Research

• Important facts for conducting research in Benton and Franklin Counties.
• Some Benton and Franklin County records are available at the Washington State Digital Archives.
• Some Benton and Franklin County records have been archived at the Washington State Archives Central Regional Branch. Visit this site to determine what you can access at the archive and what you must access at the county courthouse.

• Search our online records.
• Check our collection of Local Research to see if your family of interest is included in this already researched set of families.
• Use our Library Resource Catalogues to find books, CDs or microfilms of interest. The item descriptions in our catalogs often include the surnames included or the counties covered. If you can't visit our library and do the research yourself consider using our research services described below.
• Check the information on the USGenWeb Site. Benton County and Franklin County
• Check the other sites listed on our Links page.

Our research committee is available to assist you in limited searches of records available in Benton and Franklin Counties. We can work using either:

For Lookups and photocopying from resources that are already indexed and are in our TCGS Library, we will do a lookup for a single name (including spelling variations) in a single resource plus up to 5 photocopies from that resource for a $5.00 non-refundable donation. Additional photocopies are 15 cents each.

You may request lookups in multiple resources or multiple names in a single resource by paying $5.00 for each name in each resource you wish checked. If you have several lookups you should consider whether 2 hours of research is more cost effective (see details below).

For multiple lookups or for checking resources in another location (Richland Libary, Mid Columbia Library), we will do 2 hours of research and make up to 10 photocopies from those resources for a $20 non-refundable donation. Additional photocopies are 15 cents each.

The list of resources that we can check are listed on our Research Sources page. If you submit a request under our Research Fee option, we strongly encourage you to submit a family group sheet for the individual(s) that you want us to research and a pedigree showing the relationship between those individual(s). Having this information will help us provide you with research for the correct person or people (as we can determine from the resources we check).

If after our two hours of research the availability of additional information is indicated, we will notify you (preferably via email). You can choose to have us continue or not at the same rate ($20 donation for 2 hours).

You may also give us a dollar limit. In this case we will factor in both our research time and the number of copies we make and spend our time accordingly.

When our research for you is complete you will receive a copy of the pages you submitted that has been annotated with our findings plus any photocopies we made for you.

For other needs such as tombstone picture(s) or courthouse visits to copy records, the TCGS Researchers may be able to handle your request. Contact the TCGS Researchers via email to describe your need. We will respond indicating whether we have a researcher that can accommodate your specific request.

You may also search in our TCGS Library catalogue (see TCGSLibrary Resources). If you find a book, microfilm or fiche that you would like checked, send email to the TCGS Researchers. We will respond indicating whether using the TCGS Researchers is an effective way to fulfill your request.

We request that your prepaid requests be submitted in writing. Please include a SASE.

To help you better prepare information for our use, we will respond to email questions prior to conducting the research.

To contact the TCGS Researchers via either email or regular US postal mail.