Woodruff County Genealogy Records

Woodruff County genealogy records begin in 1865, when this east-central Arkansas county was formed from Jackson and St. Francis counties during the Civil War. The county seat is Augusta, and the courthouse holds marriage registers, probate files, and land records for family history research in this Arkansas River and White River delta county.

Woodruff County Courthouse Genealogy Records

The Woodruff County Clerk's office mailing address is PO Box 10, Augusta, AR 72006, phone (870) 347-2871. The Clerk holds marriage records from 1865 and probate records from 1865. Woodruff County was created in 1862 from Jackson County and St. Francis County during the Civil War, with courthouse records beginning in 1865 once the county was organized after the war. 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.

Woodruff County's formation during the Civil War is a distinctive feature of its record base. The county was legally created in 1862, but organized government and courthouse recordkeeping did not begin until 1865 as the war wound down. This three-year gap means that events from 1862 through 1864 — marriages, probate matters, land transactions — would have been handled, if at all, under Jackson County or St. Francis County jurisdiction. Researchers looking for events from that period should check both parent counties before concluding that no record exists.

Woodruff County sits in the flat bottomlands where the Cache River, White River, and Arkansas River drainage systems converge in east-central Arkansas. Augusta is a small delta town on the White River. The county's founding families were predominantly agricultural, many with roots going back through St. Francis and Jackson counties to the earliest settlement of east Arkansas. The Freedmen's Bureau was active in this part of Arkansas after the war, and those records are important for African American genealogy in Woodruff County.

Woodruff County Genealogy on FamilySearch

The FamilySearch Woodruff County wiki lists available records and links to digitized collections. Marriage records from 1865 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 taken after Woodruff County was organized, and it documents the county in the immediate postwar period. It names every household member with ages and birthplaces and is the primary starting point for research in this county. The 1860 census for Jackson County and St. Francis County covers the families who were living in the Woodruff County area before the county was formed and provides the antebellum baseline for research here.

FamilySearch has indexed Slave Schedules for the parent counties from 1850 and 1860. For African American genealogy in Woodruff County, combining these schedules with the 1870 census and the Freedmen's Bureau records for east Arkansas gives the fullest documentary chain for tracing Black families through the emancipation period. The Freedmen's Bureau records for Arkansas are held at the National Archives and have been partially digitized on FamilySearch.

ARGenWeb Woodruff County Resources

The ARGenWeb Woodruff County page provides free genealogical resources compiled by volunteers. Cemetery surveys, family history submissions, and historical documents for this east-central Arkansas county are available on the site.

Woodruff County cemeteries document families from the post-Civil War period through the present. The ARGenWeb transcriptions cover community cemeteries in Augusta and smaller family burial grounds on private farmland throughout the county's flat delta townships.


The ARGenWeb Woodruff County page provides cemetery records, family history submissions, and genealogical resources for researchers tracing families in this east-central Arkansas delta county.

Family histories on the ARGenWeb site for Woodruff County trace connections across the Jackson County and St. Francis County parent counties and across the broader east Arkansas region. Some compiled genealogies document family lines that moved through multiple east Arkansas counties as the delta was settled and the county structure was reorganized in the mid-nineteenth century.

Vital Records and State Archives

The Arkansas Department of Health holds birth and death records for Woodruff County from 1914. The state marriage index starts in January 1917. For events before those dates, the county courthouse in Augusta is the primary official source. Birth certificates cost $12 and death certificates are $10 per copy from the state.

The Arkansas State Archives in Little Rock holds Confederate pension files, military records, and microfilmed county materials for Woodruff County and its parent counties. Federal records are at the National Archives at Fort Worth, 501 W Felix Street, Fort Worth, TX 76115, phone (817) 831-5620.

Nearby Counties

Woodruff County borders Jackson County, Independence County, White County, Prairie County, Monroe County, Cross County, and St. Francis County. Jackson County at Newport and St. Francis County at Forrest City are the parent counties and hold pre-1862 records for Woodruff County families.