Williamsburg (Independent City), Virginia Genealogy

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Williamsburg is a city in the state of Virginia. It is independent of any county and consists entirely of the city of Williamsburg.

Parent County
1884--Williamsburg was created in 1884 from James City County.

Record Loss
Like many county courthouses in Virginia during the Civil War, the James City County Courthouse was burned in 1864. Accordingly, few court records from prior to that date exist; a few records from the 1850s are housed in the Williamsburg-James City County Courthouse. Deed Book 1 and Will Book 1 both include some records from the 1850's.

Populated Places
The City of Williamsburg

Neighboring Counties

 * York County, Virginia - north and east
 * James City County, Virginia - south and west

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

Following is a list of cemeteries in Williamsburg:


 * Bruton Parish Episcopal Church Cemetery
 * Cedar Grove Cemetery
 * Eastern State Hospital Cemetery
 * Galt Family Cemetery
 * Jones Family Cemetery
 * St. Bede Catholic Church Columbarium

Church
For a more detailed list, including addresses, phone numbers, and external links, see Williamsburg, Virginia Churches.

Following is a list of Churches in Williamsburg, Virginia:


 * Bruton Parish Church

Court


Williamsburg Circuit Court 5201 Monticello Avenue Suite Six Williamsburg, VA 23188-8218 (757) 564-2242

The Williamsburg-James City County Courthouse houses records for the separate municipalities of the City of Williamsburg and James City County. Deeds for each municipality are maintained separately and generally utilize different numbering schemes (e.g., six digit instrument numbers for Williamsburg deeds and nine digit instrument numbers for James City County deeds).

The Clerk's Office in the Circuit Court has a variety of City of Williamsburg and James City County records including deed and will books, twentieth-century tax records, tax assessors, maps, plats, military induction records, marriage records, death records, order books, and other documents. The courthouse maintains a searchable, computer-based index for deeds, marriages, and wills for the following time periods:

You must visit the courthouse reading room in person (8:30 - 4:00 p.m., Monday through Friday) in order to search the computer index. Recent records are added to the index within about a week.

The Clerk of Circuit Court does not accept mail in requests. However, all James City County records are available on microfilm through Interlibrary Loan via the Library of Virginia. Scanners are not permitted; cameras may or may not be allowed. A copier is available.

Indexes (1799-1967) and images (1799-1933) to Williamsburg City, Virginia Chancery Records are available online through Virginia Memory: Chancery Records Index. These records, which were often concerned with inheritance disputes, contain a wealth of genealogical information.

Immigration

 * Coldham, Peter Wilson. "Correspondence with the American Colonies 1739-1782," The Genealogist, Vol. 12, No. 1 (Spring 1998):108-128; Vol. 12, No. 2 (Fall 1998):189-205. [Overseas correspondence of residents of Williamsburg with the following surnames: Lee, Nicholas, Norton, and Prentis.] Available at FHL.
 * Coldham, Peter Wilson. North American Wills Registered in London 1611-1857. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 2007. [Includes wills of residents of Bruton Parish, James City County, and Williamsburg proved in London. These records often help establish an immigrant's place of origin.]

Migration

 * Clay, Robert Y. "Some Delinquent Taxpayers 1787-1790," The Virginia Genealogist, Vol. 22, No. 2 (Apr.-Jun. 1978):121-130. Available at FHL; digital version at New England Ancestors ($). [These records identify migrants who left the county and often their intended destinations. Williamsburg's 1789 Delinquent List appears on 22:129-130.]

Military
The Clerk's Office in the Circuit Court has military induction records.

French and Indian War


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

Newspapers

 * The Virginia Gazette

There are two distinct publication timeframes for newspapers titled The Virginia Gazette.

The was paper was first published weekly in Williamsburg, Virginia during much of the 18th century, when Williamsburg was the capital of the colony. Beginning in 1766, another printer launched a competing publication by the same name. In total, three different publishers used the name "Virginia Gazette" during the Colonial era, and are listed separately in the digital collection, grouped by publisher. Digitized images of the paper can be viewed on-line through the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Digital Library. The collection is indexed for publication years 1736 to 1780. Williamsburg Regional Library has microfilm of the Colonial era collection, as well.

More recently, the Virginia Gazette was revived in 1930 by publisher J.A. Osborne as part of the first Colonial Williamsburg renovation.


 * The Richmond Dispatch

Digitized images of the paper through the Library of Congress. Collection covers from 1900 to 1903.


 * The Times (Richmond, Va)

Digitized images of the paper through the Library of Congress. Collection covers from 1901 and 1903.


