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Local records are the most basic resources for
investigating Virginia’s past. These records document the daily
activities of the courts in Virginia’s counties and cities.
While original county and city records are often held in local
courthouses, the Library of Virginia has a substantial
collection of records for some localities. A guide to local
court records on microfilm may be found on the Library’s Web
site. These records are divided into eighteen broad categories:
• Board of
Supervisors Records: minutes of meetings of the administrative
branch of local government.
•
Bonds/Commissions/Oaths: qualifications for office and
apprentice indentures.
• Business
Records/Corporations/Partnerships: records of businesses, such
as ledgers, daybooks, and accounts, usually submitted as
exhibits in cases before the court.
• Census Records:
local copies of the federal census.
• Court Records:
minute and order books, judgments, chancery records, clerk’s
correspondence, execution books, memorandum books, and docket
books.
• Election
Records: poll books and lists of voters.
• Fiduciary
Records: appraisals, inventories, estate accounts and audits,
estate sales (only when recorded in separate volumes), guardian
accounts and bonds, and administrator’s and executor’s bonds.
• Free Negro and
Slave Records: free Negro registers, lists, and certificates.
• Justice of the
Peace Records: executions by justices and constables.
• Land Records:
deeds, processioners’ returns, plats, and surveys.
• Marriage
Records and Vital Statistics: marriage bonds, ministers’
returns, and local copies of birth, marriage,
and death registers.
• Military and
Pension Records: militia returns, Revolutionary war and Civil
war pension records, and muster rolls.
• Organization
Records: minutes and accounts for non-business and
non-government institutions, including churches, granges, and
fraternal societies.
• Road and Bridge
Records: accounts for building and maintaining roads and
bridges.
• School Records:
lists of students and textbooks used.
• Tax and Fiscal
Records: local copies of land and personal property tax books
and lists of tithables.
• Wills: wills
and probate records recorded in will books.
• Miscellaneous
Records: overseers of the poor records, estrays, and lists of
physicians.
Wills
In October 1776, entail was abolished, thereby
prohibiting the automatic passing of estates through multiple
generations.
On 1 January 1786, the English system of
primogeniture ceased in Virginia.
These two events affected the content of probate records. Under primogeniture,
Virginia wills may not always name the wife or the eldest son of
the testator. Their inheritance of real estate was set by law,
the widow receiving her dower, or one-third share, for her
lifetime and the eldest son, as heir at law, receiving the
remaining two-thirds share unless otherwise specified in the
father’s will. After the Revolutionary War, when Virginia’s
general inheritance law took effect, all heirs of intestate
estates inherited equally.
Individuals dying with a written will died
testate. After the death of an individual, his or her will was
brought into court, where two of the subscribing witnesses swore
that the document was genuine.
After the will was proved, the executor was
bonded to carry out his or her duties to settle the estate. The
court then ordered the will to be recorded.
The Executors’
Bond
was also filed with the court. If the
witnesses to the will were dead or could not be located, the
will was lodged. These lodged wills were not recorded, but were
kept by the court and the estate was treated as an intestate
estate.
Individuals dying without a will died
intestate. The court appointed an administrator who was bonded
and issued an order to appraise the deceased’s estate. The court
usually appointed four appraisers, any three of whom might
serve. They returned an inventory of the decedent’s personal
property to the court to be recorded. An appraisal listed the
personal property and assigned a monetary value to each item.
Accounts current are the statements of monies received by and
paid out by the executor in settling an estate.
Virginia did not require the filing of estate
papers documenting each activity of the executor. The assumption
was made that the executor settled the estate as directed by the
will and by law, and no records were created if the work was
done correctly.
Consequently, Virginia has no estate packets
or probate packets. If the executor did not act correctly, the
offended party could bring suit in chancery. Such chancery suits
often generate a detailed record of the disputed part of an
estate’s administration.
Check the chancery database on the Library’s
Web site and Research Notes Number 22 for additional
information.
Surviving will books for Virginia counties are
usually indexed by the testator or decedent, but seldom by the
legatee or heir.
Consolidated indexes to probate records on
microfilm are available for most localities. Clayton Torrence’s
Virginia Wills and Administrations, 1632–1800
indexes early wills, inventories, and administrations. A
searchable database on the Library’s Web site indexes early
wills and administrations for fifty-three Virginia counties and
cities. Researchers may also wish to consult Index of Virginia
Estates, 1800–1865, an ongoing series
compiled by Wesley E. Pippenger. The Burned Record County
database, available on the Library’s Web site, contains a
growing collection of local court records, principally deeds and
probate records, found while processing chancery cases and other
local materials.
Land Records
The most commonly recorded deed is a deed of
bargain and sale, in which one individual sells property,
usually land, but occasionally personal property, to another
individual. Such deeds show the names of the grantor and
grantee, the residence of both parties, a description of what is
being sold, the consideration (or price), the location of the
tract of land, the tract’s boundaries, and any limitations on
the property being sold. The deed was signed by the grantor, and
possibly his wife or anyone else having a claim to the property,
and by at least two witnesses. Appended to the deed may be a
memorandum of livery of seisin, stating that the property has
changed hands and that peaceful possession has taken place.
Deeds of lease and release are often found in
the Northern Neck and older counties. The lease, for a nominal
sum, is followed by the release noting the actual sale price.
The lease may predate the release by a day, a week, or even a
year. Together the two documents make up a legal deed and should
not be confused with a simple lease to rent land. Deeds of gift
are often found transferring property, either real or personal,
from one individual to another "for love and affection." The
degree of kinship, if any, between the grantor and grantee is
sometimes stated. Tripartite deeds are mortgages or deeds of
trust where one party is indebted to another and transfers or
mortgages property to a third party to secure the debt. On
presentation to the court, deeds were proved and recorded. If
the deed was not witnessed, the grantor acknowledged the deed in
open court.
Under Virginia law, women relinquished their
dower rights to real property being sold. If the wife of the
grantor or whoever held the dower claim did not appear in court
to relinquish her right, the court appointed two or more
individuals to go to her and inquire privately if she did indeed
understand and approve of the sale. Such relinquishments were
not always recorded with the deeds. They often were recorded
later in the deed books and are sometimes found in other record
books.
Marriage Records and
Vital Statistics
Prior to 1853, when the commonwealth began
recording vital statistics, Virginia marriages were recorded at
the county or city level. Beginning in 1661, in order to be
married by license, the groom was required to go before the
county clerk and give bond with security that there was no
lawful reason to prevent the marriage. The license issued then
by the clerk was given to the minister who performed the
service. Written consent from a parent or guardian was needed
for individuals younger than twenty-one years.
Marriage could also be accomplished "by
publication," meaning by the reading of banns. After announcing
on three consecutive Sundays or holy days the intention of the
parties to marry, the minister performed the marriage. Marriages
by banns were recorded in the church or parish register. By the
time of the Revolutionary War, marriage by banns had fallen into
disuse in the Tidewater, but the practice continued in the
western counties until 1848, when this form of marriage became
illegal.
Until 1780, marriages could be performed only
by ministers of the established church, who were required to
record the marriages in the parish register, or by ministers of
those denominations that had received official toleration. Very
few of these parish registers have survived. Quaker marriages
were entered in the records of the Society of Friends.
Dissenting ministers were first permitted to perform marriages
in 1780. Ministers’ returns were required by law beginning in
1780, so all marriages from that date would be of record in the
county court clerk’s office. Researchers checking for early
records may wish to consult Virginia Marriages, Early to 1800: A
Research Tool (1991).
Very few Virginia marriage records before 1715
survive, and most counties have incomplete marriage records
prior to the Revolutionary War. Beginning in 1853, statewide
registration of marriages was required (see Research Notes
Number 2).
These registers exist for all counties but may
be incomplete, especially during the Civil War. The registers
list the date of the marriage, the names of both parties, their
ages, marital status, places of birth and residence, parents’
names, the groom’s occupation, and the name of the minister
performing the marriage. The county marriage registers are
usually indexed by the names of both the groom and the bride. In
addition, there is a statewide Bureau of Vital Statistics
marriage index, 1853–1935, available
at the Library on microfilm.
Before the disestablishment of the Anglican
church in 1786, there was no legal divorce. In some instances, a
financial separation between husband and wife was recorded in a
deed book. From 1786–1848, divorces
were accomplished by legislative petition. After 1848, divorces
were recorded in the county or circuit court order books.
Court Records
County court order books or minute books have
survived for many Virginia counties. They record all matters
brought before the court when it was in session and may contain
important information not found anywhere else. Generally minute
books contain brief entries, while order books provide synopses
of cases in a neater, more organized form. These volumes are
sometimes internally indexed; more rarely, there is a
comprehensive index. A wide variety of information is found in
order books including: appointments of county and militia
officers, records of legal disputes heard before the county
court, appointments of guardians, apprenticeship of children by
the overseers of the poor, naturalizations, road orders, and
registrations of free Negroes.
A locality’s loose papers are the raw
materials from which order books were created. Civil suits
(called judgments), often for debt, are found here, along with
criminal or commonwealth causes and chancery cases.
Fiduciary Records
When an individual acts as a trustee for
another, the relationship is described as a fiduciary one. The
protection of inherited property (both real and personal) was an
important reason for the creation of court records. When minor
children survived a parent, a guardian was often appointed to
protect the estate for the children. Appointments of guardians
are recorded in the county court order books. A performance bond
was required.
In the index, the guardian appointments may be
listed in the name of the orphan, the name of the guardian, or
under the general category "orphans."
A guardian was appointed by the court only if
there was an estate to protect. At age thirteen, a child was
eligible to go into court and choose his own guardian. Poor
orphaned children did not have guardians and were bound out to
learn a trade.
In the colonial period, this was handled by the
vestry of each Anglican parish. After disestablishment, the
orphans were bound out by the overseers of the poor for the
county. Records of apprenticeship are found in the county court
order books.
Periodically, guardians were required to bring
estate accounts into court.
These accounts deal with the expenditures of
the guardian for the raising of each child, generally on an
individual basis.
The estate of a deceased person with minor
children required the keeping of records (estate or fiduciary)
until it was settled.
This occurred when the last minor child
married or arrived at legal age. Records of this sort, which
include all estate expenditures, (often including those on
orphans) are found in will books, estate account books, and
fiduciary or audit books.
There is generally a comprehensive index to
these records, either as a part of the index to wills or a
separate index if the series is separately recorded.
Availability of Records for Research
In some cases, the original record books and
loose papers (suit papers) have remained in the locality where
they were created and are kept in the office of the circuit
court clerk. There are also extensive holdings of these
materials at the Library of Virginia. Our processed holdings are
arranged by locality and then into the eighteen broad categories
cited above. They do not necessarily include records from each
locality in each category.
Microfilm copies of extant record books are
available at the Library of Virginia from the date of the
formation of the county or city to approximately 1865, along
with a growing collection of post-Civil War holdings. A guide to
Virginia local court records on microfilm may be found on the
Library’s Web site. Microfilm of some records is available
through interlibrary loan.
Compiled by Robert Young Clay and J. Christian
Kolbe.
A free informational pamphlet on
genealogical research and a variety of research notes and
topical bibliographies are available on request from the Library
of Virginia, 800 E. Broad Street, Richmond, VA 22319. Visit the
Library’s Web site for digital collections and related archival
publications.
Revised March 2005 |
The
Virginia Library
