Restrictions to Access

No restrictions. Open for research.

Copyright Notice

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred Citation

[Identification of item], in the William Calvin Rankin Papers #3717, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Acquisitions Information

Recieved on loan from Douglass Rankin in December 1965 (Acc. 87016).

Sensitive Materials Statement

Manuscript collections and archival records may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal or state right to privacy laws and regulations, the North Carolina Public Records Act (N.C.G.S. § 132 1 et seq.), and Article 7 of the North Carolina State Personnel Act (Privacy of State Employee Personnel Records, N.C.G.S. § 126-22 et seq.). Researchers are advised that the disclosure of certain information pertaining to identifiable living individuals represented in this collection without the consent of those individuals may have legal ramifications (e.g., a cause of action under common law for invasion of privacy may arise if facts concerning an individual's private life are published that would be deemed highly offensive to a reasonable person) for which the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill assumes no responsibility.

Processed by: SHC Staff

Encoded by: Caroline Moakley and Benjamin Bromley, December 2008

Updated by: Amanda Loeb, April 2012

The following terms from Library of Congress Subject Headings suggest topics, persons, geography, etc. interspersed through the entire collection; the terms do not usually represent discrete and easily identifiable portions of the collection--such as folders or items.

Clicking on a subject heading below will take you into the University Library's online catalog.

• Account books.
• Commonplace-books.
• Families--North Carolina--Photographs.
• Genealogists|zNorth Carolina--Correspondence.
• Genealogy.
• Guilford County (N.C.)--History.
• North Carolina--Genealogy.
• Rankin family.
• Rankin, John Henry, 1844-1921.
• Rankin, Nancy Jane Smith, 1846-1919.
• Rankin, William Calvin, 1881-1962.
• Scrapbooks--North Carolina.
• Wharton family.

William Calvin Rankin (1881-1962), a native of Guilford County, N.C., worked for the Tennessee Valley Authority in Knoxville before retiring in 1948 to Charlotte, N.C., where he began researching the history of his family and their relations in Guilford County, N.C. He was the son of John Henry Rankin (1844-1921) and Nancy Jane Smith Rankin (1846-1919).

The collection is chiefly genealogical and biographical compilations of genealogist William Calvin Rankin, relating to his work after 1948 in writing the history of the Rankin, Wharton, and allied and other families in Guilford County, N.C., and elsewhere. Also included is correspondence of Rankin with persons connected to, or interested in, the families he was investigating. Also included are scattered Guilford County letters, deeds, account books, scrapbooks and commonplace books, wills, and obituary clippings as well as family photographs that Rankin collected.

• Oversize Volume (OV-3717/1)
• Image Folder (P-3717/1)
• Oversize Paper (OP-3717/1)