West Virginia Biography

Online Resources

 * County and Town Histories, includes biographies
 * West Virginia Biographies Project

Biographies in Local Histories

 * Biographical information is often found in state, county, and town histories.
 * Towards the end of the 19th century, began publishers soliciting short biographical/family histories from local founding families, offering to publish them in an upcoming local history. This then became an incentive for family members to buy a copy of the book.
 * Families represented were not necessarily prominent. Practically everyone living there, especially in the Midwest, counted as an early settler.
 * These biographies often start with the first member of the family to settle in the area, and detail their descendants at the time of publishing. They may tell where the family moved in from. Children's marriages often are given, with maiden names included.

Finding Biographies

 * The county Wiki page lists several county histories. It also lists local libraries, and societies which probably have copies of local histories.
 * Many histories are no longer under copyright and can be found in the following online, digitized book collections. Search with keywords "History" and "the name of your locality" (state, county, or town).
 * FamilySearch Books
 * Google Books
 * World Cat
 * HathiTrust
 * Internet Archive
 * The FamilySearch library has extensive collections of these local histories. Many are digitized. Search the FamilySearch Catalog under your locality for the topics "Biography" and "History".

Comstock, Jim F. West Virginia Heritage Encyclopedia and the supplemental series. , volumes 1-25

An index to biographical sketches in several hundred local histories and genealogies is:

Wardell, Patrick G. Timesaving Aid to Virginia-West Virginia Ancestors: A Genealogical Index of Surnames from Published Sources. Four Volumes. Athens, Georgia: Iberian Publishing Company, 1990.

Representative biographical sources at the Family History Library are:

Atkinson, George Wesley. Prominent Men of West Virginia. Wheeling, West Virginia: W. L. Callin, 1890.

Callahan, James Morton. History of West Virginia, Old and New. Three Volumes. Chicago, Illinois: American Historical Society, 1923.; Volume 1 on Volumes 2-3 on  Volumes two and three are biographical.

Men of West Virginia. Two Volumes. Chicago, Illinois: Biographical Publishing Company, 1903.

Miller, Thomas Condit, and Hu Maxwell. West Virginia and Its People. Three Volumes. New York, New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1913. Volumes two and three include family and personal histories.


 * West Virginia, Order Sons of Italy in America, Lodge Records, 1921-1969 at Ancestry ($)
 * West Virginia Prominent Men at Ancestry ($)
 * Branches of the John Carey family to Virginia, N. Carolina, Ohio and on west at Ancestry ($)
 * The Barnes family in West Virginia : being a brief account of this branch of the family in West Virginia at Ancestry ($)
 * Greek letter men of Pittsburg : including also Wheeling, West Virginia, and cities of western Pennsylvania at Ancestry ($)
 * The Barrackman-Barrickman families of West Virginia at Ancestry ($)
 * The Washingtons and their colonial homes in West Virginia at Ancestry ($)
 * The story of the Robert P. Nixon family of Boothsville, West Virginia at Ancestry ($)
 * The Baxter family : descendants of George and Thomas Baxter of Westchester County, New York, as well as some West Virginia and at Ancestry ($)