New Hanover Research Strategy

Treat New Hanover County as a place-level base camp, not a single search box.

1. Date the event before you pick a courthouse. If it is before 1729, start in Craven (and their parents if needed).
2. Pin the household with every available census decade, noting neighbors (FAN club) around Wilmington and rural communities.
3. Land + probate at the county seat create the longest continuous trails—abstract grantors, grantees, witnesses, and adjoining owners.
4. Vitals substitutes: marriage bonds, church books, newspapers, delayed births, and pensions often outperform statewide certificates for earlier generations. See vital records.
5. Widen deliberately to neighbors listed on this hub and to the societies & libraries directory.

• Start here
• Counties & formation
• Land & property
• Probate & estates