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Wise County, Texas 
   

       WiseCountyCourthouse.jpg (612281 bytes)         museum.jpg (3050466 bytes)

Sadly, our Wise County Heritage Museum in Decatur burned on March 18, 2023. 
Thousands of artifacts, many records, and over 6,000 books were lost, 
but much information was digitized and is still available contact@wisehistory.com 
Pictures below (click to make larger) are from the Wise County Messenger,
 and the one with the flag was sent in by David Matney
Museum Fire.jpg (473963 bytes)   Museum After Fire With Flag-Matney.jpg (3308855 bytes)

Star TXGenWeb Project
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Texas County List


(Thanks to all who have contributed to these pages)

        

Sue Tackel and Dr. David Pitts have both been working on these web pages since the late 1990s.

LaDarla Keith started these pages back in the beginning of TXGenWeb in 1996
She always believed that genealogy was about helping others and sharing everything freely
(Click here to read about her and her legacy)
Sue Tackel has over 10 years as County Coordinator  --- Dr. David Pitts is County Co-Coordinator and has been a contributor from the beginning.


Please Click Here to join the NEW Wise County Genealogy-History email list/group
This page also has a link to the Wise County Heritage Museum Facebook Page.

For Help Finding Things or Reporting Errors on These Pages Contact Sue Tackel Sue@WiseCountyTexas.info 
For Help With Genealogy or Finding People Contact David Pitts paw281@sbcglobal.net

Wise County Information 
Some of these pages are updated or corrected nearly every day. 
This page was last updated Jan 24, 2024

Searcher for this site Type in names to search all of these pages

Birth Information

1864-1933 Recorded Births & Birth Certificates Data for 19,202 with 9,500 birth certificates online
1926-1939 Recorded Births Giving Parents Data for 4,221 births
1910-1999 Births & Birthdays from the 'Bridgeport Index' Images of 3,846 newspaper clippings
1926-1949 Recorded Births Giving Parents (Some of these years are now online-See Above) 7,964 This data is no longer online because of issues with identity theft. Only births over 75 are public record. Click to request
1950-1995 Recorded Births Giving Only Name & Date 11,729
2000-2023 List of Birth Announcements with Year Only 
(Full announcement from paper on request)
10,500
Current Wise County Messenger Their web page has announcements back to 2003

Marriage/Divorce

1881-1945 Bride & Groom & Date of Marriage 14,976 Listings
1966-2001 Bride & Groom & Date of Marriage 10,527 Listings
1910-1975 Wedding + Anniversary Clippings from the 'Bridgeport Index' 3,146 on list of brides and grooms  - images of newspaper clippings
1976-1999 Wedding + Anniversary Clippings from the 'Bridgeport Index' 3,408 on list of brides and grooms (images of clippings-most have pictures)
2000-2023 Wedding Announcements from Local Paper 2,275 with complete text (Pictures for 2011-2023)
1968-2001 Divorce & Marriage Dates & Number of Children 5,904 Divorce records

Census

1860-1930 Images of Actual Census Pages LARGE images of all year's pages
1860 All of Wise County Transcribed with Additional Information 3,034 names with index
1870-1910 Indexes of Last Names Only We are working on complete transcriptions
1900 Southwest Corner and East Side of County Transcribed & Indexed 3,294 Names
1910 Only Southwest Corner of County Transcribed & Indexed 1,967 Names
1920 All of Wise County Transcribed & Indexed 23,117 Names
1930 All of Wise County Transcribed & Indexed 19,202 Names (population was less)
1940 All of Wise County Transcribed & Indexed 19,406 Names with active links to images of original handwritten census pages.
Schools & Yearbooks
1800s-1970 Old School Pictures Many pictures of school buildings and class pictures
1902-1999 Annuals/Yearbooks Wise County High School yearbooks. >14,500 Pages now scanned and indexed
1893-1965 Decatur Baptist College (DBC) Yearbooks >5,500 Yearbook pages and newspaper clippings with index of over 25,000 names
Newspapers and Indexes of Newspapers
1910-1975 Most after 1940 The Bridgeport Index Newspaper Searchable PDFs and images of pages 1910-2020 available at the Wise County Heritage Museum
Index of over 49,000 names in these newspapers is online
1880-2022 Decatur Newspapers 1880-1910 pages are Transcribed at the museum
Searchable PDFs and images of the Wise County Messenger (1880-present)  + The Decatur News (1893-1934) are available at the museum
Index of over 50,000 names in these newspapers is online
1931-1994 The Alvord News + Gazette Newspapers Searchable PDFs and images of pages 1910-2020 available at the Wise County Heritage Museum
Military Information
1861-1865 Civil War Veterans Buried in Wise County >500 With Information about Service
1861-1865 Confederate Pension Applications 571 on List of Applications for Wise County
1914-1918 World War I Discharge Papers 477 Images Online
1940-1945 Lost Battalion Memorial Listing of Members Mustered at Jacksboro
1958 Air Crash Over Bridgeport 18 Servicemen Killed

