General Information

Welcome to the Genealogical webpages for the Smyrna Historical and Genealogical Society (SHGS). The main site for the society is smyrnahistory.org. The main site provides Smyrna history, information about the Smyrna Museum which is operated by the SHGS, newsletters, and lots of other information about Smyrna, Georgia. This rootsweb site is intended for SHGS genealogical content only. Information about membership in SHGS is available here. Support the Society by becoming a member.

The purpose of the Smyrna Historical & Genealogical Society to collect, preserve, and display historical memorabilia such as photographs, letters, artifacts, oral histories, family histories, genealogical information and other items relating to the Smyrna area. For a brief history of the society, please see our Society History page.

The City-owned Smyrna Museum is operated by the Society with all volunteer help. The hours are Tuesday - Saturday, 10:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. Admission is free, however donations are gladly accepted.

Meetings

For general meetings of the Society, please see the main Smyrna History Calendar.

Publications

Lives & Times is published six times a year by the Society for the membership. It includes activities, announcements of events, reports of meetings and Smyrna historical information. Additionally, it regularly contains genealogically focused articles on area families and genealogical charts. New books relating to history and genealogy which have been placed in the Smyrna library are also listed.

Historic Smyrna - An Illustrated History by Harold Smith was published in December 2010.  It is an 8/1/2 x 11 hard bound format with a full color cover.  It contains more than 300 photos of the area and people dating to the founding of Smyrna in the 1830's when a portion of the Smyrna area was still occupied by Cherokee Indians.  Check with the Smyrna Museum or Amazon.com for availability.

Cemetery Books: Periodically, the Society publishes Cemetery Books which record all the inscriptions on grave stones in Smyrna area cemeteries.  The booklets also contain a plat indicating where each grave is located.  This is an ongoing project, and eventually, we hope to have a book for each cemetery.

Projects/Activities

Cemetery Project

The Smyrna Memorial Cemetery, established in 1838 by the Smyrna Methodist Church, is located directly across the street from the Smyrna Museum on Memorial Drive.  An archaeological survey conducted in the late 1990's determined there are 395 unmarked graves located in the cemetery in addition to the 243 marked graves. The Smyrna Cemetery Association placed "generic" markers on each of the previously unmarked graves denoting "Unknown adult", or "baby" or "child" with a number to indicate its location.  This information is recorded at the Smyrna Museum with the dimensions of the grave sites.  There is a booklet at the Museum showing the location of each marker, along with an alphabetical index of the known burials in the cemetery. The complete listings can be found at SmyrnaHistory.com.

Future Projects

There are no paid employees of the Smyrna Historical & Genealogical Society and all activities are carried out by volunteers. We need your assistance in future projects. If you would like to volunteer, please contact the Smyrna Museum or join the Society.

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