Some of Mississippi’s oldest records in the state’s oldest counties, including Warren, are about to get some much-needed attention, thanks to a yearlong preservation effort.

The Mississippi Department of Archives and History and the Genealogical Society of Utah will identify and inventory records in the state’s 14 pre-statehood counties and evaluate the microfilm collection held in Jackson at the state archives.

Historical documents in Warren County will get a look-see because the county is among those organized before Mississippi became a state in 1817. Most of the state’s territorial counties — Adams, Amite, Claiborne, Franklin, Greene, Hancock, Jackson, Jefferson, Lawrence, Marion, Pike, Warren, Wayne and Wilkinson — maintain some of the oldest records, dating back more than 200 years. The Mississippi Territory was organized in 1798, and Warren County was established in 1809.

The department’s Local Government Records Office is directing the preservation effort, funded with a grant from the Mississippi Historical Records Advisory Board from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission.

Visits will begin in March, with teams reaching Warren County by June, said Tim Barnard, director of LGRO, which helps counties manage their records.

A focus will be record books that have either fallen apart or are in danger of doing so, Barnard said. Another is microfilmed documents, the second-oldest collection of which among the territorial counties is in Warren County, Barnard said.

Older records have been microfilmed by the state and the nonprofit society funded by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for about 30 years. The society, which has microfilmed records in more than 100 countries, lists 7,358 microfilms and 1,219 other published materials in Mississippi as part of its efforts in the state.

Warren County had its land-records books reinforced and re-binded in 2008 by Texas-based Peeler & Sons Bookbinders, giving it a leg up on other counties in saving the oldest of records. An $84,000 addition to the chancery clerk’s office budget for 2007-08 funded the effort, which has saved some of the nearly 1,400 land record books from falling out of their protective holders. Pages that had slipped out of books entirely were re-covered in acid-free sleeves.

“A lot of other counties along the (Mississippi) river don’t have the money to do things like that,” Barnard said.

Microfilm machines are available for public use in the office, but aren’t used as frequently as a computer database containing electronic versions of all local land records and court records dating back about 20 years.

Assistance to those “wanting to look up something old” is still available, deputy chancery clerk Ann Tompkins said.

Further digitization of records, which most recently has involved expanding online access to court records in more counties, and future preservation will be planned as a result of this year’s preservation sweep by MDAH and the society. Free workshops on records management for officials in each selected county will be held as part of the visits.

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Contact Danny Barrett Jr. at dbarrett@vicksburgpost.com