Powerful online libraries,
includingAncestry LibraryandHeritageQuest,
for beginning
and professional researchers. Included are census, birth, marriage, death, immigration and
military
records
and much, much more.
Location -
MAP - Paris is about 17
miles northeast of Lexington, Kentucky, on US 27/68 - only a short
jog from Interstates 64 and 75. The library is located in the
heart of downtown on the corner of High and Seventh Streets, only
a few short blocks from the
Courthouse.
The John
Fox Jr. Genealogical Library
is just down the street and
features an extensive and interesting collection of resources --
don't miss it!
Research: A quiet
corner is dedicated to our modest collection of local
interest books and donated family records. Some of these materials
are not completely indexed or cataloged; allow plenty of time to
browse! Items from this room may be copied (cost is $0.15/page)
but cannot be checked out of the library.
Queries:
The library does not have sufficient staff
resources to handle the many requests we receive for
assistance with genealogical research.
See Visits & Queries,
and
other resources listed below. Call or
email us for the names
of local researchers who work for hire.
IMPORTANT: Our
Reference, Genealogy and Local History collection is reserved for
those who come in to this library, with no exceptions. These
materials are never loaned, so they will always be available to
researchers. You may, however, see the items listed in our online
catalog: go to www.pbcat.org -
click on BROWSE - choose "Kentucky Room" in the first drop-down
box, and hit "Enter." (Hint: Your own local librarian
might have the same book, or might find a different copy
it that is available via Inter-Library Loan. Ask your local
library, not us. Thank you.)
Books available at the library,
available for in-house reference use:
Note: If you
are unable to visit here in person, please understand that our
library staff cannot do your research for you - we simply don't
have sufficient resources to handle everyone's queries. Consider
asking your local library for assistance.
The History of Bourbon
County, 1785-1865
by H.E. Everman, 1977
Bourbon County Since 1865
by H.E. Everman, 1999
Historic Architecture of
Bourbon County, Kentucky
by Walter E. Langsam
Bourbon County, 1860-1940(pictures)
by Berkeley and Jeanine Scott, 2001
Paris and Bourbon County
(pictures)
by Berkeley and Jeanine Scott, 2002
If you've ever dreamed of reading
the January 2, 1900, edition of Paris, Kentucky's "Bourbon
News", this site will offer a form of wish fulfillment. This
newspaper (and many others) are part of the Chronicling
America website, which was produced by the National
Digital Newspaper Program. The program is the result of a
partnership between the National Endowment for the Humanities
and the Library of Congress. In the "View" section of the site,
visitors can view a range of newspapers from 1880 to 1910 from
ten different states, including Kentucky, Utah, Virginia,
Nebraska, and Minnesota. Visitors can use their search engine to
perform detailed searches across the collection, and if they
don't find what they are looking for, they can click on over to
the "Find" area. Here, visitors can find general publication
information about thousands of current and defunct publications
organized by newspaper title.
-- Copyright 2009 Internet Scout
Project -
http://scout.wisc.edu
NOTE: Some of the above are actual digital copies, some are
merely records indicating where the microfilm copies are held
(which libraries).
The Newberry Library provides the online Digital
Atlas of Historical County Boundaries, a dataset that covers every
day-to-day change in the size, shape, location, name,
organization, and attachment of each U.S. county and state from
the creation of the first county in 1634 through 2000.
Genealogists, geographers, historians, political scientists,
attorneys, demographers, and many more now can find accurate
county data that will greatly assist them in their research. The
data are organized by state and are available online in four
versions: * Viewable, interactive maps (electronic analogues to
printed maps) on which the historical lines have been plotted
against a background of the modern county network; * Downloadable
shape files for use in geographic information systems (GIS); *
Downloadable KMZ files for use with Google Earth; * Downloadable
and printable PDF files (each full-page frame shows a map of a
different version of each county, with the historical boundaries
displayed against a background of the modern county network);
Supplementing the polygons and maps for each state are
chronologies, commentary on historical problems, long and short
metadata documents, and a bibliography.
Bourbon County Courthouse
http://www.bourboncountyclerk.ky.gov/ Courthouse Square, 301
Main Street, Paris KY 40361
County Clerk's Office: 859-987-2142
Hours: 8:30am - 4:30pm, weekdays
Available documents include marriage records, deed books, will
books, and a huge collection of administrative records, dated from
1786 to the present.
Bourbon County - African
American Griots http://aagriots.org/kentucky/
The goal for this site is to
be a centralized location for African-American records in the
state of Kentucky.
