Free Genealogical Resources: Bienville Parish, Louisiana

I've thought of writing about free Bienville Parish genealogical resources for a while, but a happy find last week inspired me - I found both volumes of History of Bienville Parish available to read online courtesy of the Bienville Public Library and Advantage Archives' Community History Archive. 

At this Community History Archive, you will find searchable digital copies of both volumes of the History of Bienville Parish, The Bienville Democrat (issues from 1900-2022), census records, appointments of postmasters (from abt 1870), and Bienville Police Jury Minutes. 

During the last month, I have been posting items relating to the Mackey Lodge in Ringgold. At Louisiana Masonic Library/Museum - Past Proceedings, I found past membership rolls and other information about the lodge.

Not all books can be accessed online. Books 
marked Public or Full Permission can be 
viewed online, and some can be downloaded.
Protected books cannot be viewed online and
those with Limited Permission can be viewed 
but not downloaded or printed. 

Find more free resources, including many books, periodicals, newsletters, and
family histories, at the FamilySearch Digital Library simply by searching for "Bienville Parish." Use the quotation marks in your search to only see search results for Parish following Bienville. 

Adding a name to your search will greatly narrow your results. To find resources mentioning my Bryan family in Bienville Parish, my search looks like this: "Reddick Bryan" AND "Bienville Parish." Note that I kept the quotation marks around both Reddick Bryan and Bienville Parish, and I added the word AND in all capital letters to indicate that I wanted to search for all items that contained both "Reddick Bryan" AND "Bienville Parish." 

If there are several spellings for the name, try using wildcards. Learn how to use wildcards on this post - Friday's Photo: It Worked! Using a Wildcard in my Search to Identify this Photo of Henry Green Davis of Bienville Parish, Louisiana

Below are a few of the Bienville Parish resources I have used from the FamilySearch Digital Library. Make sure you sign up for a free account before trying to use the library. 

• No land -- only slaves; v. 08  by Smith, Edith G. Heflin and Vivian Lehman
• History of Ringgold and Lake Bistineau, Bienville Parish, Louisiana by Ida G. Tooke
• Bienville Parish by J. Berton Gremillion
• Liberty Hill, Brush Valley, Friendship : the churches, the schools, the community and the people by Eva Loe McDuffie
• Biographical and historical memoirs of northwest Louisiana 

For links to additional resources, visit the Bienville Parish pages at FamilySearch Wiki and Linkpendium. 

If you want to know more about the families I research, click here to like my Facebook page, where you will see each post and other genealogical finds. 

Diana

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