Patrick County, Virginia Genealogy

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Parent County
1790--Patrick County was created 26 November 1790 from Henry County. County seat: Stuart

Neighboring Counties

 * Carroll
 * Floyd
 * Franklin
 * Henry
 * Stokes County, North Carolina
 * Surry County, North Carolina

Cemeteries

 * Baughan, Mrs. Charles C. "Hylton Family Cemetery, Patrick County, Virginia," [and family notes] The Virginia Genealogist, Vol. 21, No. 3 (Jul.-Sep. 1977):172-174. Available at New England Ancestors ($).

Census
For tips on accessing census records online, see Virginia Census.

1790 - Lost.

1800 - Lost.

1810 - Lost, but a subsitute is available, see Taxation.

1890 Union Veterans


 * Turner, Ronald Ray. Virginia's Union Veterans: Eleventh Census of the United States 1890. Available online, courtesy: Prince William County Virginia website. [Includes residents of this county.]

Family Histories

 * [Hylton] Baughan, Mrs. Charles C. "Hylton Family Cemetery, Patrick County, Virginia," [and family notes] The Virginia Genealogist, Vol. 21, No. 3 (Jul.-Sep. 1977):172-174. Available at New England Ancestors ($).

Local Histories

 * Pedigo, Virginia G. History of Patrick and Henry Counties, Virginia. Roanoke, Va.: Stone Printing and Manufacturing Co., 1933. Original edition and 1977 reprint available at FHL; digital version at Ancestry ($).

Newspapers
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 the Virginia Gazette and other Virginia newspapers (1736-1803), see: The Geography of Slavery in Virginia.

Research Guides

 * "A Guide to the Counties of Virginia: Patrick County," The Virginia Genealogist, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Jan.-Mar. 1976):52-55. Available at New England Ancestors ($).
 * Sweeney, Alice J. "Bassett Historical Center," The Virginia Genealogical Society Newsletter, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Aug. 2002):1-3. Available at FHL; digital version at Virginia Genealogical Society website.

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.


 * [1810] Schreiner-Yates, Netti. A Supplement to the 1810 Census of Virginia: Tax Lists of the Counties for which the Census is Missing. Springfield, Va.: Genealogical Books in Print, 1971. Available at FHL. [The source for this publication is the 1810 personal property tax list. Patrick County is included because the 1810 Census for that county has been destroyed.]
 * [1815] 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. Patrick County is included in Vol. 2.]

Societies and Libraries

 * Bassett Historical Center, Bassett, Virginia. Website includes descriptions of collections. Excellent resource for family history research in Henry, Patrick, Floyd, Franklin and Pittsylvania counties in Virginia, the city of Martinsville, Virginia, and Rockingham, Stokes and Surry counties in North Carolina.

Web Sites

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