Virginia Archives and Libraries
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United States 
Virginia Archives and Libraries
These archives, libraries, societies, and museums preserve sources, maintain indexes, and provide services to help genealogists document their ancestors who lived in Virginia.
Wiki Articles on Major Repositories in Virginia[edit | edit source]
Virginia Historical Society · Library of Virginia · Virginia Theological Seminary · Earl Gregg Swem Library at the College of William and Mary · Germanna Foundation · Handley Regional Library · John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library at Colonial Williamsburg · Jones Memorial Library · Mary Ball Washington Museum and Library · Portsmouth Public Library · Roanoke County Public Library · University of Virginia Library · Library of Congress · National Archives and Records Administration · National Archives at College Park, Maryland · New York Public Library · Santa Cruz Public Library Downtown
Virginia Online Records[edit | edit source]
National Repositories[edit | edit source]
National Archives at Philadelphia[edit | edit source]
National Archives at Philadelphia
14700 Townsend Road
Philadelphia, PA 19154-1096
Telephone: 215-305-2044
Fax: 215-305-2052
E-mail: Philadelphia.archives@nara.gov
Website: National Archives Philadelphia
- Has federal agency and court records for Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. All U.S. federal censuses 1790-1940, and indexes. Also has passenger arrivals in Philadelphia 1800-1945 and Baltimore, pension and bounty land warrant applications, naturalizations 1790-1990, early federal history, diplomacy, military history, Chinese-Americans, World War II homefront, National Park Service, merchant marine, U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, federal tax evasion and smuggling cases.[1]
National Archives and Records Administration[edit | edit source]
National Archives and Records Administration
700 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington DC
Telephone: 1-866-272-6272
Fax: 301-837-0483
E-mail: National Archives and Records Administration inquiry form
Website: NARA
- Nationwide censuses, pre-WWI military service and pensions, passenger lists, naturalizations, passports, federal bounty land, homesteads, bankruptcy, ethnic sources, prisons, and federal employees. The National Archives Building in Washington, DC (Archives I), houses textual and microfilm records relating to genealogy, American Indians, pre-World War II military and naval-maritime matters, the New Deal, the District of Columbia, the Federal courts, and Congress.[2]
Library of Congress[edit | edit source]
101 Independence Ave. SE
Thomas Jefferson Building, LJ G4
Washington, D.C. 20540-4660
Telephone: Reading Room: 202-707-5537
Fax: 202-707-1957
E-mail: Ask a Librarian form
Website: Library of Congress
- The "Local History and Genealogy Reading Room" has moved to the main reading room, but services are unchanged. They are part of the world's largest library including 50,000 genealogies, 100,000 local histories, and collections of manuscripts, microfilms, maps, newspapers, photographs, and published material, strong in North American, British Isles, and German sources.[3]
New York Public Library[edit | edit source]
U.S. History, Local History and Genealogy Division
Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, Room 315S
New York, NY 10018-2788
Telephone: 212-930-0829
E-mail: Ask a Librarian form
Website: New York Public Library
- This is one of the largest research libraries in the world, including excellent genealogical resources for Virginia. The library has city and telephone directories, vital records indexes, local histories, genealogies, federal and state censuses, passenger lists, genealogical collections (including DAR transcripts), and church records.[4] For maps, try the Map Division at the same address.
State Repositories[edit | edit source]
Library of Virginia[edit | edit source]
Library of Virginia
800 East Broad Street
Richmond, VA 23219-8000
Telephone: 804-692-3500
Fax: 804-692-3556
E-mail: Contact Us Select department to open dialog box
Website: Library of Virginia
- Their large genealogical collection has family Bibles, birth, marriages, deaths, divorces, histories, biographies, and newspapers. Many of their manuscripts are now online. The General Library contains printed materials, while the Research and Information Services Division consists of government records and other historical documents. Many collections are available online, such as Confederate pensions, veterans and widows, an index to wills and administrations, Revolutionary War bounty land, and Virginia Land Office patents and grants.[5] [6]
Virginia Historical Society[edit | edit source]
Virginia Historical Society
428 North Blvd
Richmond, VA 23221-0311
Telephone: 804-358-4901
E-mail: Ask a Librarian form
Website: Virginia Historical Society, Looking for People
- County records such as marriages, county court records, wills, censuses, land, militia lists, bounty lands, passenger lists, tax lists, poll lists, genealogies, newspapers, family Bibles, and African American genealogy. They have a card index to 10 million documents of the Old Dominion, that is Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky. [5] [7]
Virginia Theological Seminary[edit | edit source]
Virginia Theological Seminary
Archives of the Bishop Payne Library
3737 Seminary Road
Alexandria, VA 22304
Telephone: 703-461-1731
E-mail: AskArchives@vts.edu
Website: Virginia Theological Seminary Archives
- Houses many of the original Church of England (now Episcopalian Church) parish registers, vestry books, and manuscripts of colonial Virginia, as well as photos, and the African American Episcopal Historical Collection.[8] Formerly known as the Protestant Episcopal Theological Seminary in Virginia.