Cane Ridge
Meeting House
http://www.ccinky.net/CaneRidge/index.htm Bourbon
County site of the "Great Revival" of August 1801 led by Barton
Stone and attended by thousands. Foundation of sects including the
Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, and Cumberland
Presbyterians.
Here is a
MAP
showing how to get to Cane Ridge from the public library in
downtown Paris.
PARIS
CEMETERY (since 1847)
1603
South Main Street, Paris KY 40361
Phone: 859-987-4078
With arched Gothic-style gates and gently rolling grounds, this
cemetery is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
See over 1,000 listings for interments here at
Find-A-Grave.com.
See the library's
reference collection for:
Burial Records Paris Cemetery
Co., Inc. 1847-1931.
Paris Cemetery Co.
Comprehensive Burial Records through April 30, 2001 /
prepared by Brenda Myers Childers.
God's Acres: Private Graveyards in
Bourbon County, Kentucky(The Gray
Book), compiled and edited by Kenney Shropshire
Roseberry and Rogers Roseberry Bardé, 2009.
"Spanning the years
1774-2001, it contains first ever listings of three
African-American graveyards, many epitaphs, pictures of cemetery
stones and historical writings of people and places important to
the history of Kentucky." -Hopewell
Museum
Home
of the
John Fox Jr. Library
- official genealogical library of the Kentucky Society of
National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution
(NSDAR). Building dates to 1788.
Call ahead for current access/availability.
Hopewell
Museum
http://www.parisky.com/hopewell.html 800
Pleasant St., Paris KY 40361 (859) 987-7274 The citizens of Bourbon County opened Hopewell Museum in 1995
to present the rich historical story of one of Kentucky's oldest
counties and to provide a showcase for Kentucky arts. The pretty
beaux arts building which houses the museum is an attraction in
itself. The structure was built in 1909 as the town's post office
building. The museum is open from noon to 5 PM Thursday, Friday
and Saturday; 2 to 4 PM Sunday; and by appointment. Admission is
$2.
The Citizen-Advertiser
(only newspaper currently operating in Bourbon County)
Email:
citadinc@bellsouth.net
123 W Eighth St, Paris KY 40361
859-987-1870
Kentucky Obituary
Links
http://www.obitlinkspage.com/obit/ky.htm
Links to Kentucky
obituaries, death notices, mortality schedules, cemetery
inscriptions, and other genealogical data, arranged by counties.
Kentucky Virtual Library's
KENTUCKIANA DIGITAL LIBRARY An amazing collection offered by the
state of Kentucky, it includes digitized versions of old photos
and documents (like Civil War diaries, funeral notices, and much
more) from libraries around the state.
FamilySearch Online www.familysearch.org
The Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints, renowned for its genealogical research
facilities, calls this database the easiest way to date of finding
ancestors born in the USA. Includes free access to the 1880
census, which is important because it is the first census to
include former slaves, the second census in history to record
blacks as individuals rather than as pieces of property, and the
first to list names and birthplaces of parents.
Find-A-Grave http://www.findagrave.com
Over eight million grave listings... some
with photos and virtual memorials.
Obituaries & News
Clippings
Due to limited space and resources, this library keeps recent
newspapers for only a few weeks. NOTE: Microfilm archives of
old newspapers end at 1979 (see
Microfilm
above for complete listing).
In addition, the well-known
genealogy Web site "Cyndi's List" includes a wealth of
information about searching for obituaries:
http://www.cyndislist.com/obits.htm.
In the
early twentieth century, several central Kentucky towns were served by
a light rail service called the Interurban. These electric streetcars
began running between Georgetown and Lexington in 1902; routes to
Paris and other towns were added by 1910. At their peak in 1926, the
streetcars carried seven million passengers. Ridership declined as
automobiles and motorized buses came along. The power plant that was
built to serve the electric streetcar system was the forerunner of
today's Kentucky Utilities electric company in Lexington. Related
books and links:
TRACTION IN THE
BLUEGRASS, by William M. Ambrose. Chronicles the history of public
transportation in the area. Available at the Lexington History Museum,
which has an exhibit on the topic. See
http://www.lexingtonhistorymuseum.org/
THE ELECTRIC
INTERURBAN RAILWAYS IN AMERICA, by George W. Hilton and John F.
Due. Published by Stanford University Press, 2000. See p. 291 on Google Books
at http://tinyurl.com/cdf2nh
HISTORY OF KENTUCKY, by Charles
Kerr, William Elsey Connelley, Ellis Merton Coulter. Published by The
American Historical Society, 1922. Available in the Reference
Section of this library (not for loan), Call Number
R 976.9 KERR.
See p. 97 on Google Books at
http://tinyurl.com/bjvzq9
The
Ringo Collection
April 2009:
