Between 1935 and 1942, out-of-work teachers, historians, lawyers, and clerical workers were employed under the Depression-era U.S. Works Progress Administration (WPA) to conduct a nationwide Historical Records Survey. These records are invaluable to genealogists because they are inventories of all extant records that existed in county government offices at that time. Unfortunately, the work was not completed for all U.S. counties, but it is available for thousands of them including Clay County, Indiana. Our library has WPA records of births, marriages, deaths, and naturalizations. Below are examples of records found in our WPA Index of Deaths A-Z 1880 TO 1920  Notice the last two entries; obviously, a WPA worker copied something wrong.  Remember to double check everything you find!