Virginia Newspapers

Online Resources

 * Indexed Images of the Virginia Gazette, 1736-1780
 * Virginia Online Historical Newspapers
 * Chronicling America Virginia Digitized Newspapers
 * Virginia Newspapers ($)
 * NewspaperArchive ($)
 * Virginia Gazette for the years 1774-1775, 1791-1803, 1807-1809 Google News
 * Virginia Gazette and General Advertiser for the years 1803-1805 Google News
 * Virginia Herald for the years 1792-1795, 1807-1809 Virginia Herald for the years 1792-1795, 1807-1809Google News
 * Virginia Argus for the years 1799-1802, 1804-1805, 1810-1811, 1816Google News
 * OnlineNewspapers.com
 * Virginia Newspaper Archives (1736 - 1986) GenealogyBank ($)
 * U.S., Newspapers.com Marriage Index, 1800s-1999 at Ancestry - index ($)
 * Virginia Newspapers, 1792-2008 at MyHeritage - index & images ($)
 * Virginia Newspaper Project at Library of Virginia — search by county

History
Virginia's earliest newspaper, the Virginia Gazette, was first published in Williamsburg in 1736. Other towns began publishing local newspapers in the 1780s and 1790s.

Published Transcriptions and Abstracts

 * Crouse, Randy F. McNew. the freshest Advices, Buckingham County, Virginia Genealogical Records from Newspapers, 1736-1850. 2019. Transcribed newspaper articles relating to Buckingham County and central Virginia including Richmond, Charlottesville, Farmville, Lynchburg, Appomattox and vicinity. Index includes counties, cities, towns, over 10,000 personal names (including slaves), occupations, taverns, plantations, geographical features. There are slave sale ads, land sale ads, ads for lost horses and runaway slaves, marriage and death notices, obituaries, chancery cases (some naming entire and extended families over multiple generations,) committee appointments, removal notices and more..
 * Headley, Robert K. "Genealogical Abstracts from 18th-Century Virginia Newspapers." Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1999. . Online at: Internet Archive.
 * Hiatt, Marty. "Marriage and Death Notices from the Genius of Liberty, 1817–1843." Northern Virginia Genealogy, 2005. Published in 2005 as a special issue of Northern Virginia Genealogy.
 * Henley, Bernard J., Virginia Genealogical Society, Marriages and Deaths from Richmond, Virginia Newspapers, 1780-1820, Southern Historical Press, 1983. 285 pages. “Since Richmond was the state capital and a center of commerce for a wide area, the marriage and death notices abstracted here frequently refer to persons in other states, and other areas of Virginia. Some of the notices included were news items rather than obituaries or social notes. Many were obviously copied from out-of-town papers of unknown dates and a number of these were apparently included for their humor content or strangeness.”
 * Henley, Bernard J., Virginia Genealogical Society, Marriage Notices from Richmond, Virginia, Newspapers, 1821-1840. Virginia Genealogical Society, 1997. 238 pages.
 * Henley, Bernard J., Virginia Genealogical Society, Marriage Notices from Richmond, Virginia, Newspapers, 1841-1853. Virginia Genealogical Society, 1997. 238 pages.

Libraries and Archives
The Library of Virginia, Virginia Historical Society, and University of Virginia have large collections of newspapers for the state.

Library of Virginia

Newspaper Collection

University of Virginia Library

Newspaper Collection

Jones Memorial library

Newspaper Collection

Newspaper Directory
The U.S. Newspaper Directory, 1690-Present is a national directory from the Library of Congress of over 140,000 newspaper titles. The directory provides a list of libraries from around the country that have the newspapers in their collections.

Digital Issues Online
NewspaperArchive ($) has a collection of digitized Virginia newspapers online. This database is sometimes free at libraries. It may be under the name Access NewspaperArchive.

Indexed images of the Virginia Gazette (1736-1780) are available online through the Colonial Williamsburg website.

Issues of the Virginia Gazette for the years 1774-1775, 1791-1803, 1807-1809 are available online at Google News - free.

Issues of the Virginia Gazette and General Advertiser for the years 1803-1805 are available online at Google News - free.

Issues of the Virginia Herald for the years 1792-1795, 1807-1809 are available online at Google News - free.

Issues of the Virginia Argus for the years 1799-1802, 1804-1805, 1810-1811, 1816 are available online at Google News - free.

OnlineNewspapers.com

Chronicling America has some historical issues for the state of Virginia online.

Indexes
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.

The FamilySearch Library
The FamilySearch Library has acquired very few copies of newspapers from Virginia. A bibliography of Virginia newspapers is:


 * Cappon, Lester J. Virginia Newspapers 1821-1935: A Bibliography with Historical Introduction and Notes. New York, NY: D. Appleton Century, 1936. (FamilySearch Library .)

Earlier newspapers are discussed in:


 * Brigham, Clarence Saunders. History and Bibliography of American Newspapers, 1690-1820. Two Volumes. Worcester, Massachusetts: American Antiquarian Society, 1947, 1975. (FS Library book .)

Wikipedia contributors have compiled a useful List of newspapers in Virginia in the 18th century.

The FamilySearch Library has copies of some published indexes of newspapers, such as:


 * Cappon, Lester J. and Stella F. Duff. Virginia Gazette, Index 1736-1780. Williamsburg, Virginia: Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1950. (FamilySearch Library . The newspapers for these years are on FS Library films .) This duplicates what is now available on the Colonial Williamsburg site.


 * Hall, Virginius Cornick. Abstracts of Marriage and Obituary Notices in Virginia Newspapers Before 1820. Salt Lake City, Utah: Genealogical Society of Utah, 1987. (On four FS Library films .)


 * Headley, Robert K. Genealogical Abstracts from 18th-Century Virginia Newspapers. Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1999. . Online at: Internet Archive.

The Library of Virginia has indexes to obituaries and marriage notices printed in the Richmond Whig and the Richmond Enquirer from 1804 to 1857. Some of this information has also been published in:


 * McIlwaine, H.R. Index to Obituary Notices in the Richmond Enquirer from May 9, 1804 through 1828, and the Richmond Whig from January 1824 to 1838. 1921. Reprint, Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing, 1974. (FamilySearch Library .)

The FamilySearch Library has begun to digitize its Virginia newspaper collection, see Virginia, Winchester, Evening Star Obituaries - FamilySearch Historical Records for an example.

London newspapers at times had things to say about family happenings in Virginia, see:


 * 1731-1868 - Dobson, David. American Vital Records From the Gentleman's Magazine. Baltimore, Md.: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1987. ; digital version at Ancestry ($).