Sharp County Genealogy Records
Sharp County genealogy records begin in 1869, when this north-central Arkansas Ozarks county was formed from Lawrence County. The county seat is Ash Flat, and the courthouse holds marriage registers, probate files, and land records for family history research in this mountain county between the Spring River and the Strawberry River watersheds.
Sharp County at a Glance
Sharp County Courthouse Genealogy Records
The Sharp County Clerk's office mailing address is PO Box 307, Ash Flat, AR 72513, phone (870) 994-7361. The Clerk holds marriage records from 1869 and probate records from 1869. Sharp County was created on July 18, 1868, from Lawrence County, with courthouse records beginning in 1869. The Circuit Court Clerk at the courthouse holds divorce filings, court records, and land records. Birth and death records at the county level begin in 1914.
Sharp County sits in the Ozarks in north-central Arkansas, bounded by the Spring River to the north and the Strawberry River draining the southern part of the county. The county takes its name from Ephraim Sharp, an early settler in the area. The founding families who came to Sharp County in the late 1860s and 1870s were mostly mountain farming families whose roots in northeast Arkansas often went back through Lawrence County to the earliest settlement of the region. Because Lawrence County records date to 1815, researchers can trace some Sharp County families back over 150 years in the Arkansas record base.
For research before 1868, Lawrence County records at Walnut Ridge are the primary source. Lawrence County, the parent of Sharp County, holds records from 1815 and was itself the original parent county for much of northeast Arkansas. The historic Powhatan courthouse, where NEARA is located, was the original Lawrence County seat and is part of the research infrastructure for this entire region.
Note: Sharp County was formed in 1868 from Lawrence County. Pre-1868 records for the Sharp County area are held in the Lawrence County courthouse at Walnut Ridge, which has records dating to 1815.
Sharp County Genealogy on FamilySearch
The FamilySearch Sharp County wiki lists available records and links to digitized collections. Marriage records from 1869 are in the statewide Arkansas marriage index on FamilySearch. Probate records are indexed for the county, and census records run from 1870 through 1940.
The 1870 census is the first federal census for Sharp County, taken just two years after the county was formed. It names every household member with ages, birthplaces, and occupations and captures the founding generation of the new county. Because the county was formed from Lawrence County, the 1860 census for Lawrence County is also relevant and documents families in the Sharp County area before it was organized.
FamilySearch has indexed Civil War pension files for Sharp County veterans. Like other Ozarks counties, Sharp County had significant Unionist activity during the war, and many men from the county served in Union forces or sought protection from Confederate conscription in the mountains. Both Union and Confederate pension files are searchable on FamilySearch and contain detailed family history statements useful for bridging the courthouse records from the 1860s through the 1880s.
ARGenWeb Sharp County Resources
The ARGenWeb Sharp County page provides free genealogical resources compiled by volunteers. Cemetery surveys, family history submissions, and historical documents for this north-central Arkansas Ozarks county are available on the site.
Sharp County cemeteries are scattered across the Ozark Mountains and river valleys throughout the county. The ARGenWeb transcriptions document both the community cemeteries in Ash Flat and the smaller family burial sites on private and National Forest land across the county's townships.
The ARGenWeb Sharp County page provides cemetery records, family history submissions, and genealogical resources for researchers tracing families in this north-central Arkansas Ozarks county.
Family histories on the ARGenWeb site for Sharp County trace families through the Lawrence County parent connection and across the northeast Arkansas Ozarks region. Some compiled genealogies document family lines going back through multiple generations in Lawrence County before Sharp County was formed in 1868.
Northeast Arkansas Regional Archives
The Northeast Arkansas Regional Archives (NEARA) is located at the historic Lawrence County Courthouse in Powhatan, phone (870) 869-2064. NEARA serves counties in northeast and north-central Arkansas including Sharp County. Because Lawrence County is the parent county for Sharp County, NEARA's collections at Powhatan are directly relevant to pre-1868 Sharp County research. The historic Powhatan courthouse is itself a significant research site, as it was the original Lawrence County seat before the county seat moved to Walnut Ridge.
The Arkansas State Archives in Little Rock holds Confederate and Union pension files, military records, and microfilmed county materials for Sharp County. Federal records are at the National Archives at Fort Worth, 501 W Felix Street, Fort Worth, TX 76115, phone (817) 831-5620.
Nearby Counties
Sharp County borders Lawrence County, Randolph County, Fulton County, Izard County, Independence County, and Stone County. Lawrence County is the parent county and holds pre-1868 records for Sharp County families, with records going back to 1815.