Washington County, Virginia Genealogy

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Parent County
1776--Washington County was created 7 October 1776 from Fincastle County. Fincastle County was formed from Botetourt County in 1772, and was abolished in 1777. See Montgomery County.County seat: Abingdon

Neighboring Counties

 * Grayson
 * Johnson County, Tennessee
 * Russell
 * Scott
 * Smyth
 * Sullivan County, Tennessee

Local Histories

 * Publications of the Historical Society of Washington County, Virginia [Nos. 1-18]. Abingdon, Virginia, 1964. Reviewed in The Virginia Genealogist, Vol. 8, No. 4 (Oct.-Dec. 1964):185. Review available at New England Ancestors ($).
 * Summers, Lewis Preston. History of Southwest Virginia, 1746-1786, Washington County, 1777-1870. J.L.Hill Print Co., 1903. Digital book available at Google Books (full-view). Reviewed in The Virginia Genealogist, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Apr.-Jun. 1967):84 following 1966 reprint. Review available at New England Ancestors ($).

Military
French and Indian War


 * Bockstruck, Lloyd DeWitt. Virginia's Colonial Soldiers. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1988. Available at FHL. [Identifies some Washington County veterans; see place name index.]

Newspapers
Indexed images of the Virginia Gazette(1736-1780) are available online through the Colonial Williamsburgwebsite. 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: Washington County," The Virginia Genealogist, Vol. 24, No. 1 (Jan.-Mar. 1980):58-60. 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.


 * "Tithables in Washington County, Virginia, in 1782," Publications (The Historical Society of Washington County, Virginia). Series 2, No. 7 (Winter-Spring 1968-1969), No. 8 (Jul. 1970) and No. 9 (Jul. 1971). Available at FHL.
 * Images of the 1788 and 1797 Personal Property Tax Lists of Washington County, Virginia are available to browse online, courtesy: Binns Genealogy.
 * Ward, Roger D. 1815 Directory of Virginia Landowners (and Gazetteer). 6 vols. Athens, Georgia: Iberian Pub. Co., 1997-2000. Available at FHL. [The source for this publication is the 1815 land tax. Washington County is included in Vol. 5.]

Vital Records
Marriage


 * Barbe, Waverly. "Washington County, Virginia, Mc Marriages, 1801-1820," The Virginia Genealogist, Vol. 20, No. 2 (Apr.-Jun. 1976):130-132. Available at New England Ancestors ($).

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