 * The Richmond Times-Dispatch

Digitized images of the paper through the Library of Congress. Collection covers from 1907 to 1910.

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.

Private Papers

 * Coldham, Peter Wilson. "Correspondence with the American Colonies 1739-1782," The Genealogist, Vol. 12, No. 1 (Spring 1998):108-128; Vol. 12, No. 2 (Fall 1998):189-205. [Overseas correspondence of residents of Williamsburg with the following surnames: Lee, Nicholas, Norton, and Prentis.] Available at FHL.

Probate
York County, Virginia Court

York County Probate Records

This collection includes digitized images of the probate records from York County during the colonial period. York county abuts James City County, and these records include information from Williamsburg, Virginia. The images are provided by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. The records can be digitally searched.

London Courts


 * Coldham, Peter Wilson. North American Wills Registered in London 1611-1857. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 2007. [Includes wills of residents of Bruton Parish, James City County, and Williamsburg 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.


 * [1783] "A List of Taxable Articles in the City of Williamsburg Taken by Robert Nicolson for the Year 1783 Under the Revenue Act," William and Mary College Quarterly, 1st Series, Vol. 23 (1914):133-142. Available at FHL; reprinted in Virginia Tax Records. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1983, which is also available at FHL; digital version at JSTOR ($).
 * [1786, 1788] Schreiner-Yantis, Netti and Florene Speakman Love. The 1787 Census of Virginia: An Accounting of the Name of Every White Male Tithable Over 21 Years, the Number of White Males Between 16 &amp; 21 Years, the Number of Slaves over 16 &amp; Those Under 16 Years, Together with a Listing of Their Horses, Cattle &amp; Carriages, and Also the Names of All Persons to Whom Ordinary Licenses and Physician's Licenses Were Issued. 3 vols. Springfield, Va.: Genealogical Books in Print, 1987. Available at FHL. [The sources for this publication are the 1788 personal property tax list, and a partial reading of the 1786 personal property tax list (names from the 1786 personal property tax list that do not appear on the 1788 list). Williamsburg is included in Vol. 2.]
 * [1788, 1798] Indexed images of the 1788 and 1798 Personal Property Tax Lists of Williamsburg, Virginia are available online at Binns Genealogy.
 * [1789] Clay, Robert Y. "Some Delinquent Taxpayers 1787-1790," The Virginia Genealogist, Vol. 22, No. 2 (Apr.-Jun. 1978):121-130. Available at FHL; digital version at New England Ancestors ($). [These records identify migrants who left the county and often their intended destinations. Williamsburg's 1789 Delinquent List appears on 22:129-130.]

Research Guides
Researching Seventeenth Century Virginians

Researching Williamsburg Area Virginians

Researching Revolutionary Era Virginians

These three research guides were prepared by the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library at Colonial Williamsburg.

Local Resources

 * The Williamsburg Regional Library

The WRL is the central library for the City of Williamsburg and James City County


 * Swem Library at The College of William &amp; Mary

Swem Library is the central research library for The College of William and Mary.


 * The John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Library

This library is operated by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Its contains secondary and primary materials on the colonial history of Virginia.


 * The Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture

The Omohundro Institute is a joint research institute between The College of William &amp; Mary and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, focusing on academic research on early American history.

State Resources
Virginia Genealogical Society

Virginia Historical Society

The Library of Virginia

The Library of Virginia has an extensive collection of documents related to James City County including: """Board of Supervisor Minutes: Sept. 1887 to 1908, Court Minutes: 1871-1882, Clerk's Guide to Sampel Forms for Certain Court Records, undated, Chancery Execution Book: 1868-1916, Chancery Minutes: 1871-1873, Chancery Order Books: 1889-1903, Chancery Rules: 1872-1911, Execution Book: 1866-1916, Judgment Docket: 1865-1903, Law Execution Book: 1866-1882, Circuit Court Order Book: 1879-1885, James City County and Williamsburg Fiduciary Bond Book: 1865-1908, James City County and Williamsburg Plat Books: 1891-1918, Birth Register: 1866-1884, Death Register: 1864-1884, School Commissioners Records: 1819-1861, Tax Book: 1768-1769, Deed and Will Books: 1854-1861, 1865-1874 Land Tax Lists: 1782 on, Personal Property Tax Lists: 1782 on, Agricultural Census Records: 1850-1880, Census Records: full run, Slave Schedules: 1850 and 1860, Processioners Records: 1890-1891, 1903-1904 James City County/Williamsburg Rolls of Registered Voters: 1900-1965, James City County/Williamsburg Contracts for Personal Property: 1900-1918"

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
 * Wikipedia: