Carroll County, Maryland Genealogical Records Information

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Carroll County History and Information

Carroll County Facts

Carroll County was created in 1837 (Chapter 256, Acts of 1835; confirmed by Chapter 19, Acts of 1836, which was passed January 19, 1837) and was formed from Baltimore and Frederick Counties. The County was named for Charles Carroll of Carrollton (1737-1832), Revolutionary War statesman and a Maryland signer of Declaration of Independence. The County Seat is Westminster. Most early papers of the county court have been lost.

The first settlers included 3,700 Germans and their impact may still be seen today in the attitudes of its residents.

During the American Civil War, the population of Carroll County was sharply divided between supporters of the Union and the Confederacy. In 1863, there were significant troop movements through the county as part of the Gettysburg campaign. On June 29, 1863, the cavalry skirmish known as Corbit's Charge was fought the streets of Westminster, when two companies of Delaware cavalry attacked a much larger Confederate force under General J.E.B. Stuart. See also County History for more historical details.

Counties adjacent to Carroll County are York County, Pennsylvania (northeast), Baltimore County (east), Howard County (south), Frederick County (west), Adams County, Pennsylvania (northwest).

Carroll County Cities Include Taneytown, Westminster. Towns Include Hampstead, Manchester, Mount Airy, New Windsor, Sykesville, Union Bridge.Communities Include Alesia, Carrollton, Carrolltowne, Detour, Eldersburg, Finksburg, Frizzelburg, Gaither, Gamber, Greenmount, Henryton, Keymar, Jasontown, Lineboro, Linwood, Louisville, Marriottsville, Middleburg, Millers, Patapsco, Silver Run, Union Mills, Uniontown, Woodbine, Woodstock. (Unincorporated areas are also considered as towns by many people and listed in many collections of towns, but they lack local government.)

The Carroll County Official Government Website
Carroll County, Maryland History Books at Amazon.com
Family History Library - The largest collection of free family history, family tree and genealogy records in the world.

There are free downloadable and printable forms to help with your research. These include U.S. Census Extraction Forms, U.K. Census Extraction Forms, Research Calendar, Ancestral Chart, Research Extract, Correspondence Record , Family Group Sheet , Source Summary Form.

Records at the Carroll County Courthouse

See Also Maryland Land Records, Marriage Records, Court & Probate Records

PLEASE READ!! Please call the clerk's department to confirm hours, mailing address, fees and other specifics before visiting or requesting information because of sometimes changing contact information. Most early papers of the county court have been lost.

Government records of Carroll County are available in Original, Microfilm and Digital formats from the Maryland State Archives The Official County website is located at http://ccgovernment.carr.org/ccg/default.asp. See also Courthouse History. NOTE: The record dates below are from the earliest date to present time.

Carroll County Register of Wills/ Clerk of Orphan's Court has Probate Records from 1837 and is located at 55 North Court Street Room 124, Westminster, MD 21157; (410) 848-2586
The Register of Wills is responsible for appointing personal representatives to administer decedents estates and for overseeing the proper and timely administration of these proceedings. We also perform the following duties: assist and advise the public in the preparation of all required forms; maintain and preserve the permanent record of all proceedings; serve as the Clerk to the Orphans Court; track estates and refer delinquent matters to the Court; determine and collect inheritance taxes and probate fees/court costs; audit accounts of personal representatives and guardians; and, verify compliance with court orders.

Carroll County Circuit Court Clerk has Land Records from 1837 and Marriage Records from earliest to 1919 and is located at 55 N. Court Street , Westminster, MD 21157; 410-386-2026
The Clerk's responsibilities include supervising Clerk's office personnel in the civil, criminal, courtroom clerks, business license, marriage license, land records, and juvenile units.

There are a few online databases for Court, Land and Probate Records which include: Maryland Calendar of Wills, Maryland Marriages, 1655-1850 and Maryland Marriages, 1667-1899.

Click Here to Search Maryland Court, Land, Wills & Financial Records! - Researchers often overlook the importance of court records, probate records, and land records as a source of family history information.

Below is a list of online resources for Carroll County Court Records. Email us with websites containing Carroll County Court Records by clicking the link below:

Bureau of Land Management (BLM)
Carroll County, Maryland Court Books at Amazon.com
Maryland Immigration & Emigration Records - Immigration records help the family historian to understand the movements of their ancestry as they relocated to different parts of the world.

Carroll County Vital Records

See Also Research In Tax Records

Available at the Maryland State Archives with index is a Maryland tax assessment of 1783, which is “more complete” than the 1776 or 1778 “censuses”. Robert W. Barnes and Bettie Stirling Carothers abstracted the 1783 tax list of Baltimore County, Maryland but while it has some omissions, it serves as an index to photocopies of the originals published as Maryland Tax List 1783 Baltimore County from the collection of the Maryland Historical Society (Philadelphia: Historic Publications, 1970). The counties of Calvert, Cecil, Harford, and Talbot are covered by Bettie Carothers, comp., 1783 Tax List of Maryland (Part I: Cecil, Talbot, Harford, and Calvert Counties) (Lutherville, Md.: Pub. by compiler, 1977). Furthermore, there is a two part index to the 1783 list at the state archives, one by names of property owners, the other by names of the tracts.

