ORGANIZATION
North Carolina Historical Records Online is a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation registered in the State of North Carolina. Our mission is to provide public online access to images of original records and other relevant information useful to researching North Carolina history and genealogy. NCHRO is operated by a volunteer Board of Directors with no paid staff.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
David M. McCorkle, President & Treasurer
Cary, North Carolina
David is the creator of NC Land Grant Images and Data, the primary project of NCHRO. He handles software/website design and creation along with other technical aspects of all projects. He has recently retired after writing software for over 45 years for many types of computers/devices, operating systems, environments, and businesses.
David is a native of North Carolina with deep roots on many lines dating back to the 1700s, primarily in the Mecklenburg County area. He is President of the Durham-Orange Genealogical Society (D-OGS), and is on the board of the North Carolina Genealogical Society, the Mecklenburg Genealogical Society, and the Historic Mapping Congress. He has given lectures and webinars to national, state, and local audiences on topics such as land grants, court records, digitization, maps and mapping tools, land records, DNA, and land platting.
Diane L. Richard, Vice President
Raleigh, North Carolina
Diane is a nationally recognized Professional Genealogist with special expertise in researching North Carolina records of all types. She is the owner of Mosaic Research and Project Management, and co-leader of Tar Heel Discoveries, which provides guided North Carolina genealogical research support one-on-one or via a weeklong program.
Diane has M.Eng. and M.B.A. degrees from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She has been doing genealogy research since 1987 and since 2004 professionally focused on the records of North Carolina, other Southern States and migration paths to the Mississippi River.
Since 2006 she has authored almost 300 articles on genealogical topics for a variety of publications including Internet Genealogy and Your Genealogy Today (was Family Chronicle). From 2010-2017, Diane served as the editor of Upfront with NGS, the blog of the National Genealogical Society and published over 2000 posts. She is current editor of the North Carolina Genealogical Society Journal and past editor of Wake Treasures, the journal of the Wake County Genealogical Society. She is a member of the national and local chapters of the Association of Professional Genealogists and the National Genealogical Society. She has researched NC roots for the popular TV show Who Do You Think You Are? and appeared on the Bryan Cranston episode. She also appeared on The Dead Files season 12, episode 7 “Detox”.
She is a member of the Genealogical Speakers Guild (GSG) and as a speaker she has done webinars (coast-to-coast), conference presentations (FGS, NGS, TxSGS, FxGS, NERGC, SCGS Jamboree, etc), workshops, and local meeting programs about the availability and richness of records documenting North Carolinians, genealogical research techniques and tips, under-utilized resource collections and much more.
Sharon R. Gable, Secretary
Suffolk, Virginia
Sharon is the past president of the Family Research Society of Northeastern NC and has been doing genealogical research for over 30 years. She has authored or co-authored 34 books, with two more in the works on Southeastern Virginia and Northeastern North Carolina.
Sharon retired in 2003 from the NAVSEA Systems Command at Dam Neck Virginia Beach. She worked simulations for the US Navy Surface Ships, and spent 2 years detailed to northern Virginia for Health Affairs as a program and project manager. She has a BS from New York State University and an MS from Golden Gate University.
Dawn M. Wolthuis, Director
Coralville, Iowa
Dawn Wolthuis is President of Tincat Group and a Senior Consultant for Entrinsik, a software company in Raleigh, NC., and has over 40 years of experience with all aspects of computer software.
She has a B.A. in Mathematics from Calvin University and an M.S. in Mathematics from Michigan State University. From starting as a programmer analyst for organizations such as the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill to today, Dawn has enjoyed keeping current on trends in both education and software development. She has worked with higher ed organizations and software companies with a focus on innovation and project management, and was on the Computer Science/Information Technology faculty of both Calvin University in Michigan and Dordt University in Iowa.
Dr. Thomas Cole, Director
Charlotte, North Carolina
Tom has been a Librarian at the Robinson-Spangler Carolina Room of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Library since 2008, specializing in historical and genealogical research methods and materials.
Tom is a native of Rio de Janeiro who has spent most of his professional life in Charlotte, NC, after growing up in New York and studying in Baltimore. In his role at the Robinson-Spangler Carolina Room, which contains the largest collection of family history materials in a North Carolina public library, Tom has assisted researchers in history and genealogy, given public talks, and managed content for CMStory.org, the Library’s website on local history. Prior to joining the Library, he taught History at Queen University in Charlotte. He earned a Masters in Library Science from UNC Greensboro and a Ph.D. in History from the Johns Hopkins University. Tom is married with two adult children. He has been known to brew beer at home and sing in public.
Mark H. Chilton, Director
Hillsborough, North Carolina
Mark Chilton has been Orange County (NC) Register of Deeds since 2014. As Register of Deeds, he has been working to make old Orange County records more accessible, both by putting more of them on the internet and by creating new search tools. He is also passionate about the geography and history of the region, and how understanding more about our past helps create equity and justice in our present. Mark has worked with records of enslaved people including personally transcribing and digitizing 18,000 documents. He has created historical maps of Orange County which show who the original grantees were in the Colonial and Revolutionary eras were and where their land grants were in relation to modern landmarks.
He is a 1993 graduate of UNC-CH (BA in Geography) and received his law degree from NC Central University School of Law cum laude in 1997. He also gets a kick out of kayaking, winning (and losing) at cards, and traveling with his wife and family.