Virginia Societies and Archives

Virginia Genealogical Archives | Virginia Historical & Genealogical Societies | Virginia Genealogical Publications |
Virginia Newspapers |

The Repositories in this section are Archives, Libraries, Museums, Genealogical and Historical Societies. Many County Historical and Genealogical Societies publish magazines and/or news letters on a monthly, quarterly, bi-annual or annual basis. Contacting the local societies should not be over looked. State Archives and Societies are usually much larger and better organized with much larger archived materials than their smaller county cousins but they can be more generalized and over look the smaller details that local societies tend to have. Libraries can also be a good place to look for local information. Some libraries have a genealogy section and may have some resources that are not located at archives or societies. Also, take a special look at any museums in the area. They sometimes have photos and items from years gone by as well as information of a genealogical interest. All these places are vitally important to the family genealogist and must not be passed over.

Virginia Archives

 
  • The Library of Virginia, 800 East Broad Street, Richmond, Virginia 23219-8000; 804-692-3500
  • Virginia Genealogical Society, 5001 West Broad Street, Suite 115, Richmond, Virginia 23230-3023; Telephone (804) 285-8954; Please note that because of our close proximity to the Library of Virginia and the Virginia Historical Society, the Virginia Genealogical Society does not maintain a research facility or surname material.
  • Virginia Historical Society, 428 North Boulevard, Richmond, Virginia 23220, Phone: 804.358.4901
    Mail: P.O.Box 7311, 23221-0311; Tuesday-Saturday 10-5 and Sunday 1-5 (galleries only)
  • Virginia Newspapers & Periodicals Records - Newspapers and periodicals are the diaries of local communities. They are excellent sources of family history details - often recorded nowhere else. Look for obituaries, marriages, legal notices, and more found in our Historical Newspaper Archives.

Virginia Genealogical Archives -  It is wise to acquaint yourself with any repository which you might visit by writing to the appropriate archive or library in advance. Every repository has published materials that introduce its collections and research policy. State archives and historical agencies also have Internet sites that provide the same information. Some even have downloadable databases for some or parts of their collections.

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Excerpts From the Book "The Source: A Guidebook of American Genealogy"

"Genealogists are generally positive and energetic, and most are ready to share their findings or research experience with anyone they can help. There are hundreds of genealogical societies at the grass-roots level. Knowledge of the genealogical community will place you in the midst of much activity, increase your productivity, and alert you to the importance of research standards and etiquette."
Sandra Hargreaves Luebking, Editor of FGS Forum

Virginia Historical & Genealogical Societies

 

Because family history research relies greatly upon records found at the county level, many local societies represent counties. Organizations also form around shared interests. Ethnic or religious origins account for many groups, such as the Polish Genealogical Society of America and P.O.I.N.T. (Pursuing Our Italian Names Together). Societies also form around common locales of origin for members’ ancestors; hence, the Palatines to America and Germans from Russia societies. To locate these and other societies, consult Juliana Szucs Smith’s The Ancestry Family Historian’s Address Book. It lists addresses, telephone and fax numbers, and Internet addresses of thousands of organizations throughout the United States.

For almost every state there is a state genealogical society, a state genealogical council, or both. In addition to their own work, state-level groups sometimes help coordinate the efforts of local societies within the state. Their publications, newsletters and quarterlies, supplement those produced by the local societies.

  • The Library of Virginia, 800 East Broad Street, Richmond, Virginia 23219-8000; 804-692-3500
  • Virginia Genealogical Society, 5001 West Broad Street, Suite 115, Richmond, Virginia 23230-3023 Telephone (804) 285-8954; The Virginia Genealogical Society was organized in 1960 to foster interest in genealogical, biographical, historical and heraldic research; to publish information pertaining to genealogy; and to share genealogical methods, techniques and knowledge among the members of the Society. Please note that because of our close proximity to the Library of Virginia and the Virginia Historical Society, the Virginia Genealogical Society does not maintain a research facility or surname material.
  • Central Virginia Genealogical Association, P.O. Box 5583, Charlottesville 22905-5583
  • South Central Virginia Genealogical Society, P.O. Box 295, Charlotte C.H., Va 23923; [EMAIL]
    The society services 13 counties: Amelia, Appomattox, Brunswick, Buckingham, Campbell, Charlotte, Cumberland, Halifax, Lunenburg, Mecklenburg, Nottoway, Pittsylvania and Prince Edward
  • Virginia Historical Society, 428 North Boulevard, Richmond, Virginia 23220, Phone: 804.358.4901
    Mail: P.O.Box 7311, 23221-0311; Tuesday-Saturday 10-5 and Sunday 1-5 (galleries only)
  • Virginia-North Carolina Genealogical Society, PO Box 2272, Danville, VA 24541-0272,  [EMAIL]
  • Covered Bridge Society Of Virginia, Inc. - The society encourages the preservation of historic timber covered bridges in Virginia
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Virginia Genealogical Publications

 

