The Alabama Department of History and Archives (ADAH) has many free Digital Collections available for family history, genealogical, and historical research including:

• Alabama Photographs and Pictures Collection
• Alabama Textual Materials Collection  including “Territorial and early statehood records – To commemorate the state’s bicentennial, ADAH has digitized newspapers and records from Alabama’s territorial period (1817-1819) and the early days of statehood.”
• Alabama Maps Collection -contains a sampling of maps from the extensive holdings at the Alabama Department of Archives and History. The maps span 300 years, documenting not only Alabama’s geographic past, but also that of the region, nation, and continent. For information about maps that have not yet been digitized, see the ADAH maps database: http://www.archives.alabama.gov/mapbase/mapbase.cfm
• Jim Peppler Southern Courier Photograph Collection
• Alabama Media Group Collection “In December 2016 Alabama Media Group donated its collection of historical photographic negatives to ADAH. The collection contains more than 3 million images taken by newspaper photographers working for the Birmingham News, the Huntsville Times, and Mobile’s Press-Register.”
• Alabama Posters Collection
• Alabama Folklife Collection
• Alabama Genealogy and History Publications -at Alabama Department of Archives and History (ADAH) includes “publications documenting the story of the state’s people and its past. Much of this collection will consist of the newsletters and journals produced by historical and genealogical organizations, but other relevant resources may be added as well.” Counties currently included are:

  Colbert
  Franklin
  Jackson
  Lauderdale
  Lawrence
  Limestone
  Madison
  Marshall
  Montgomery
  Morgan
  Shelby
  Talladega
  Tuscaloosa

• Alabama Legislative Acts and Journals (search from 1818 to 1999) or visit Alabama Legislative History
• Alabama Governors’ Executive Orders Collection
• Alabama state agency websites collection “Since 2005 ADAH has worked to preserve state agencies’ websites. The websites on Archive-It are arranged in the following collections: Alabama Constitutional Officers; Alabama Legislature and Appellate Courts; Alabama Regional, Multi-State or Multi-County Agencies or Commissions; Alabama Political Blogs; Alabama State Agencies; and Alabama State Agency Facebook Pages, Twitter Feeds, and YouTube Videos.”
• Alabama World War I Service Cards
• Alabama Civil War and Reconstruction Newspapers
• Alabama History Education Materials
• Alabama State Publications Collection
• Alabama Audio-Visual Collection
• History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography -The History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography, written by Thomas McAdory Owen, was published in 1921 by the S.J. Clarke Publishing Company. The company had approached Dr. Owen in 1911 with a proposal that he produce a history and biographical dictionary of the state. Dr. Owen had begun gathering materials and writing a history of Alabama in the late 1890s. He continued this pursuit after his appointment to head the Alabama Department of Archives and History and had almost completed his work when a fire destroyed his home in 1906. From the materials salvaged from his home, Owen felt that he had the history completed and could use the bulk of the Clarke Publishing contract period to write the biographical sketches. However, upon reviewing the papers in the boxes gathered from his home after the fire, Owen found that he would have to rewrite the history and gather all of the biography materials.”

  Dr. Owen worked on the History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography until his death on March 25, 1920. His widow, Marie Bankhead Owen, completed the manuscript materials for publication in the year following Dr. Owen’s death. Dr. Owen’s wide circle of contacts in the history, library, and manuscript communities helped him to write a comprehensive history of the state and gather biographical information on many Alabamians who helped shape and mold the state.

• Alabama Historical Quarterly – Collection contains the 119 issues of the Alabama Historical Quarterly published by the Alabama Department of Archives and History in 1930 and between 1940 and 1982.
• Alabama Official and Statistical Register
• Alabama Writer’s Project Collection
• Alabama Folklife Association
• B.B. Comer Library
• Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
• Carl Elliott Regional Library
• Cherokee County Historical Museum
• Centreville Historic Preservation Commission
• Cullman County Historical Museum
• Daphne Museum
• Fairhope Public Library
• Faulkner University Archive
• Franelich Collection
• Gadsden Public Library
• Historic Mobile Preservation Society
• Huntingdon College
• Jacksonville State University Library
• Marietta Johnson Museum Collection, Fairhope Public Library
• Northeast Alabama Community College
• Samford University Library
• Selma Public Library
• Trenholm State Community College
• Troy University Library
• Tupper Lightfoot Memorial Library
• Tuscaloosa Genealogical Society
• Tuskegee University
• University of South Alabama, McCall Library
• University of West Alabama
• City of Vina, photos of people at White Oak Hub Company, Vita, Franklin County, Alabama
• The Alabama Department of Archives and History (ADAH)  has a collection titled, “Thomas M. Owen’s Revolutionary Soldiers in Alabama: Being a List of Names, Compiled from Authentic Sources, of Soldiers of the American Revolution, Who Resided in the State Of Alabama, Compiled by Thomas M. Owen.”

  This site also has links to other websites with Alabama Revolutionary War Soldiers.

• Tuscaloosa County Circuit Court Loose Records Index” which includes an index by surnames, alphabetically, of people involved in Tuscaloosa court proceedings. This includes many records of divorces in Tuscaloosa County.
• Southern Poverty Law Center Report, which “contains the newsletter of the Southern Poverty Law Center published from 1973 to the present.”
• World War I Gold Star Database at Alabama Department of Archives & History (ADAH) is a database “being developed from the Gold Star files of World War I Alabama service people who died during the war or who had been awarded distinguished service recognition. The name “Gold Star” was derived from the gold stars awarded to mothers of service people who lost their lives.

  These files were created by the Alabama Department of Archives and History in the 1920s. This information was collected from relatives of the deceased in preparation for the publication of a Gold Star book which was never published. The amount of information concerning each individual varies greatly. Information about individuals may include an entry from the Official U.S. Bulletin, entries from the “Alabamians in European War” index card collection, biographical sketches of the service men, photographs, newspaper articles, and correspondence from family members. No attempt has been made to validate the information in the files including spelling of names.”