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West Virginia State Facts & Information |
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| West Virginia State History | West Virginia Counties with Burned Courthouses | |
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The bulk of counties that would later comprise West Virginia were formed within the 130 years before statehood as Virginia counties. The county resources are good with much material being available in the courthouse and the two major repositories at Morgantown and Charleston. In the county pages that follows, the address of the courthouse is given. Some counties will answer mail inquiries, some charge a fee, and some request research in person. Much of the microfilm available in both of the above repositories can be viewed through the FHL loan service. Land, probate, and vital records are all located at the county clerk's office at the county seat. Court records, including those naturalizations and divorces that were recorded there, are at the circuit court clerk's office at the county seat. Choose from the counties below to view the county information. If you Cannot use, activate or see the Map below then use the County Selection Table to select a County |
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West Virginia State History - West Virginia, state of the eastern United States. West Virginia lies in the very heart of the Appalachian Highlands, and its predominantly mountainous terrain and picturesque scenery have led to its nickname as the Mountain State. The state’s unusually irregular boundaries, formed largely by rivers and mountains, give it the shape of a large pan with two handles, one in the north and one in the east. For this reason it is sometimes called the Panhandle State. The Official State Website is http://www.westvirginia.gov/ West Virginia is known for its magnificent scenery and its abundance of natural resources, including coal, oil, gas, and timber. It is one of the leading producers of bituminous coal among the states and is also noted for the manufacture of fine glass. West Virginia, plagued for many years by economic stagnation, has recently attempted to diversify its industrial activity. Yet the state remains one of the poorest in the United States. West Virginia entered the Union on June 20, 1863, as the 35th state. It was part of Virginia until the American Civil War (1861-1865), when its inhabitants, loyal to the Union, formed a separate state after Virginia became part of the Confederacy. Charleston is West Virginia’s capital and largest city. Some 14,000 years ago Indian hunters entered the Ohio and Kanawha valleys in pursuit of mammoths. Around 9000 BC the Archaic people, with a small-game hunting, fishing, and gathering culture, occupied the area. Their successors, the Adena, or Mound Builders ( c. 500 BC to c. AD 100), created numerous earthworks still visible in the Moundsville and Charleston areas. The Adena were absorbed by the Fort Ancient people, who dominated the territory until they were wiped out by the Iroquois Confederacy around 1650. Except for scattered villages the area that was to become West Virginia remained Indian hunting grounds and battlegrounds when Europeans arrived in the 1700s. The second charter of Virginia in 1609 provided for settlement of that colony's west ern frontiers. Exploration and trade were further encouraged by Governor William Berkeley after 1660. The Blue Ridge was reached in 1670, and in 1671 another expedition encountered the first west ward-flowing stream, the New River, in southwestern Virginia . The expedition descended the river to Peter's Falls on the future Virginia - West Virginia border and claimed for England all the land drained by the New River and its tributaries. Subsequent Trans-Allegheny frontier settlement was handicapped by such factors as mountain barriers, Indian resistance, conflicting English and French claims in the Ohio valley, disputed land titles, and a royal proclamation of 1763 prohibiting occupancy. Despite these obstacles, the population increased, and discontent with the government east of the mountains became endemic. The Vandalia colony , proposed in 1769, and the "14th State" movement for the establishment of a West sylvania in 1776, indicate an early interest in a separate government for the Trans-Allegheny country. Dissatisfaction among the pioneers in that region mounted in the cultural, social, economic, and political realms. The frontier residents, who came from many areas, were distinctly different from the aristocratic eastern settlers. Furthermore, topographic differences rendered slavery economically unsound, and cultural heritage made it undesirable. Voting representation and taxation, however, decidedly favoured eastern Virginia . The advent of the American Civil War fueled new desires for a politically separate western area. At the Virginia secession convention of April 1861 a majority of the western delegates opposed secession. In subsequent meetings at Wheeling (May 1861), dominated by the western delegates, the ordinance of secession was declared an illegal attempt to overthrow the federal government. The second Wheeling convention (June) pronounced the Richmond government void, established a restored Government of Virginia , and provided for the election of new state officers. The restored governor, Francis H. Pierpont, secured federal recognition and maintained civil jurisdiction over the region until Congress consented to the admission of West Virginia to the Union on June 20, 1863. A condition of entry was the gradual emancipation of slaves in the region. The capital was permanently established at Charleston in 1885. Civil War engagements were few in the state, although the war itself was in part precipitated by the seizure of the federal armory at Harpers Ferry in 1859 by a small band of men under the antislavery zeal of John Brown . Brown was captured by federal troops and subsequently was tried and hanged in Charles Town, but his exploits inflamed tensions between the nation's proslavery and antislavery factions. To the abolitionists of the North he became a martyr. During the Civil War nearly 32,000 soldiers enlisted in the Union army, and about 9,000 served the Confederacy, although some authorities maintain the latter figure to be low. West Virginia 's industrial emergence, encouraged by railroad expansion, began in the 1870s. Its natural resources of timber, coal, salt, oil, and gas substantially contributed to the establishment of the modern industrial system of the United States. The labour troubles that flared in mining areas between 1912 and 1921 required the intervention of the National Guard (twice) and the U.S. Army (four times) to quell violence, but the right to organize labour unions, which was granted by national statutes in 1933 and 1935, brought a measure of peace to the state. West Virginia was one of the leading states in the percentage of its population serving in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. The state received national political recognition in 1976 and 1980 by the election of a New York City native, John D. Rockefeller IV, to the governor's office. In 1984 he was elected to the U.S. Senate. Neither national political party has dominated the state for long periods, although the Democrats have tended to outnumber Republicans and usually had more than twice the number of registered voters.
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West Virginia Burned Courthouses - The destruction of courthouses greatly affects genealogists in every way. No only are these historic structures torn from our lives, so are the records they housed: marriage, wills, probate, land records, and others. Once destroyed they are lost forever. Even if they have been placed on mircofilm, computers and film burn too. The most heartbreaking side of this is the fact that many of our courthouses are destroyed at the hands of arsonist. However, not all records were lost. Counties without significant gaps in vital statistics, wills and deed records: Braxton, Brooke, Doddridge, Gilmer, Grant, Greenbrier, Hancock, Hardy, Harrison, Jackson, Lewis, McDowell, Marion, Marshall, Mason, Mercer, Mineral, Mingo, Monroe, Nicholas, Ohio, Pendleton, Pleasants, Putnam, Raleigh, Randolph, Ritchie, Roane, Summers, Taylor, Tyler, Upshur, Wayne, Wood. Below is a list of West Virginia Counties and the years the Courthouses were subjected to a disaster. This does NOT mean that ALL RECORDS were lost. Often, folks took their documents again in for recording after a disaster and later deeds will contain long chains of title, etc.
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Virginia County Selection Table - Select a county from the table below to to view more information on genealogical information & records pertaining to each county.
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