Virginia has excellent genealogical and historical periodicals beginning with a trio of early publications: The William and Mary Quarterly, 1892–present in three series (Institute of Early American History and Culture); Tyler's Quarterly Historical and Genealogical Magazine, 1919–52; and The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 1893–present (Virginia Historical Society). They are filled with valuable genealogical or historical information about early Virginians. Issues through 1930 (Tyler's Quarterly through 1929) are indexed in Swem's Virginia Historical Index (cited in Background Sources). Reprints of family history articles in these periodicals appear in an encyclopedic work entitled Genealogies of Virginia Families (Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1980–82), divided into three series. The first, in five volumes, consists of articles reprinted from The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography (1980). The second series of four volumes is composed of articles excerpted from Tyler's Quarterly. The last series, derived from the William and Mary Quarterly, completes the work in five volumes. See specific county page for individual county list

  • The William and Mary Quarterly, 1892–present in three series
  • Tyler's Quarterly Historical and Genealogical Magazine, 1919–52;
  • The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 1893–present (Virginia Historical Society)
  • The Virginia Genealogist, 1957–present (independently published, John Frederick Dorman, editor, P.O. Box 5860, Falmouth, Virginia 22403-5860), a quarterly with source material, genealogies of early Virginia and West Virginia families, and a query section (a cumulative index for volumes 1–20 was produced in 1981)
  • The Magazine of Virginia Genealogy (formerly: Virginia Genealogical Society Quarterly Bulletin), 1963–present, the quarterly of the Virginia Genealogical Society.

Collection Guides at the Library of Virginia:

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Virginia Newspapers

 

The most extensive collections of Virginia newspapers are housed at The Library of Virginia and the Virginia Historical Society, as are several indexes to newspaper articles.

The capital city of Williamsburg was the only place in Virginia that had a newspaper until the eve of the American Revolution. William Parks published the first issue of the Virginia Gazette in Williamsburg on 6 August 1736. With a few interruptions, Parks and his several successors published weekly newspapers in Williamsburg until the capital of Virginia moved to Richmond in 1780. Each of the Williamsburg printers used the same title, Virginia Gazette, even when two or three competing printers were publishing newspapers simultaneously, which was the case from 1774 to 1776.

On 9 June 1774, William Duncan began publishing a weekly newspaper in Norfolk, which was the first Virginia newspaper to be printed outside of Williamsburg. Duncan and his successor, John Hunter Holt, issued the imaginatively titled Virginia Gazette, or the Norfolk Intelligencer, until 20 September 1775, after which the royal governor of Virginia, the earl of Dunmore, confiscated the printing press. Dunmore issued a few occasional issues of a small format Virginia Gazette between November 1775 and January 1776.

All of the issues of the Williamsburg editions of the Virginia Gazette that had been located by the end of the 1940s are indexed in Lester J. Cappon and Stella F. Duff's massive two-volume Virginia Gazette Index, 1736-1780, which the Institute of Early American History and Culture published in Williamsburg in 1950. The index is comprehensive, including personal and place-names, subject entries, and even indexes to advertisements. Some valuable marriage and death notices appeared in the Williamsburg Virginia Gazettes, but obituaries of the kind common in the twentieth century rarely appeared in eighteenth-century newspapers. The Virginia Gazette Index does not include entries for Duncan's, Holt's, or Dunmore's newspapers published in Norfolk.

A valuable companion volume to Cappon and Duff's Virginia Gazette Index is Robert K. Headley Jr., Genealogical Abstracts from 18th Century Virginia Newspapers (Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1987). As the title indicates, this volume includes information from all of the newspapers published in Virginia during the eighteenth century, but it is not an index. It contains abstracts of newspaper entries that contain information about the births, marriages, and deaths of Virginians and of their family relationships to one another.

Because of the paucity of birth, marriage, and death records for many portions of Virginia during the eighteenth century, Headley's Genealogical Abstracts is an excellent addition to the reference shelf for all Virginia students of family history.

Collection Guides at the Library of Virginia:

While records of birth, marriage, and death are the most commonly sought and the most consistently helpful records, only the genealogist’s imagination and resourcefulness limit newspapers’ usefulness in supplying clues about historical events, local history, probate court and legal notices, real estate transactions, political biographies, announcements, notices of new and terminated partnerships, business advertisements, and notices for settling debts.

Newspapers can provide at least a partial substitute for nonexistent civil records. For example, a person’s obituary may have appeared in a newspaper even when civil death records for that person do not exist. And newspapers are an important source of marriage records, particularly in those states where civil recording of marriages was essentially nonexistent until the twentieth century.

Unlike official records, newspapers are not limited to a particular geographical area. They often include reports of the weddings of local citizens (even those that occurred in a neighboring county or another state), and they sometimes report visits of geographically distant relatives or the visits of former local residents. They often published death notices of individuals who had left the area long before but who still had local family or friends as well. In each case the newspaper account can identify the date and place of an event, thus opening the possibility of turning up additional documentation in other sources.

The first step in searching a newspaper is to identify those which served the area of interest and which have survived. The three most necessary tools are bibliographies (What was published?), inventories of library and depository holdings (Where is it?), and indexes (How do I find what I want in it?).

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