Grant helps county’s records go digital
Little River County, Ark., Circuit Clerk’s Office in Ashdown is preserving history and opening the future for research with a $20,000 grant from the Arkansas Automated Records System Fund.
The grant was used to digitize and index the county land and real estate books, some dating back to the 1800s.
Funding for the grants comes from a $1 addition fee applied to all recording fees in the state, said Little River County Circuit Clerk Lauren Abney.
State law requires documents stored in the circuit clerk’s office to be digitally preserved records.
The county receives requests from banks, mortgage companies, title researchers, genealogy researchers and the general pubic for information or copies from the records, said Abney.
The deed books document a variety of transactions.
“They traded donkeys and horses for land,” Abney said.
At first the documents were recorded by dip pens with cursive writing, transitioning to fountain pens and then to typewriters.
“The cursive writing was beautiful,” Abney said.
The grant is the first phase of a three-phase project where documents stored in the circuit clerk’s office will be scanned and placed in a computer program for improved access.
Servant contracts were recorded where people would work in exchange for education, food and room and board, she said.
The documents also include military discharge papers.
Sutterfield Technologies of Duncan, Okla., recently completed scanning and digitally preserving the documents for future research.