Regional Repositories[edit | edit source]
Bristol Public Library[edit | edit source]
Bristol Public Library
701 Goode Street
Bristol, VA 24201-4199
Telephone: 540-645-8780
Fax: 276-669-5593
E-mail: bplref@yahoo.com
Website: http://www.bristol-library.org/
- They have a relatively small family folder collection. Nevertheless, it is an important resource for settlers coming from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and northern Virginia along the Great Valley Road into Tennessee, Kentucky, and North Carolina.[9]
Earl Gregg Swem Library at the College of William and Mary[edit | edit source]
Earl Gregg Swem Library at the College of William and Mary
P.O. Box 8794
Landrum Drive
College of William and Mary
Williamsburg, Virginia 23187-8794
Telephone: 757-221-3050
Fax: 757-221-2635
E-mail: sweref@wm.edu
Website: EG Swem Library, Genealogy
- Features the famous "Swem Index" of Virginia settlers. This library also has the original papers from Jamestown, the Virginia Company, manuscripts, and journals, including numerous genealogical references. This is the place for researching the earliest Virginia colonists. They also have censuses, ship's passenger lists, vital records, wills and probate records, local history, church records, funeral homes, cemeteries, newspapers, periodicals and indeses.[10] [11]
Handley Regional Library[edit | edit source]
Handley Regional Library
100 W. Piccadilly Street
PO Box 58
Winchester, VA 22604
Telephone: 540-662-9041
Fax: 540-722-4769
E-mail: archives@handleyregional.org
Website: Handley Regional Library
- Very large collection on Germans and Scots-Irish who traveled the Great Valley Road from Pennsylvania to Virginia, including manuscripts, newspapers, biographies, and histories,[5] and people of the Lower Shenandoah Valley since 1732, emphasizing Winchester and Frederick County in 4000 books, county court abstracts, county histories, genealogies, regimental histories, battles, newspapers since 1787, censuses, 600 linear feet of manuscripts, maps, photos, and oral history tapes.[12]
John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library[edit | edit source]
John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library at Colonial Williamsburg
PO Box 1776
313 First Street
Williamsburg, VA 23187-1776
Telephone: 757-565-8542
Fax: 757-565-8548
E-mail: libref@cwf.org
Website: John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library
- Emphasis is on the history of colonial British America, the American Revolution, and the early United States with books, manuscripts, images, Civil War materials, family Bibles, and databases for research in the political and economic life of the thirteen colonies, the new republic, and African American studies.[13]
Jones Memorial Library[edit | edit source]
Jones Memorial Library
2311 Memorial Avenue
Lynchburg, VA 24501
Telephone: 434-846-0501
Fax: 434-846-1572
E-mail: refdesk@jmlibrary.org
Website: Jones Memorial Library
- Really good historical materials, family folders, and genealogies of people migrating from the tidelands over the Blue Ridge Mountains into Virginia's Great Valley, many via Lynchburg. Covers Virginia and surrounding states, including county histories and court records, family histories and genealogies, the Civil War, county taxes, and census records.[10] [14]
Mary Ball Washington Museum and Library[edit | edit source]
8346 Mary Ball Road
Lancaster, Virginia 22503
Telehone: 804-462-7280
Fax: 804-462-6107
E-mail: nfo@mbwm.org
Website: Mary Ball Washington Museum and Library
- A small library with a good name index to nearly every history book published in Virginia or Kentucky, including court records from 1651, indexes and abstracts, Virginia vital records, census records, county histories, biographies, church and cemetery records, family histories, newspapers, obituaries, vertical files, militia records, and fraternal organizations.[10] [15]
Portsmouth Public Library[edit | edit source]
601 Court Street
Portsmouth, VA 23704
Telephone: 757-393-8501
E-mail: Ask a Librarian form
Website: Portsmouth Public Library
- A good solid genealogical collection. Materials about Portsmouth and Norfolk counties and surrounding areas of southeastern Virginia, including births, marriages, deaths, cemeteries, genealogies, memoirs, scrapbooks and notebooks of Portsmouth families and organizations, photos, Civil War, Jeffrey T Wilson – 1924 "Colored Notes" index and articles from Portsmouth Star newspaper; Bertha Edward - Notes on Portsmouth Black History; African American Historical Association of Portsmouth records, and high school yearbooks.[10] [16]
