GenealogyBlog

This week’s blogging prompt is the State of Virginia. Blog about an ancestor or your families connection to Virginia. If you don’t have any connections to Virginia, find a Virginia resource useful for genealogy research to highlight and write about. This week’s prompt runs from 3/10/2013 – 3/16/2013. If you choose to follow along, I would appreciate a mention to the Hidden Genealogy Nuggets website.

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As early as some of my ancestors came, my connections to Virginia are extremely limited and somewhat fuzzy. The closest I seem to get is John (Shelton) Chilton my 9th great grand uncle. He died in Virginia.

John seems to have been born about 1650. He was the son of James Shelton and Mary Bathurst. They were my 10th great grandparents. John Shelton died on the 15th of November 1706 in Westmoreland, Virginia.

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As my connections to Virginia were very limited this week I tried to have a few extra links to websites and resources which are useful for genealogy research in Virginia. I particularly like Virginia Memories: Digital Collections. I had a blog post about this website some time ago. Here is the link to that post Virginia Memories.

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Children of John Chilton and Jane

1. William Shelton

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Sources

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A few Virginia Genealogy Links
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• Virginia Genealogical Society
• Virginia Historical Society
• The Library of Virginia
• A Guide to Genealogical Resources at the University of Virginia
• Stafford, Virginia Death Records 1856 – 1857 (not found anywhere else on the internet, I believe)
• Virginia Memories: Digital Collections
• Genealogy Information from the Virginia Department of Health
• Virginia Gen Web
• American History and Genealogy Project – Virginia

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Search Virginia Newspapers and NewspaperArchive.com

Virginia Newspaper Archives at Genealogy Bank
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The following appeared in the The Fredericksburg Regional Genealogical Society Newsletter for Winter 2012. The original compilation was done by Tripp Wiggins. I’m happy to publish this compilation after being asked by club members to publish it here.

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Stafford Death Records 1856-1857

We continue in our quest to provide local records (that are NOT available on Ancestry or Family Search as far as I know). This issue we continue with Stafford County Death Records from the Death Registers at the Stafford County Court House. (Did you know they allow researchers to use digital cameras! They are forward thinking and genealogist friendly!)

As to the records and what they contain. They are quite good at providing death dates, causes, birthplace, and parents’ names. For all they also record who the informant was. I have left them off here but that will go on the website. Normally it is the husband, wife, parent, or child. In the case of slaves, it is normally the owner/master.

To save space, I occasionally abbreviated first names. Those abbreviations are included at the end of the listings. As we get closer to the civil war timeframe, you will notice several years where deaths were simply not recorded: 1862-64 and 1866, but that is for future issues. If you have someone who died between 1853 and 1875 in Stafford, and I haven’t run that year yet, email me and I’ll do a lookup in my images.

Name abbreviations: Alex/Alexr = Alexander; Benj = Benjamin; Chs/Chas = Charles; Danl = Daniel; Edwd = Edward; Eliza/Eliz: = Elizabeth; Jas = James; Jos = Joseph; Margt = Margaret; Richd = Richard; Thos = Thomas; Wm = William

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Virginia Newspaper Archives at Genealogy Bank

If you have Virginia ancestors, I stumbled across a website you might want to check out. The website is called Virginia Memory . It is from the Library of Virginia. This website has a vast collection of digitial materials.

Some of these materials include;

• Virginia History and Culture – War of 1812 Bicentennial Collection
• Biographical and Genealogical – S. Bassett French Biographical Sketches
• Maps and Architecture – Alan M. Voorhees Map Collection
• County and City Research – Chancery Records Index
• African American Resources – Cohabitation Registers
• Military Service – Revolutiionary War Virginia State Pensions
• Military Service – Robert E. Lee Camp Confederate Soldiers’ Home Applications for Admission
• Newspapers – R. M. S. Titanic: Ninety-Nine Years Later
• Historic Virgina Government – Early Virginia Religious Petitions, 1774-1802
• Web Archiving – Jamestown 2007 Commemoration Collection
• Photograph Collections – 1939 World’s Fair Photograph Collection
• Land Office Patents & Grants – Virginia Land Office Patents and Grants/Northern Neck Grants and Surveys

Many of these digital collections would be hard to find or utilize without the Library of Virginia making them available on-line. Some collections such as the Cohabitation Registers might provide the only documentation of a marriage of colored persons after the Civil War. Here’s the website description of this collection; “A cohabitation register, or as it is properly titled, Register of Colored Persons…cohabiting together as Husband and Wife on 27th February 1866, was the legal vehicle by which former slaves legitimized both their marriages and their children. …”.

If you have Virginia ancestors, it would be well worth your time to explore Virginia Memory .