WELCOME to the Wake County Genealogical Society Website!
FUTURE EVENTS: Check the right panel on this page or visit our Events page.
Black History Month Blog Post Focus
Upcoming WCGS Blog Wake Wednesday
posts featured for Black History Month
include:
Feb 19 - Slave Narratives in the Wake Treasures Journal Archive
Feb 26 - Abraham and Correnna Justice of Low End Community, Apex NC
Mar 5 - Bonus! - Search Categories in the Wake Cemetery Survey - Find African American Cemeteries and More
Live links will be added as posts are published.
To view all previously published posts with a black history focus, visit this link.
Find more African American (in Wake County) at our Wake Research Link page.
See more African American resources in our Articles and Guides section.
Wake Genealogy Watch - Winter 2025 issue
The Winter 2025 issue (Vol. 8, Issue 2) of our award-winning newsletter, Wake Genealogy Watch, is now available online for reading or download. Visit the WCGS website or click the link here: Wake Genealogy Watch, Winter 2025. This issue features:
- Genealogy New Year's Resolutions: Three engaging group activities to make 2025 your year of genealogy!
- Barbara McGeachy introduces an important record service for finding Union Soldiers’ pension records.
- Details about the Feb. 10 WCGS Meetup, including a tour of the NC Archives and State Library.
- A heartwarming story of a WCGS member reuniting a family with their lost Bible—read the nationally published account!
- Instructions for joining our new Facebook group. We’ve moved—don’t miss our updates!
- Tips from Olivia Raney Library on preserving local memorabilia.
- Meet Jessica Conklin, our newest Board Member.
- Lynne Deese highlights a local woman military veteran buried at Raleigh National Cemetery.
- A sneak peek at the new interface for Chronicling America.
- Introducing the "From Naming to Knowing" project, featuring names, records, and biographies of the enslaved builders of the NC State Capitol.
- Gain access to NC Cohabitation Records from the 1860’s, now available online.
- A full calendar of exciting events!
Dive in and explore all the resources and stories designed to enrich your genealogy journey!
Photo Note: If you choose to read a printed version of this newsletter, some of the photos will be difficult to view due to size constraints. Please refer to the online edition where you can enlarge the photos to accommodate better viewing.
Click this newsletter page link to view this and all past newsletter content.
We welcome your feedback, input, and submissions for inclusion in future editions. Please address all concerns to newsletter@wakecogen.org.
Wake Treasures Goes Public!
It is well-known how technology has changed the way information is disseminated. The growth of on-line platforms are providing new ways of sharing and reaching a broader audience. WCGS has seen these changes and over the years has expanded its outreach through our WCGS Facebook and WCGS Blog social-media pages. We also modernized our website several years ago and then converted our newsletter distribution to an on-line digital format where issues can be stored and made available at the click of a mouse! In the past hard-copy publications provided the standard format for keeping information available, but these are only useful when they can be conveniently accessed. Thus, the next step for WCGS involved making changes to our Wake Treasures Journal. This summer the Society voted to change our method for disseminating information usually found in the journal to other formats including our social media sites, our newsletter, and our website. In the spirit of increasing our support to the genealogical community, the Board also voted to make all past issues of Wake Treasures available to both members and non-members alike!
Wake Treasures is the multi-award winning journal of the Wake County Genealogical Society. Over the years the number of issues per year has varied from two to four. From the Wake Treasures page you can download in pdf format, any or all of the Wake Treasures issues which have been published starting with the first issue in 1991 which includes an 1809 tax list from the Buffelow district and Wake Bastardy Bond files starting in 1772! The December 2022 publication is the final issue of the Journal and it includes the 1896 Raleigh Tax List and the WW1 deaths from Wake County. To help your search, there is a Subject Index available for the first 25 volumes of the Journal. We hope you are successful in finding your Wake ancestors in the record transcriptions and abstractions available in these genealogical-rich issues.
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February 25
We CAN Successfully Research Pre-1870 Enslaved & FPOC Ancestors
Presenter: Diane L. Richard Researching and documenting the enslaved (and Free Persons of Color (FPOC)) and their ancestors before the 1870 census can be ...
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March 25
Gravestone Symbolism
Presenter: Robin Simonton Genealogists use gravestone information to document death information, but often a burial marker provides more than biographical information. Gravestones, like any ...
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April 22
Going Postal: Using Postal Records for Your Research
Presenter: Cynthia Gage By 1831, 76% of US civilian employees worked for the Postal Service. There were more postal employees than soldiers. Maybe your ...
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May 27
U.S. Census: Non-population Schedules
Presenter: Barbara McGeachy Everyone uses the popular population schedules but the non-population records have surprising details about your ancestors! Learn about the Veteran ...
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June 24
Squeezing All the Facts Out of Your DNA Matches
Presenter: Kate Penny Howard Near the top of your match list, you’ve got this mystery match that just might be the key to your research. ...
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Volunteer needs
Near or far, there is always a way you can help WCGS!
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