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The museum’s Archival Research Wing contains a library of books pertaining to General Historical Information, Arkansas Resources, Civil War, Native Americans, and published Family Histories. Shelves are dedicated to books, transcriptions of public records, and historical journals from each of the twelve counties served by the museum. A public access computer, microfilm reader/printer, and video-viewing station provide important historical information. Research takes place around comfortable tables in a pleasant environment with volunteers to assist visitors.
Independence County Public Tax Records are housed in the museum’s vault room. Docents will bring out the volume requested to be studied by researchers.
Independence County Probate Packets, boxes 1 through 142, cover the 1830s through 1930s. These packets are invaluable resources for those searching death and will records. They contain vouchers, letters of administration, descriptions of personal and real property, and names of heirs. A surname index lists all estates probated.
Transcriptions of Census and Public Records are available for the following counties: Cleburne, Independence, Izard, Lawrence, Jackson, White, Fulton, and Sharp. Arkansas Record transcriptions are also on hand, including Arkansas Wills and Administration, Arkansas Residents 1814-1816, the Arkansas Census of 1820, Land Patents for the 12 counties, the Arkansas Newspaper Index 1819-1845.
Historical Society Journals from Baxter, Cleburne, Fulton, Independence, Izard, Jackson, Sharp, Stone, White, and Woodruff counties are on the archival library shelves. Published city, county, church, and school histories are also available.
Surname and Community History Files are housed in filing cabinets alphabetically for visitors to search through for genealogical or historical information. Researchers are encouraged to add unbound copies of their family history to the files.
Maps are placed on an accessible rack in the library and also within a multi-drawer map case that Docents may retrieve for the visiting researcher. Modern county maps in the rack include Baxter, Cleburne, Fulton, Independence, Izard, Jackson, Lawrence, Marion, Poinsett, Sharp, Stone, White, and Woodruff.
Ledgers in Museum Collections
Microfilm Holdings in the Archives can be viewed and printed.
Batesville Daily Guard Newspaper 1907 - 1957, with a few exceptions during those years.
Oral History Cassette and Video Tapes can be played in the museum. They cover a wide range of subjects interesting to researchers.
Video Tapes, including large collections filmed by Hail Bryant.
Audio Tape or Compact Disk Interviews,are being collected, and copies are available for listening and note-taking in the museum.
Computer Access is Available to the Researching Visitor, including material on Compact Disks, Internet Sites, and the Museum’s Collections.
Compact Disks can be viewed on the Visitors’ Computer in the Library.
Old Independence Regional Museum Collections are entered into the PastPerfect Collections Management System on networked computers in the museum. A visiting researcher may access information about every item in our collections through the Visitors Computer. The Collections data are “Read Only” files and cannot be edited through the visitors computer.
PastPerfect as a Collections Card Catalog will give such information as: collection names, date received and from whom, object identification and provenance, subjects related to the object. It will allow specific research through four categories or catalogs of the museum collections.
