Digital Collections
Visit the past with our Digital Collections. Listen to oral histories recording the memories of our St. Augustinian elders, past talks given by speakers educated in city history, and explore images and oral histories complementing our digital exhibits. Come visit the Digital Collections page here.

Architectural Collection
This collection consists of drawings and architectural plans created by St. Augustine architects such as Howard Davis, Craig Thorn and Craig Thompson. The collection also contains full size drawings of all St. Johns County buildings listed on the Historic American Building Survey.

Circuit Court Records
This collection consists of the circuit court records of St. Johns County from 1821 to the early 1950s. Included in this collection are the records of the Superior Court of East Florida (the federal territorial court). The collection also includes Court Minute Books, Inventories and Appraisement of Estates, Letters of Administration, Probate Court Records, Testamentary Letter Records and Will Books. The court records are indexed by names of litigants or type of case in Archives Catalog on Emily.

Note: These records are kept offsite. Please advise Library staff at least 48 business hours before your appointment to pull Circuit Court Records.

Colonial St. Augustine Vertical Files
Arranged by specific street address or street these files contain newspaper clippings, reports, maps and other material related to that address.

Biographical Collections Biographical Cards – Alphabetically organized, these cards contain information abstracted from newspapers, church records, city directories and other sources.

Biographical Files – Arranged by family name these files contain obituaries, genealogical charts, booklets, letters and other biographical material related to the family.

Biographical Photos- see photo collection below.

Colonial St. Augustine Collections
This collection consists of a document component and photo component. The Colonial St. Augustine area is defined by Bay Street, now Avenida Menendez on the East, the Castillo de San Marcos and Orange Street on the North, Cordova Street on the West and the St. Augustine National Cemetery/San Salvador Street on the South. A map of the colonial area is found here.

Book Collection
This collection covers the history of St. Augustine, St. Johns County, the Spanish, British and French in colonial Florida, and general Florida history. Our online Library Catalog on Emily can help you identify whether we have books related to your research.

Newspapers
This collection consists of hardcopy and microfilmed copies of St. Augustine, St. Johns County and regional newspapers. For a list of newspapers Click Here.

Click Here for the digital SAR index. Articles from June 2009 to the present are kept at the Research Library.

Church Records
The library has indexed translated abstracts of the Roman Catholic Cathedral Parish records in addition to copies of the original documents in Spanish and Latin. The library holds a microfilm copy of Trinity Episcopal Church records and a manuscript collection of the Memorial Presbyterian Church’s records. For a list of all church records held by the library Click Here. Please see the Other Resources page for additional sources of church records.

Oral History
This collection consists of oral history interviews, lectures and radio interviews with local residents and celebrities. Index is available here and Oral Histories are on the SAHS Digital Collections website. 

Microfilm
This collection consists of microfilmed copies of newspapers, manuscript collections, church records, census records and the John B. Stetson Collection of first period Spanish documents. Notable are the Menendez Family Papers, Edmund Kirby Smith Papers and the records of the Freedman Bureau schools in the St. Augustine area.

Map Collection
This collection includes copies of 16th & 17th century Florida, St Augustine, and original St Johns County maps. It also includes St Augustine and Florida maps from the 18th century to date as well as the Verne Chatelain collection. The majority of the map collection is cataloged in the Archives Catalog on Emily, and is searchable by place-name.