Kentucky's "Doomsday Book"

You don't have to be a family tree freak - excuse me, amateur geneaologist - to find this discovery exciting.

Land, census and marriage records from the late 1700s to the early 1900s have recently resurfaced that could provide a treasure trove of information for genealogists and others.

The books, which are being indexed to make the information easier to pinpoint, were found in several places. The land and census records were at government archives in Frankfort, and several years' worth of marriage licenses were in the Fayette County clerk's storage area.

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Potter found out about a large volume of applications for land patents from an article in the October issue of The Kentucky Explorer magazine. The article said the Fayette County clerk's office had a "Doomsday Book" containing names of the commonwealth's earliest settlers.

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The Doomsday Book contains the names of settlers who applied for land patents — property titles, essentially — from 1779 through 1780, when Kentucky was still part of Virginia.

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The clerk's office also recovered several books containing Fayette County school census records from 1896 to 1909. There are separate books for black and white students.

Potter calls the census records a "significant discovery" for black genealogists.

"Unfortunately, the Fayette County clerk's office doesn't have a lot of records for black people to go on," she said.

The census books contain students' names, addresses, names of parents and siblings, and dates of birth.

"All of a sudden, one record has potentially opened up a world of finding one's family," Potter said.

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There is no timetable for when the records will be indexed and available for the public to see at the Fayette County clerk's office. But clerks will do what they can to accommodate people with an urgent need to look at them, Potter said.

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