albany.
- FamilySearch microfilmed and has some of the GRC Reports available within their catalog. More on how to access that to follow in different blog post.
While visiting the DAR Library in DC this past week, I took note of how many GRC Report books each state has by using the “Browse Books” feature which was available on-site:
- Alaska – 23
- Alabama – 260
- Arkansas – 310
- Arizona – 89
- British Columbia – 1
- California – 507
- Colorado – 245
- Connecticut – 274
- Cuba – 2
- District of Columbia – 660
- Delaware – 54
- Florida – 682
- Georgia – 759
- Hawaii – 13
- Iowa – 270
- Idaho – 51
- Illinois – 739
- Indiana – 1174
- Kansas – 532
- Kentucky – 446
- Louisiana – 377
- Massachusetts – 498
- Maryland – 290
- Maine – 426
- Michigan – 662
- Minnesota – 105
- Missouri – 1239
- Mississippi – 176
- Montana – 46
- Mexico – 2
- North Carolina – 549
- North Dakota – 25
- Nebraska – 191
- New Hampshire – 158
- New Jersey – 876
- New Mexico – 77
- Nevada – 98
- New York – 1236
- Ohio – 863
- Oklahoma – 381
- Oregon – 341
- Pennsylvania – 802
- Puerto Rico – 2
- Rhode Island – 94
- South Carolina – 259
- South Dakota – 17
- Tennessee – 316
- Texas – 1075
- Utah – 38
- Virginia – 585
- Vermont – 89
- Washington – 160
- Wisconsin – 150
- West Virginia – 144
- Wyoming – 49