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Tennessee Genealogy Research Starter Checklist

Free checklist from tennesseegenealogy.co · 2026 edition

How to use this checklist: Work top to bottom and check off each item. When you get stuck, open the matching free guide on the site instead of jumping between websites.

1. Gather what you already have

☐ Full name variants (nicknames, middle names, spelling changes)
☐ Approximate birth, marriage, and death years and places
☐ Parents, spouses, and children, even if the list is incomplete
☐ Family Bible notes, obituaries, and photos with writing on the back
☐ DNA match names that cluster on the Tennessee side of the tree

2. Fix the jurisdiction first

☐ Identify the modern county for each place name
☐ Check when it was formed and which parent it came from
☐ For events before formation, search the parent's records
☐ Read: Counties, districts, and formation
☐ Open the county page: /counties

3. Census every decade the family should appear

☐ Federal census schedules for each year the family lived in Tennessee
☐ Note neighbors (the FAN club) on each page
☐ Use tax lists to bridge the years between censuses: Tax lists between census years
☐ Guide: Census research in Tennessee

4. Land and probate (the longest paper trails)

☐ Deeds for the correct county and years
☐ Wills, administrations, inventories, and guardianships
☐ Guides: Land and property · Probate and estates
☐ Rural addresses: Civil districts method

5. Vital events

☐ Church and meeting records: Church records
☐ Newspapers for marriage notices and obituaries: Newspapers and obituaries
☐ State birth and death records for the years they exist: Vital records
☐ Cemeteries and burial records: Cemeteries

6. Specialized paths (use when relevant)

☐ African American research in Tennessee
☐ Indigenous research
☐ Military records
☐ DNA clusters, always anchored to documents
☐ Burned or missing courthouse records: Burned-county research

7. Bookmark these

☐ Tennessee State Library and Archives (TSLA), Nashville
☐ FamilySearch Research Wiki, Tennessee pages
☐ Chronicling America (Library of Congress newspapers)
☐ This site's guides: tennesseegenealogy.co/guides and repositories list: Archives and repositories

Next step: Pick one ancestor and one county, then start at Start here.