Records in Foreign Collections

The North Carolina State Archives has finding aids to records relating to North Carolina history in foreign collections. The program responsible for creating these finding aids began in 1969 as part of the Colonial Records Project. At that time, efforts were concentrated on North Carolina records in British collections. In general they span the time from 1585 to 1783, although a few records, such as loyalist claims, go beyond the latter date. The British Records finding aids include descriptions of records in the Office of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, the War Offce, the Admiralty Court, the British Museum, and many others.

In 1984, the program was expanded to include records held in Scotland. The Scottish Records Program ran off and on until 1993. The finding aids include descriptions of documents from the Scottish Record Office, the Church of Scotland, and the Dalhousie Muniments, to name just a few. Also included are citations to Scottish newspapers, detailing happenings of note in North Carolina. Those may be found under the Scottish Newspapers tab.

On April 18, 1924, the North Carolina Historical Commission authorized Dr. W. W. Pierson of the Department of History at the University of North Carolina to examine the public documents in Madrid to determine whether there was any material pertaining to North Carolina that ought to be in the records of the Historical Commission. Material were found in the Archivo Historico Nacional (AH) at Madrid, in the Archivo General de Indias (AI) at Seville, in the Archivo General de Simancas (AS). Copying continued until July 1927, but on August 27, 1927, the King of Spain prohibited the further copying of Spanish documents in series. No more copies were made for North Carolina until 1982, when additional documents were copied.