Berkeley County, West Virginia Genealogy

United States &gt; West Virginia &gt; Berkeley County

Parent County
1772--Berkeley County was created 10 February 1772 from Frederick County (Virginia). County seat: Martinsburg

Neighboring Counties

 * Clarke County, Virginia
 * Frederick County, Virginia
 * Jefferson
 * Morgan
 * Washington County, Maryland

Immigration

 * Coldham, Peter Wilson. North American Wills Registered in London 1611-1857. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 2007. [Includes wills of residents of Berkeley County proved in London. These records often help establish an immigrant's place of origin.]

Local Histories

 * Norris, J. E.. History of the Lower Shenandoah Valley Counties of Frederick, Berkeley, Jefferson and Clarke: Their Early Settlement and Progress to the Present Time, Geological Features, a Description of Their Historic and Interesting Localities, Cities, Towns and Villages, Portraits of Some of the Prominent Men, and Biographies of Many of the Representative Citizens. Chicago: A. Warner, 1890. Original edition available at FHL; 1972 reprint available at FHL; digital version of original edition at Ancestry ($).

Migration

 * Clay, Robert Y. "Some Delinquent Taxpayers 1787-1790," The Virginia Genealogist, Vol. 19, No. 4 (Oct.-Dec. 1975):248-254. Available at FHL; digital version at New England Ancestors ($). [These records often identify migrants who left the county and their intended destinations. Berkeley County's 1788 Delinquent List appears on pp. 250-254.]

Military
French and Indian War


 * Bockstruck, Lloyd DeWitt. Virginia's Colonial Soldiers. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1988. Available at FHL. [Identifies some Berkeley County veterans and 1774-1775 militia officers; see place name index.]

Probate

 * Coldham, Peter Wilson. North American Wills Registered in London 1611-1857. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 2007. [Includes wills of residents of Berkeley County proved in London. These records often help establish an immigrant's place of origin.]

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.


 * Clay, Robert Y. "Some Delinquent Taxpayers 1787-1790," The Virginia Genealogist, Vol. 19, No. 4 (Oct.-Dec. 1975):248-254. Available at FHL; digital version at New England Ancestors ($). [These records often identify migrants who left the county and their intended destinations. Berkeley County's 1788 Delinquent List appears on pp. 250-254.]
 * 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. Berkeley County is included in Vol. 6.]

Web Sites

 * Family History Library Catalog