Simpson County, MississippiA Proud Part of the Mississippi GenWeb!
Contact Us:
State Coordinator: Jeff Kemp
County Coordinator: Gerry Westmoreland
Welcome to the Simpson County Mississippi Genweb site, providing genealogy and history information to researchers.
To share your Simpson County, Mississippi genealogy or history information, send an email to msghn@outlook.com - we will be happy to include it here.
This site is part of a larger statewide genealogy project called MSGenWeb. The MSGenWeb is itself part of a much larger nationwide project known as the USGenWeb. Please visit these sites for more information around the state or the country.
Simpson County was organized in 1824, seven years after statehood. The population at the time was 2,329 whites and 829 slaves. The 1860 census records a population of 6,080. The county was named for Josiah Simpson, a former Pennsylvanian, educated at Princeton. He later lived at Green Hill, near Natchez, and became a territorial judge of Mississippi and served as a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1917.
Simpson County lies in the southern half of Mississippi about midway between the Mississippi River and the Alabama state line. Mendenhall, the current County seat, is thirty one miles southeast of Jackson and 125 miles north of the Gulf of Mexico.
At the time of it's organization, Simpson County was one of the most attractive counties of the great Southwest and that is why for the first twenty years after being opened for settlement, it grew so rapidly in population. Doubtless the early settlers from Scotland, New England, Virginia and the Carolinas sent back to their relatives glowing accounts of this new country.
The attractions of this new county were many and varied. First of all, of course, was the fact that homesteads could be had for the asking, and the lands on the creeks and rivers were very fertile. Another attraction was the abundance of running water, beautiful, clear running streams, wonderful springs bubbling up in the hills. Especially notable were the great springs at Rials that form a creek at the very beginning.
The greatest of attractions, however, were the great pine forests that covered the county from the north to the south and from east to west. For miles and miles one could ride through the untold thousands of trees, standing in their solemnity, magnificent in their grandeur as they had stood for ages. It seemed a sacrilege for them to be destroyed. We shall never see their like again.
The county has a total area of 590.53 square miles, of which 588.73 square miles is land and 1.80 square mile (0.30%) is water. The population recorded in the 1830 Federal Census was 2,680. The 2010 census recorded 27,503 residents in the county.
Neigboring counties are Rankin County (north), Smith County (east), Covington County (southeast), Jefferson Davis County (south), Lawrence County (southwest), and Copiah County (west). Communities in the county include Magee, Mendenhall, D'Lo, Braxton, Harrisville, Pinola, and Weathersby.
Simpson County MSGHN has many records here on our website. Marriage Records, Cemetery listings, tombstone photos, and more. Check out the Menu for links to all of the available data.
Birth Records - The Mississippi Department of Health maintains records of births after November 1, 1912 on file. This was the year Mississippi began keeping official birth records. You can obtain official copies of birth certificates by mail by using this birth record application on their website. If you have to order by internet or phone, or use a credit card, you can use VitalCheck, a third party records company recognized by the Mississippi Dept. of Health. Since there are no official birth records before November 1, 1912 for births prior to that date you will need to determine birth information from census records, bible records, baptismal records, cemetery tombstones, etc.
Death Records - The Mississippi Department of Health maintains births recorded after November 1, 1912 on file. This was the year Mississippi began keeping official death records. You can obtain official copies of death certificates by mail by using this death record application on their website. If you just have to order by internet or phone, or use a credit card, you can use VitalCheck, a third party records company recognized by the Mississippi Dept. of Health. Since there are no official death records...
