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Genealogy and Local History

Pender County Family Research and History

Genealogy & Local History Classification System

Overview

The classification system used to organize the materials in the W. Dallas Herring Carolina Heritage Research Center differs from the Dewey Decimal Classification system used in the rest of the Pender County Library system; it organizes titles by geography and by topics related to genealogical research.

More details about this classification system can be found here.

Quick Reference

Two-letter Codes

Two-letter codes may be either the USPS state/territory code, or one of the following:

  • AA General information, indexes, how-to (especially Genealogy), bibliographies, and more.
  • AB Individual biographies
  • AC Church histories
  • AD Historic preservation, documents, buildings and artifacts, oral history
  • AE Ethnic [particularly Native Americans] and immigration/emigration materials.
  • AF Family Histories (followed by surname of family per Library of Congress Subject Headings).
  • AG Genealogies not specific to any US state or territory.
  • AH General History.
  • AJ Miscellany: whatever doesn't fall into any of the other top-level categories.

Three-letter Codes

Three-letter codes are either geographical (county, country, continent) or one of the following:

  • BIB Bibliographies
  • DIC Dictionaries
  • DIR Directories
  • IND Indexes
  • INS Instructional
  • HER Heraldry and name dictionaries
  • AAA Everything else genealogical
  • ZZZ Everything else not genealogical

Numeric designator

  • .1 General information
    • .1 Charts of data
    • .12 Directories
    • .13 How to
    • .14 Bibliographies
    • .15 Immigration/ emigration
    • .16 Indexes
    • .17 Sources, i.e. guides to holdings
    • .18 [Not used]
    • .19 Gazetteers, atlases, and maps

  • .2 Compilations, society, and arts and sciences
    • .2 Collective biography
    • .21 Heraldry and name dictionaries
    • .22 Compiled genealogies, including by regions, countries, and continents
    • .23 Travel, description, and geography
    • .24 Education, training, and apprenticeships
    • .25 Commerce and labor
    • .26 Culture and social life
    • .27 Arts and sciences.
    • .28 Law and legislation; politics and government
    • .29 Architecture

  • .3 Public Records
    • .3 Censuses, date comes before author designation
    • .31 Vital statistics, combined records, i.e. death and birth records
    • .32 Bible records
    • .33 Court records
    • .34 Marriage, divorce, and cohabitation records
    • .35 Cemetery records
    • .36 Wills and estate records/probate
    • .37 Deeds and land records
    • .38 Tax records and voter registrations
    • .39 Newspaper abstracts, obituaries, etc.

  • .4 Military records and pension lists.
    • .41 Pre-Columbian wars
    • .42 Colonial wars
    • .43 Revolutionary War
    • .44 War of 1812
    • .45 Mexican War
    • .46 Civil War
    • .461 Reconstruction
    • .47 Spanish-American War
    • .48 World War I
    • .49 World War II
    • .491 Late 20th century

  • .5 Church records and histories
      .5 non-denominal or inter-denominal
    • .51 Baptist
    • .52 Catholic
    • .53 Quaker
    • .54 Episcopal
    • .55 Lutheran
    • .551 Reformed, Church of Christ
    • .56 Methodist
    • .57 Moravian, Mennonite, Amish
    • .58 Presbyterian
    • .59 Other denominations

  • .6 Ethnicity
    • .6 Ethnic records, general information about ethnic character of the United States
    • .61 Celtic/Gaelic
    • .62 English, Anglo-Saxon
    • .63 Teutonic, Germanic, Scandinavian
    • .64 Baltic/Slavic
    • .65 Latin/Romance countries
    • .66 African-American
    • .67 American Indian
    • .68 Semitic
    • .69 Other

  • .7 History
      .7 County and area histories
    • .71 Heritage books
    • .72 EST, north
    • .73 EST, south
    • .74 CST, north
    • .75 CST, south
    • .76 MST, north
    • .77 MST, south
    • .78 PST, north
    • .79 PST, south

  • .8 Preservation
    • .81 Historiography
    • .82 Oral history
    • .83 Documents
    • .84 Photographs
    • .85 Buildings

  • .9 Periodicals
    • .91 Genealogical and other society records
    • .92 Community development

Credits

Pender County Library adapted this classification system from the Rowan County Public Library system, who in turned adapted it from Arlington, TX public libraries. Many thanks to them for creating a classification well suited to genealogical and local history.