The earliest tax records are to be found among the proprietary papers, dating from the 1630s. Some early tax records have been published, such as Raymond B. Clark, Jr., and Sara Seth Clark, comps., Baltimore County, Maryland, tax list, 1699-1706. At the Maryland State Archives is a tax list for St. Anne's Parish, Anne Arundel County, 1764-66. Also here are the surviving 1798 U.S. direct tax records, for Anne Arundel County (indexed), Baltimore County and City, and the counties of Caroline, Charles, Harford, Prince George's, Queen Anne's, Saint Mary's, Somerset, and Talbot. Richard J. Cox edited Name Index to the Baltimore City Tax Records: 1798-1808 Of the Baltimore City Archives, (Baltimore: Baltimore City Archives and Records Management Office, 1981).

Below is a list of online resources for Carroll County Tax Records. Email us with websites containing Carroll County Tax Records by clicking the link below:

Carroll County Genealogical Addresses

See Also Other Maryland Genealogical Addresses

The Repositories in this section are Archives, Libraries, Museums, Genealogical and Historical Societies. Many County Historical and Genealogical Societies publish magazines and/or news letters on a monthly, quarterly, bi-annual or annual basis. Contacting the local societies should not be over looked. State Archives and Societies are usually much larger and better organized with much larger archived materials than their smaller county cousins but they can be more generalized and over look the smaller details that local societies tend to have. Libraries can also be a good place to look for local information. Some libraries have a genealogy section and may have some resources that are not located at archives or societies. Also, take a special look at any museums in the area. They sometimes have photos and items from years gone by as well as information of a genealogical interest. All these places are vitally important to the family genealogist and must not be passed over.

Below is a list of online resources for Carroll County Genealogical Addresses. Email us with websites containing Carroll County Genealogical Addresses by clicking the link below:

Historical Society of Carroll County, 210 East Main St., Westminster, MD 21157 - 5225, (410) 848-6494, e-mail: hscc@carr.org
Carroll County Genealogical Society, P.O. Box 1752, Westminster 21158
Local Maryland Researchers, Find a local researcher or become a local researcher.
Maryland State Archives, 350 Rowe Boulevard, Annapolis, MD 21401
Maryland Genealogical Society, 201 W. Monument Street, Baltimore, MD 21201-4674.
Publishes the Maryland Genealogical Society Bulletin Quarterly.
The Maryland Historical Society, 201 W. Monument Street, Baltimore MD 21201-4674
Has published a quarterly magazine Maryland Historical Magazinefor over 90 years
Maryland Newspapers & Periodicals Records - Newspapers and periodicals are the diaries of local communities. They are excellent sources of family history details - often recorded nowhere else. Look for obituaries, marriages, legal notices, and more found in our Historical Newspaper Archives.
Maryland Genealogical Society Books at Amazon.com

Carroll County Church & Cemeteries

Click Here to Search Maryland Obituary Records! - This database is a compilation of obituaries published in U.S. newspapers, collected from various online sources. Obituaries can vary in the amount of information they contain, but many of them are genealogical goldmines, including information such as names, dates, places of birth and death, marriage information, and family relationships.

There are many churches and cemeteries in Carroll County. Some transcriptions are online. A great site is the Carroll County Tombstone Transcription Project.

A search for church records should begin with Directory of Maryland church records (Westminster, Md.: Family Line Publications, 1987), arranged by county and giving a range of dates of available records for over 2,600 churches with mailing addresses. Also helpful are The First Parishes of the Province of Maryland (Baltimore: The Norman, Remington Co., 1923).

The largest collection of church records is at the Maryland State Archives, with a consolidated index, and many are at the Maryland State Archives, which has various original and microfilmed records, many with indexes. Some church records have been published in the Maryland Genealogical Society Bulletin or in individual books, such as those for St. Paul's in Baltimore and for many German churches in the western counties.

Although Catholicism is very important to the history of Maryland, the disenfranchisement of Catholics after the establishment of the Anglican church in 1692 largely contributed to the lack of record keeping prior to the Revolutionary War. One source for St. Marys County in the 1700s, however, is Catholic Families of Southern Maryland: Records of Catholic Residents of St. Mary's County in the Eighteenth Century (1980; reprint, Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1985). Records of the German churches and the Society of Friends are very good. The latter were early settlers of Maryland, along with Anglicans and Catholics. Quaker records in Maryland, (Annapolis: Hall of Records Commission, 1966) is an excellent guide to the original and microfilmed Friends' records at the Maryland State Archives. Some Quaker records were published in Kenneth Carroll, Quakerism on the Eastern Shore (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1970) and other records are at the Maryland Historical Society, the state archives, and the Friends Historical Library in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.

The Maryland State Archives has indexes to cemetery records for various time periods. Some have been published in the Maryland Genealogical Society Bulletin and other journals and in individual works covering large parts of Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Dorchester, Frederick, Garrett, St. Marys, Somerset, Wicomico, and Worcester counties. A great number of grave marker inscriptions have been transcribed by members of the Maryland DAR and will be found at the Maryland Historical Society and the DAR Library in Washington, D.C. See also Historic graves of Maryland and the District of Columbia (1908; reprint, Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1967).

