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Most pre-Civil War county records are now housed at The Library of Virginia, with copies maintained in the county and independent city courthouses. Many early records have been microfilmed, with copies available at The Library of Virginia and the FHL.
Research in the Virginia county collection can be done at a local library as well. The Library of Virginia participates in the American Library Association Interlibrary Loan program and will loan up to five reels of their extensive collection for a period of four weeks. Each reel of microfilm must be ordered by its number.
Virginia is the only state with independent cities; they are independent of the county or counties in which they are geographically located. Towns, however, remain a part of their counties. As of 1987, there were forty-one independent cities in Virginia; since population determines city status, more than half were incorporated after 1904. Many Virginia counties have been absorbed by independent cities.
Previously lost records are still turning up; some are returned by descendants of Union soldiers who took souvenirs. As new information surfaces from the counties and independent cities, and “new” records are discovered, the beginning dates of record categories may change.
Although evidence suggests that some form of county government existed in Virginia by 1622, the Commonwealth's present structure of local government was begun in 1634, with the formation of eight shires or counties. These jurisdictions became the units of representation in the colonial legislature. The eight original shires were: Accawmack, Charles City, Charles River, Elizabeth City, Henrico, James City, Warrosquyoake, and Warwick River.
Virginia's Counties
As the population of Virginia grew during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the General Assembly created new counties on the western fringes of the most heavily settled areas, and during the nineteenth century the General Assembly divided some counties into two or three smaller counties for the convenience of the people who lived there. These frequent changes in county boundary lines need to be kept in mind when doing research using public records. It is often stated that a particular Virginia county included all of Virginia to the west of it, and while that is legally true, there were often so few residents far to the west that few or no county records will contain documentary evidence for the region beyond the frontier. Knowledge of settlement patterns and of westward migration is necessary to guide researchers to the record groups that are most likely to contain the information that they need.
Virginia's Independent Cities
Virginia has a unique system of local government in that independent cities are politically and administratively separate from the county or counties in which they are geographically situated. Independent cities operate their own court system. Virginia's towns exercise only limited functions of self-government and are subordinate in most respects to the counties in which they are located. There are currently 39 independent cities in the Commonwealth. See Virginia's Independent Cities Page for more details.
As you conduct your research in the records of a specific area, remember that when a new locality county was formed or incorporated, the records for the area encompassed within the new locality were not moved but stayed in the parent locality; likewise, many county and city records remain within the locality today and are not housed at the Library of Virginia.
Choose from the counties below to view the county information.
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