Welcome to Whitfield County GAGenWeb

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"Attack at Rocky Face Ridge, GA"

Alonzo Chappell, 1864

Welcome to Whitfield County

GAGenWeb

Hi! I am the Whitfield County coordinator for The GAGenWeb Project. My name is Trish Elliott-Kashima and I hope to bring new information to our website. I do not live in Whitfield County, but have family that lived there. All comments and suggestions are very welcome.

Whitfield County was formed December 30,1851 from Murray County, Georgia. The Cherokee were here before the first white traders came into what later became Whitfield County. Many area Cherokee were taken with the Trail of Tears. Once the county was formed from a portion of Murray County, Dalton (already a bustling town founded by Edward White) became the county seat. The railroad helped the County grow. The Civil War took its toll on Whitfield County, with Sherman coming in 1863. And after the War, Reconstruction made even more hard times for the local residents as it did for most people in Georgia. Things started to look up with the arrival of the textile mills, and later carpet mills. Whitfield County is well known for its tufted bedspread industry started by Catherine Whitener.

Whitfield County was named for Rev. George Whitefield (1714-1770), who was an early settler in Georgia. He was a founder of Bethesda House in Savannah, which is the oldest extant charity in North America, founded in 1739. He was also one of the founders of Methodism. The spelling of Whitfield County's name was changed to reflect the way it was pronounced.

Rev. George Whitefield

I will start to concentrate on items that would help in genealogy (census, marriage records, death records, etc) this next weekend. If you have things to share about your ancestry or the general history of Whitfield County, please send it through and I will be happy to upload.

The site is re-indexed every Sunday about noon. If you see that I have uploaded new information before Sunday afternoon, try using "control f" as a search tool on the specific

Resources Available on this Website
Abstracts from Newspapers	African American Research	Autos
Bible Records	Biographies	Cemeteries
Census Records	Cherokee Applications	Churches
Claims/Civil War Era	Communities	Court Records
Deeds and Land Records	Early Banks and Money	Family Group Sheets
Fire Department	Furniture	Historic Sites
History of Whitfield County	Lookup Volunteers	Maps
Medical terms from the 1800s	Military	Ministers
Native American		Newspapers
Oaths, 1867	Obituaries	Queries
Quilts, Clothing and Woven Items	Recipes	Records on Microfilm
Resources	Schools	Special Pardons,1865
State Mental Hospital Inmates from Whitfield County, 1853-1870	Surnames	Tax lists, please share
Trains and Railroads	Vital Records - Birth, Marriages, Deaths	Wills and Probate

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