State Library & Archives Puts Family Bible Records Online...

Visitors to the website of the Tennessee State Library and Archives (TSLA) can now access family Bible records previously available only to on-site patrons. A new database on the TSLA website allows researchers to browse these records in their entirety, and a search function will ultimately include all of the thousands of names written in these unique documents.

In recognition of this special occasion and as a homage to past and present, we wanted to recreate the scene as former State Librarian and Archivist Mrs. John Trotwood Moore viewed our collection of Family Bibles back in 1941. Many of the Bibles seen here are in foreign languages, including Spanish, Swedish, Polish, Danish, Hungarian, German, Dutch, Irish, French, Hebrew, Cherokee, and Old English, ranging in date of publication from 1538 to 1863.

In our recreation of this scene, current State Librarian and Archivist, Chuck Sherrill, poses for this picture with the same Family Bibles displayed by Mrs. John Trotwood Moore years earlier in a photographic tribute to the collection.

Read more about our new Family Bible Records website on our press release at http://tnsos.org/Press/story.php?item=759, and to see if TSLA holds a Bible record for your family, please visit the project online at http://tnsos.net/TSLA/Bibleproject/.

The State Library and Archives is a division of the Tennessee Department of State and Tre Hargett, Secretary of State.