The Georgia Central Register of Convicts, 1817-1976, recently has been added to ancestry.com.
The material, including nearly 300,000 names, came from microfilm of the original entry books of prisoners entering the state prison system.
It is fully indexed and searchable by name. You also can search by surname and county. Each full entry gives the name, race, county where convicted, conviction date, date or length of sentence and, in many cases, a parole date if they didn’t serve their complete sentence.
It may take you a few tries to figure out some of the peculiarities. Some entries are not fully indexed. The abbreviation “G. S. P.” stands for Georgia State Prison.
The material is taken from the entry ledgers, and thus no other information is contained in this collection. You could check with the Georgia Archives to determine what other records have been preserved related to state prisoners.
If you are surprised by an entry and wonder whether it’s your person, you could search the county Superior Court records and check for a trial, or the newspapers, since you will have the conviction date.
Finding someone you didn’t know served time in prison might help solve a family mystery as to why they disappeared for a while from other records, like the census.
Some famous prisoners can be located in the listing, including the Rev. Samuel Worcester (1831), Leo Frank (1915) and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. (1960).
To find the convict register, go to Ancestry and search the card catalog for Georgia convicts. Searching just for convicts will show any other state’s prisoner rosters that the site has.
Agnes Scott archives
The collections and holdings of Agnes Scott College will be the subject of the Jan. 9 Lunch and Learn Lecture at the Georgia Archives.
Marianne Bradley, archives manager, will cover the wealth of information held by Agnes Scott since its inception as a school in 1889 (it officially became a college in 1906). Some material can be found at agnesscott.edu under library.
The lecture is at noon at the Archives, 5800 Jonesboro Road, in Morrow, and admission is free; bring your own lunch. For information about future lectures, check georgiaarchives.org or call 678-364-3710.
75 best websites
Family Tree Magazine covers the 75 best websites for U.S. genealogy in the December issue. It's on newsstands. Check familytreemagazine.com to get a peek.
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