Roanoke County Public Library[edit | edit source]
706 S. Jefferson Street
Roanoke, VA 24016
Telephone: 540-853-2073
E-mail: virginiaroom@gmail.com
Website: Virginia Room
- Wonderful southwest Virginia collection of family folders, books, genealogies, and indexes.[10] Open by appointment, the Virginia Room comprehensively collects materials for the Roanoke Valley, for Virginia, and for closely associated states, including surname files, photos, vertical files and oral histories. The Great Valley Road forked here toward Knoxville, Tennessee, and toward Augusta, Georgia. Some families stayed-over in the area before moving on to Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, or Georgia.[17]
University of Virginia Library[edit | edit source]
University of Virginia Library
PO Box 400113
Charlottesville VA 22904-4113
Telephone: 434-924-3021
Fax: 434-924-1431
E-mail: library@virginia.edu
Website: Univ of Virginia Library
- Virtually a second state archives with a large genealogical collection, colonial records, federal, private, and state manuscripts, vital records, censuses, maps, military records, newspapers, periodicals, African American genealogy, and computer databases.[10] [18]
- University of Virginia Library, Virginia Genealogy: A Guide to Resources in the University of Virginia Library (Charlottesville, Virginia: University Press of Virginia, 1983). At various libraries (WorldCat). FHL book 975.5 D23u.
Out of State Repositories[edit | edit source]
Santa Cruz Public Library[edit | edit source]
Santa Cruz Public Library Downtown
224 Church Street
Santa Cruz, California 95060
Telephone: 831-427-7707 ext. 5794
E-mail: E-mail reference service form
Website: Santa Cruz Public Library
- Holds the Genealogical Society of Santa Cruz County's library, including the Tina Brayton Collection which is equivalent to the Draper Manuscript Collection but larger and with a better index, and many compiled genealogies of Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia families.[10] [19]
Family History Centers. Some of the collections described above are at least partially available on microfilms at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, and through thousands of its branch Family History Centers. For further information see Introduction to LDS Family History Centers. To locate a center near you, see Find a Family History Center.
Guides[edit | edit source]
- Ellen Garrison, Archives in Appalachia: A Directory (Boone, North Carolina: Appalachian Consortium Press, 1985). At various libraries (WorldCat). FHL Book 975 A3a. For Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia, arranged alphabetically, each entry shows the archive, address, phone, inclusive dates of the collection, the records of the collection, subjects, and size of the collection. Indexed by record type, and by subject.
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ William Dollarhide and Ronald A. Bremer. America's Best Genealogy Resource Centers (Bountiful, Utah: Heritage Quest, 1998), 126-27. At various libraries (WorldCat). FHL Ref Book 973 J54d.
- ↑ Information for Researchers at the National Archives Building in Washington, DC in National Archives (accessed 31 December 2013).
- ↑ The Collections in Local History and Genealogy Reading Room in The Library of Congress (accessed 8 January 2014).
- ↑ Dollarhide and Bremer, 81.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Dollarhide and Bremer, 97.
- ↑ Using the Collections in Library of Virginia (accessed 7 January 2014).
- ↑ Looking for People in Virginia Historical Society (accessed 7 January 2014).
- ↑ Archives in Virginia Theological Seminary (accessed 5 January 2014).
- ↑ Dollarhide and Bremer, 105.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6 Dollarhide and Bremer, 113.
- ↑ Genealogy Resources at Swem in Swem Library (accessed 7 January 2014).
- ↑ Family and Local History in Handley Regional Library (accessed 28 December 2013).
- ↑ John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library in Colonial Williamsburg (accessed 7 January 2014].
- ↑ Home in Jones Memorial Library (accessed 7 January 2014).
- ↑ Genealogy and History Library in Mary Ball Washington Museum and Library (accessed 7 January 2014).
- ↑ Local History in Portsmouth Public Library (accessed 7 January 2014).
- ↑ Virginia Room in Roanoke, Virginia (accessed 7 January 2014).
- ↑ Genealogy in University of Virginia Library (accessed 7 January 2014).
- ↑ The Tina Brayton Collection in Genealogical Society of Santa Cruz County (accessed 3 January 2014).
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