Below is a list of online resources for Carroll County Cemetery & Church Records. Email us with websites containing Carroll County Cemetery & Church Records by clicking the link below:

Family Trees & Genealogy Tidbits

Click Here to Search Maryland Family Tree Records! - The use of published genealogies, electronic files containing genealogical lineage, and other compiled sources can be of tremendous value to a researcher.

When view family trees online or not, be sure to only take the info at face value and always follow up with your own sources or verify the ones they provide. Below is a list of online resources for Carroll County Family Trees, web forums and other family type information. Email us with websites containing Carroll County Family Trees, web forums and other family type information by clicking the link below:

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Sites on USGenweb: [ Carroll County ] [ Maryland ] [ Main Page ]
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Nichols and Related Families of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virgina.
Maryland Family Group Sheets Project
The Order of the First Families of Maryland
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Maryland Family & Local History Records - The Family & Local Histories Collection lets you read journals, memoirs, and other first-hand historical narratives right on your computer. Gathered from some of the world's finest libraries, these materials may provide hard-to-find town, county, and state information; tax records and wills; military, church, and court records; as well as photographs, stories, and maps.
Genealogical Document Search and Retrieval Service
Carroll County, Maryland Family Books at Amazon.com

County History

Carrollton and Carroll County were named in honor of the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Maryland. Charles Carroll was born in Annapolis, Maryland on September 19, 1737. Carroll’s grandfather, Daniel Carroll, an Irish gentleman, emigrated from England to Maryland due to the persecution of Catholics on October 1688.

As a Roman Catholic, Carroll was barred from entering politics, practicing law, and voting in colonial America. He became a prominent spokesman against the government of England. He was commissioned in 1776 with Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase and his cousin the Reverend John Carroll to approach Canada to assist the thirteen colonies in their fight for Independence. Through the establishment of the United States, Carroll helped break the barrier that allowed Catholics the same rights as Protestants.

After the death of Jefferson and Adams on July 4, 1826, he was the only surviving Signer of the Declaration of Independence left in the country. Carroll died on November 14, 1832.

Courthouse History
The cornerstone for the Historic Courthouse was laid by Andrew Shriver on June 13, 1838. He was assisted by Colonel Joshua Gist, brother to General Historic Carroll County Courthouse of 1838 Mordecai Gist of Revolutionary War fame (Battles of Long Island and Camden). James Shellman, the first mayor of Westminster, was the architect and Swope and Durbin, the two men responsible for building the Jail, also laid the masonry for the Courthouse. The Courthouse was constructed for $18,000.00 and originally consisted of the center portion of two stories, seven bays and gabled roof. Soon after completion, an ornamental cupola, the steps and a two story Greek Revival portico were added. Greek Revival architecture had become popular in the U.S. during the 1830's and 1840's, so it was only fitting that a newly formed county seat would want to show how progressive it was by conforming to national trends.

Space in the new building was apparently plentiful, as research reveals that at least one room on the second floor was leased to a local photographer, Henry B. Grammar (Daguerrean Method) in the early years of the County. In 1882, the one story wings were attached and in 1935, they were rebuilt and made larger by adding a half story.

The Courthouse that was erected in 1838 is the central portion of the present structure. One enters through double doors leading to an expansive foyer. The floors and steps are marble, most of which was quarried within this State (Harford County). There is exquisitely designed moldings encircling the original gas lights which were converted for modern use. In the earliest part of the building are four fireplaces, like the one which can be seen to the right of the entrance hall. None of them are in use today. Civil cases are presently tired in the original courtroom (known as Courtroom No. 1), while criminal cases are heard in the Courthouse Annex on North Court Street which was built in 1979. Historic Carroll County Courthouse - Additions of 1882 and 1935

Two rooms on the first floor have been converted into smaller “non-jury” courtrooms. The first of these, Courtroom No. 3, is located in the northeast quadrant of the first floor and in 1977, replaced a portion of the Clerk’s office. The second (Courtroom No. 4), a 1986 addition, serves as the Juvenile Court, and is located in the southwest quadrant, the former location of the Orphan’s Court and the Register of Wills Office.

The Law Library, originally located on the second floor (southwest corner), has been expanded to include five inter-connected rooms located in the basement, the first floor and the second floor of the East Wing.

At the top of the eastern stairway is the two door entrance to a perfectly preserved mid-nineteenth century Hall of Justice, a room which the American Bar Association has described as “one of the most beautiful courtrooms in America.” Many of the furnishings are original. In 1937, for the County’s Centennial celebration, reproduction Windsor chairs replaced the ladder-back jury chairs and lights were converted to electricity. The beautiful solid brass chandeliers were imported from Holland in the early 1970's.

The Courthouse underwent a 10-year restoration period culminating in its rededication ceremony on October 9, 1987. The restoration project was overseen by Mr. W. Boulton Kelly and Brown, Worrall and Johnson, Inc., architects from the City of Baltimore.

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