Record Atlas
5 eras · 1763–2026 · 65 places

Kentucky - Fincastle and Kentucky counties of Virginia

Louisville, Frankfort, Lexington, Bowling Green, Paducah, Covington. Which empire held this ground in which years — and, the part that matters, which archive that means.

Whose archive this ground was

YearsWho held itWhose archive that means
1763–1776 Indian Reserve (Proclamation of 1763); Virginia's western claim no registers survive

Kentucky lay within the Indian Reserve created by the Royal Proclamation of 1763. The British purchased the Iroquois claim at Fort Stanwix in 1768, Fincastle County was formed in 1772, and the Transylvania Purchase at Sycamore Shoals dates from 1775.
1776–1792 Kentucky County, then Fayette, Jefferson and Lincoln counties, Virginia FamilySearch · National Archives Catalog (NARA)

Virginia created Kentucky County by an act of 31 December 1776, effective early 1777. It was divided on 1 November 1780 into Fayette, Jefferson and Lincoln counties.
1792–1861 Commonwealth of Kentucky FamilySearch · National Archives Catalog (NARA)

Admitted as the 15th state on 1 June 1792; Frankfort was named the capital in 1792.
1861–1865 Kentucky - neutral, then Union state; Confederate government at Bowling Green FamilySearch · National Archives Catalog (NARA)

Neutrality was declared on 20 May 1861 and ended in September 1861. A Confederate convention at Russellville began on 18 November 1861 and named Bowling Green its capital; the Confederacy admitted Kentucky on 10 December 1861, and Bowling Green was abandoned on 11 February 1862, after which the state was largely under Union control.
1865–2026 Commonwealth of Kentucky FamilySearch · National Archives Catalog (NARA) · Chronicling America

Statewide birth and death registration was attempted from 1852 to 1862, then made mandatory from 1 January 1911, with general compliance by 1920.

The rings are approximate — deliberately. They exist to shade which filing system a place fell under, not to adjudicate a border. A place near a ring's edge should be checked against both neighbours.

See the whole span, 1763–2026, on the map →

The map takes a range, and a range that crosses one of the rows above is where records get lost: the family never moved, and the archive on the far side of the handover will tell you it holds nothing.

65 places on this ground

1742 FamilySearch collections reach this ground

Ranked with the regional ones first — a collection for a province is usually a better lead than a national index, though the national index is often where a name is actually written down. A free account opens the images.

…and 1682 more.

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