Start onlineEnter the MCHS Collections Studio
Search staff-published finding aids, oral histories, films, and images. Families can try the evidence lab; researchers can build a draft citation and review rights guidance.
Open the public reading room →
Trace your roots
Map your family's Mercer County
Communities move, merge and vanish. Our collection includes historic maps, plat books, cemetery records, church and school registers, newspapers and family files that help you place ancestors in the towns and hollows where they actually lived — from Princeton and Bramwell to the coal camps in between.
📚 Ask the research desk →
Read the landscape
Geology, coal & environmental history.
Mercer County history is also the history of rock, water, extraction, transportation, labor, and changed landscapes. Use scientific maps alongside company records, oral histories, photographs, and field observations.
West Virginia geology
Use the West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey for state geology, coal resources, maps, publications, and collection information.
Open WVGES ↗
Landscape change
Compare historical USGS topographic maps to study settlements, rail corridors, waterways, mines, roads, and place-name changes over time.
Open USGS topoView ↗
Document responsibly
Mine locations and abandoned industrial sites can be hazardous or private. Research records remotely and never enter a mine or cross property boundaries without authorization.
Record a complete citation
Capture creator, title or description, date, collection, box or item identifier, repository, stable link, and the date accessed. Label estimates, family traditions, and unresolved identifications clearly.
Permission is separate from access
Being able to view or copy an item does not establish publication rights. Ask the holding institution about copyright, donor restrictions, privacy, cultural sensitivity, credit lines, and reproduction permission.
Grow the archive
Share history with the collection.
Have an artifact, document, photograph, written or recorded story, video, or audio interview connected to Mercer County? We'd love to hear about it.
1 · Start a conversation
Please describe the material to the Curator before sending files or dropping anything off. Do not email large or sensitive recordings until staff provides an approved transfer method.
2 · Review rights and consent
Staff will confirm ownership, copyright, narrator or participant consent, privacy, access restrictions, and whether MCHS can preserve or publish the material.
3 · Complete the agreement
Accepted physical or digital material requires the appropriate Deed of Gift, permission, or deposit agreement. An initial offer does not transfer ownership or authorize publication.
