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April was a busy month! We added:
Old Courthouse Records: 64 wills, 50 guardianships, 27 estates, 12 coroner's inquests
Adams County Historical Museum Scrapbooks: 16 pages of trancriptions from the 1936 Scrapbook (we need more transcibers!)
Cemeteries: updated Crawford, West Lawn, Cross Reformed, Studebaker, Bunker Hill & Bunker Hill Amish
Added almost 260 obits to various cemeteries and to our obituary pages

Adams County was created on March 1, 1836 and was formed from the Adams New Purchase, the renamed Delaware New Purchase, which was formed in 1820 from unorganized land, and renamed Adams New Purchase in 1827. The Adams New Purchase existed until 1844, when it became the counties of Adams, Clinton, Grant, Huntington, Jay, and Wells, and portions of the counties of Boone, Carroll, Tipton, and Wabash. Adams County was named for U.S. President John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the United States.

Decatur is the county seat. Samuel Rugg envisioned a town that would be the county seat and would grow to be a city of importance. Samuel Johnson offered as an inducement to have the county seat located on his land, the sum of $3,100, four church lots, half an acre for a public square, one acre for a seminary and two acres for a cemetery. He further agreed to pay the expenses of the locating commissioners, and furnish a house to hold court in until suitable buildings could be erected. The county commissioners promptly accepted the offer "and proceeded to the aforesaid town site, and marked a white oak tree with blazes on four sides, on each of which they individually inscribed their names." Decatur was probably named in honor of Commodore Stephen Decatur and in 1849 it had seventy houses (three of which were brick, twenty-one frame and the remainder of logs) with a population of about 400. One of the focal points of downtown Decatur is the magnificent Victorian courthouse that was built in 1873 and remains the home of the county government. The county historical society is also located near downtown in a beautiful home once occupied by a prominent family of Decatur. The only hospital in Adams County is also located in Decatur and has provided the best of care for more than eighty years through a network of local and visiting physicians and specialists from nearby Fort Wayne.


Adams County is divided into 12 Civil Townships: Blue Creek, French, Hartford, Jefferson, Kirkland, Monroe, Preble, Root, St. Marys, Union, Wabash and Washington. Townships Map

Cities, Towns and Communities include Berne, Coppess Corner, Decatur, Elm Tree Crossroads, Geneva, Honduras, Linn Grove, Magley, Monmouth, Monroe, Perryville, Peterson, Pleasant Mills, Preble, Rivare, and Salem.



In June 1996 a group of genealogists organized the Indiana Comprehensive Genealogy Database. The idea was to provide a single entry point for all counties in Indiana where collected databases would be stored. The databases were indexed and cross-linked so that even if an individual were found in more than one county they could be located in the index. At the same time, volunteers were found who were willing to coordinate the collection of databases and generally oversee the contents of the web page. Tim Singleton created the Adams County, Indiana INGenWeb page in 1996 and served as the volunteer coordinator for Adams County, Indiana, for almost 14 years and has helped hundreds of ancestor hunters with the information he has posted on the site. Many thanks to Tim and the other volunteers who have shared their talents and knowledge to help the rest of us!

Margie Pearce is the INGenWeb volunteer coordinator for Adams County, Indiana. Jim Cox is our co-coordinator. Both of us are working hard to add, update, and try to make the Adams County site ever more useful and user-friendly.

If you would like to contribute information to the website, please let us know by clicking on either name and sending an email message describing the format and content of the data.

There is an Adams Co., Indiana email discussion list for anyone having a genealogical interest in Adams County. To subscribe to the list, just follow the instructions.

If you would like to be a volunteer coordinator for an Indiana county, please contact
Indiana State Coordinator Denise Wells.
Assistant State Coordinators are Lena Harper and Jeff Kemp

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Page updated 3/16/2013

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What's New Log

Adams County Biographies

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The Adams Co., Indiana INGenWeb genealogy web site is maintained by Margie Pearce and Jim Cox.


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