Alexandria (Independent City), Virginia Genealogy

United States &gt; Virginia &gt; Alexandria (Independent City)

History

 * First settlement established in 1695. Named for Capt. Philip Alexander. Alexandria was not incorporated until 1779.
 * In 1755, General Edward Braddock organized his fatal expediation against Fort Duquesne (near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) at Carlyle House.
 * April 1755, the governors of Virginia, and the Provinces of Maryland, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New York met to determine concerted action against the French in America.
 * 1791, Alexandria was included in an area chosen by George Washington to become the District of Columbia. Alexandria along with Arlington County were retroceded back to Virginia in 1846.
 * City of Alexandria was re-chartered in 1852.
 * 1828-1836, Alexandria was home to the Franklin and Armfield slave market.
 * During the Civil War, the slave pen owned by Price, Birch &amp; Co. became a jail under Union occupation.
 * Alexandria was occupied by the Federal troops at the start of the Civil War and remained occupied until the end of the war.
 * 1863 (when West Virginia was divided from Virginia) until end of the Civil War, Alexandria was the seat of the Restored Government of Virginia.
 * 1870, the City of Alexandria became independent of Alexandria County. The rest of Alexandria County became Arlington County in 1920, ending years of confusion.

Parent County
1847--Alexandria was created 13 March 1847 from Fairfax County.

Populated Places
Arlandria. Del Rey. Hume. The Landmark. Mount Ida. North Ridge. Old Town. Saint Elmo. Seminary Hill. Seminary West. Town of Potomac (1930). The Berg. West End. West of Quaker

Neighboring Counties
Arlington | Fairfax | District of Columbia

Cemeteries
For a more detailed list, including addresses, phone numbers, and external links, see Alexandria, Virginia Cemeteries.

The following is a list of cemeteries in Alexandria:


 * Alexandria National Cemetery
 * Ivy Hill Cemetery
 * Saint Mary's Cemetery
 * Shuters Hill Cemetery

Census

 * "Alexandria, Virginia, Second Ward, 1799 Census," The Virginia Genealogist, Vol. 4, No. 3 (Jul-Sep. 1960):117-124; Vol. 4, No. 4 (Oct.-Dec. 1960):163-170. Available at New England Ancestors ($). [Often includes head of households' occupations and names and occupations of boarders.]
 * "Alexandria, Virginia, Fourth Ward, 1800 Census," The Virginia Genealogist, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Apr.-Jun. 1960):51-59. Available at New England Ancestors ($).

Court
Chancery Court


 * Indexed images of Alexandria, Virginia Chancery Records 1859-1925 are available online through Virginia Memory: Chancery Records Index. These records, often concerned with inheritance disputes, contain a wealth of genealogical information.

Immigration

 * Coldham, Peter Wilson. "Intercepted Letters Relating to America, 1777-1811" The Genealogist, Vol. 14, No. 2 (Fall 2000):184-200. [Overseas contacts of the residents of Alexandria with the following surnames: Hamilton, Taylor.]
 * Edwards, Conley L. "Abstracts of Reports of Aliens, Alexandria County, 1801-1832," The Virginia Genealogist, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Apr.-Jun. 1979):112-116; Vol. 24, No. 3 (Jul.-Sep. 1980):172-176. Available at New England Ancestors ($).

Military
French and Indian War


 * Bockstruck, Lloyd DeWitt. Virginia's Colonial Soldiers. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1988. Available at FHL. [Identifies some Alexandria militia officers, soldier enlistments, and veterans; see place name index.]

Newspapers
Indexed images of the Virginia Gazette (1736-1780) are available online through the Colonial Williamsburg website. In addition, Professor Tom Costa and The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia have created a database of all runaway advertisements for slaves, indentured servants, transported convicts, and ship deserters listed in this source and other Virginia newspapers (1736-1803), see: The Geography of Slavery in Virginia. These newspapers are valuable resources for all regions of Virginia.

Research Guides

 * "A Guide to the Counties of Virginia: Alexandria County [Arlington County]," The Virginia Genealogist, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Jul.-Sep. 1959):126-129. Available at New England Ancestors ($).

Taxation
At first glance, researchers might conclude that Virginia tax lists contain very little family history data, though one soon learns that valuable genealogical conclusions can be drawn from these records, nicknamed "annual censuses," such as: relationships, approximate years of birth, socio-economic status, identification of neighbors, the ability to distinguish between persons of the same name, evidence of land inheritance, years of migration, and years of death.

Virginia began enumerating residents' payments of personal property and land taxes in 1782. These two types of taxation were recorded in separate registers. Personal property tax lists include more names than land tax lists, because they caught more of the population. The Family History Library has an excellent microfilm collection of personal property tax lists from 1782 (or the year the county was organized) well into the late nineteenth century for most counties, but only scattered land tax lists. Microfilm collections at The Library of Virginia include land tax lists for all counties and independent cities for the years 1782 through 1978, as well as personal property tax lists for the years 1782 through 1930 (and every fifth year thereafter). Taxes were not collected in 1808.

Some tax records are available online or in print, though published abstracts often omit useful details found only in the original sources. Statewide indexes can help genealogists identify specific counties where surnames occurred in the past, providing starting points for research.


 * Indexed images of the 1790 and 1799 Personal Property Tax Lists of Alexandria, Virginia are available online at Binns Genealogy.
 * "Alexandria, Virginia, 1800 Tax List," The Virginia Genealogist, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Jan.-Mar. 1960):17-26. Available at New England Ancestors ($).
 * Ward, Roger D. 1815 Directory of Virginia Landowners (and Gazetteer). 6 vols. Athens, Georgia: Iberian Pub. Co., 1997-2000. Available at FHL. [This source is based on the 1815 land tax. Alexandria is included in Vol. 4.]

Societies and Libraries

 * Alexandria Black History Museum, Alexandria, Virginia

Websites

 * USGenWeb project. May have maps, name indexes, history or other information for this county. Select the state, then the county.
 * Family History Library Catalog