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For seasoned genealogists and those just beginning to research their family history, there are several web-based resources that can make research both faster and simpler. However, local historical societies and genealogy records are still an important resource for those tracing their roots.

Lori Amos of the Manchester Historical Society said the facility, which is located in the historic 1871 courthouse on the town square, offers some excellent resources to the public.

“This is a wonderful resource right here,” Amos said while gesturing towards the society’s library and research room.

“We have got local history books and then surrounding area books and then family histories and our publications,” she said.

Bound copies of the Manchester Times spanning 1949 through 1979 can be found in the society’s walk-in vault.

The Manchester Historical Society keeps a collection of local family histories previously completed and donated for public use. Amos said anyone is welcome to donate information or a completed family history, which will be made available for others to further their own research.

The society is also trying to complete its collection of Manchester High School yearbooks.

One of the earliest yearbooks in the historical society’s collection dates back 100 years to 1923.

“One of the members found it in an antique store in Florida and donated it,” Amos said.

Amos said at one time, Manchester’s yearbooks were handmade by each graduating senior and she personally owns her mother’s yearbook from 1945.

“Daddy didn’t do one because he said it was an English class and he decided his grade should not be based on gluing pictures into a book,” she said. “That was his philosophy, so I don’t have his, I have my mothers.”

Another resource available at The Manchester Historical Society is a photo archive from the collection of former Manchester Times editor Hugh Doak. The collection of negatives, which are mainly date to the 1940s and 1950s was being discarded, when they were saved and donated to the historical society.

Amos and she and her husband Ray have been working to scan Doak’s collection of negatives so they will be easier to access for researchers.

“I am getting them into acid-free envelopes and labeling them from the original envelope and then my husband Ray is scanning them,” she said.

While initial estimates were between 30,000 and 40,000 negatives, Amos said they now believe the negatives, which are in alphabetical order, number between 70,000 and 80,000.

“We are in the C’s right now, and he has already scanned over 8,000 negatives,” she said. “This is a wonderful resource, it is just not totally ready to use but we can always go in and try to find if someone has got family.”

Amos said in addition to the Manchester Historical Society, the Coffee County Archives, located at 1321 McArthur St., Manchester, is also an excellent place to research historic records.

The Manchester Historical Society is open 9 a.m. until 1 p.m., Tuesday through Friday or by appointment. Its next meeting will be 1 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 14 featuring local historian Dr. Michael Bradley as guest speaker.

The Coffee County Manchester Public Library, 1005 Hillsboro Boulevard, Manchester, also offers genealogy resources for those researching their family tree.

 Clarice Hehe said she handles most of the genealogy requests that come into the library, and that there is a new resource available to those trying to research historic newspaper articles.

“We do have some electronic resources for our genealogy now that are pretty extensive,” Hehe said from the library’s genealogy department.

The library has been in the process of sending off its extensive collection of microfilm of The Manchester Times to be digitally remastered and made available through a link on the library’s website. 

“Because this is new, a lot of people do not know about it,” Hehe said.

The library’s archive of newspaper microfilm stretches back more than 120 years, and with the digitization, is available free of charge and accessible everywhere. Hehe said a library card is not required to use the new resource.

 “This has been sort of our new baby in the past few years,” she said. “We have been sending out those reels for close to two years I believe, just sending out 20-30 at a time, just getting those back and getting them back into our system then sending some more out.”

The library also features its own genealogy library with a collection of local, state and national records and books that can be utilized in the library.