Virginia, 1600s-1800s Vital Records #1

This data set contains images of the pages from the following six books:

• Virginia Vital Records
• Virginia Marriage Records
• Virginia Will Records
• Virginia Land Records
• Virginia Military Records
• Virginia Tax Records

These books are comprised of articles that originally appeared in three of the preeminent Virginia periodicals: The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, the William and Mary College Quarterly, and Tyler's Quarterly. Together, the articles contained in these books reference more than 130,000 individuals, creating one of the largest existing collections of Virginia records.

The records referred to in these books cover the entire state of Virginia and date mainly from 1600s through the 1800s, although you will find some records that fall outside of that time period. What you can learn about each listed individual varies, depending on the original article. The list below may help clarify what type of information you might expect to find from each book:

• Virginia Vital Records — This collection of articles contains extensive lists of births, deaths, and marriages, which would otherwise be difficult to locate, because such records are not centralized in the state of Virginia. From these records you can usually find the individual's name, the date, and a location. Some records may provide additional information, such as the names of witnesses. These types of records often help you establish family links.
• Virginia Marriage Records — In this book, you will find marriage records that were originally found in bonds, ministers' returns and records, licenses, registers, and newspapers. From a marriage record, you can generally learn the names of both spouses, and the marriage date and location. You may also find information such as witnesses' and parents' names.
• Virginia Will Records — In this book, you will find articles pertaining to Virginia wills, inventories, administration accounts, and estate records, as well as some court minutes and deeds. From these types of records, you may find information about the deceased, their property, and their survivors, depending on the original record. They may also help you establish the date and location of death of a particular individual.
• Virginia Land Records — This book contains a collection of articles related to the transfer and ownership of land. Because most articles identify tenants, owners, and/or occupiers of parcels of land, they can help you pinpoint an individual at a specific place and point in time.
• Virginia Military Records — The majority of the articles in this book are from the colonial and Revolutionary War periods. In the collection you will find muster and pay rolls, court order books, land claims, pension records, militia lists, and service records. Pension records are often quite detailed, providing information not only about service, but also about the serviceman's family and where he lived. Other records may only provide information about the individual's military service.
• Virginia Tax Records — The articles in this book make reference to documents such as personal property tax lists, tithables, poll lists, land tax lists, and rent rolls. These records can give you information about a family's property, and can also help you pinpoint the family at a particular place and point in time.

When you search for your ancestor's name, you may occasionally see that some of the names contain question marks, as in "Williamson, ???". These question marks indicate that a name was unknown or difficult to transcribe from the original. In addition, you may find records that are exactly the same, except for the spelling of the name. These "duplicate" records are created when more than one spelling was offered on a particular record. By including both spellings of the name in the index, Genealogy.com is offering you more opportunities for locating the individual that you seek. Note that these duplicates are not counted twice in the total number of individuals included here.