Hi,
I am Maggie Stewart,
the coordinator for the Rowan County NCGenWeb page.
This page is part of a nationwide effort to get genealogical information
online. For more information about the national project, go to the USGenWeb
Project. For information about the North Carolina state project, go
to the NCGenWeb.
Rowan
County was formed in 1753 from Anson County, and was named for Matthew
Rowan (d. 1760), acting governor at the time the county was formed. The
county seat is Salisbury. Initially Rowan included the entire northwestern
sector of North Carolina, with no clear western boundary, but its size
was reduced as a number of counties were split off. The first big excision
was to create
Surry County in 1771.
Burke
and Wilkes
Counties were formed from the western parts of Rowan and Surry in 1777 and 1778, respectively,
leaving a smaller Rowan County that comprised present-day Rowan,
Iredell (formed 1788),
Davidson (1822), and
Davie
(1836). Surry, Burke and Wilkes subsequently fragmented further as well.
Depending on where your ancestors lived, you may want to look at records
for some of these later counties also. Records of very early land grants
in the Rowan County area will be found with
Anson County
The information on this site has been made possible by many contributors.
If you have records that you would like to contribute to any of the databases
please feel free to send it in to mags.cis@gmail.com.
Records contributed to the Rowan County, NCGenWeb site will be added to the NCGenWeb
Archives unless you specify otherwise.
What's New in Rowan County, North Carolina