Property

1855-1984 Wise County Land Grants >2,000 List with Names and Dates
1850's-1897 Indexes of Wise County Recorded Deeds 441 Images of Index Pages 
1900's Probate Records 5,376 on List of Estates

Miscellaneous & Families

1887-1889 Wise County Voter Registration List of 300 Voters Giving Precinct, Where They Came From, and Length of Residence 
1898-1913 Wise County Petitions for Naturalization Only a few. Sent in by David Pitts and also by Patti Gillespie
1907-1912 Medical Licenses Filed in Wise County 75 Images Online
1910-1999 Family Reunion and Family History Articles from the 'Bridgeport Index' 700 Images of Newspaper Articles

List of Digital Family Files Available

Old Family Pictures
(Please send in if you would like yours posted)

Cemeteries
1850's-2019 Headstone Pictures & Information >30,000 Headstones, >40,000 headstone pictures
2002/2019 Cemetery Location & Information 101 Cemeteries with maps, pictures and layout
  Civil War Veterans Buried in Wise County List of Civil War Vets buried in each cemetery
2000-2015 Cemetery Survey Methods Steps and materials we use
Death Records
1903-1966 Death Certificates 7,904 Certificates Online
1915-2001 Funeral Home Records >19,000 Images Online
1800s-2023 Obituaries From Local Newspapers + Funeral Homes
(Now All Indexed Together In One Place)
30,194 Images of Newspaper Clippings, PDFs, and Funeral Home Obituaries Alphabetical by Name
1970-2021
some older
Local Obituaries/Funeral Notices
Available at the Wise County Heritage Museum
Index of over 31,000 newspaper clippings and funeral notices (many duplicates from different papers).
2024 Wise County Messenger Recent obituaries from the local newspapers
Hawkins Funeral Homes (3 funeral homes)

Hudson & Torres Funeral Home, Bridgeport

Recent obituaries from the local funeral homes
1903-1939 Recorded Deaths 3,724 on List
1964-1999 Recorded Deaths 5,704 on List
Things we have about Neighboring Counties
Montague New Harp Cemetery 290 Listed with Headstone Pictures Available for Email
Montague Lake Valley Cemetery 20 Pictures of headstones

Click on the red names of neighboring counties in the Wise County map below to go to those TXGenWeb pages


Miscellaneous Links From Older Web Pages
(Some things are repeated in the links above - Everything is found by this 'searcher'

SOME EARLY WISE CO. FAMILIES

1906 OLD TIMERS REUNION

OLD PICTURES

MYSTERY PICTURES

HUFF FAMILY MASSACRE

PROBATE FILES

WALKER CLAN 1987

WEB PAGE CC BIO

WOODY AND SOME RELATED FAMILIES

BOYD PICTURES & WOODY CABIN

SOME LOCAL AUTHORS

SOME LIST MEMBERS FILES

MISC PICTURES AND REUNIONS

CLASSES OF 1950-60 BRIDGEPORT REUNION

TOWNS

HISTORICAL SITES

WISE FACTS

DEE'S " McGee Pictures"

DEE'S "Ferguson Pictures"

SCHOOLS with many pictures

 
     

 

Useful Links for More Information

Wise County Historical Society (Heritage Museum)

BRIDGEPORT HISTORICAL SOCIETY

PARADISE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

County Clerk, Sherry Lemon
P.O. Box 359
Decatur, Texas 76234
940-627-3351, 940-627-2697 (Fax)
countyclerk@co.wise.tx.us

LDS 'Family Search'  - MANY Helpful Records
https://familysearch.org/search/collection/list#page=1&region=UNITED_STATES

QUERIES - Ask and Answer Questions
Wise County Message Board

Gina Heffernan
TXGenWeb State Coordinator (Email Contact)

  If you have comments, questions, information to share, or need information, please contact:
Sue Tackel - Sue@WiseCountyTexas.info 

(click here with message for mail list )


Thanks for stopping by. Check us out often as we are at work now on new information to add to the web site.....

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