Rockbridge County, Virginia Genealogy

United States &gt; Virginia &gt; Rockbridge County



Parent County
1777--Rockbridge County was created 20 October 1777 from Augusta and Botetourt Counties. County seat: Lexington

Neighboring Counties

 * Alleghany
 * Amherst
 * Augusta
 * Bath
 * Bedford
 * Botetourt
 * Nelson

Court
Chancery Court


 * Indexes (1781-1958) and images (1781-1931) to Rockbridge County, 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.

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 often identify migrants who left the county and their intended destinations. Rockbridge County's 1787 Delinquent List appears on 22:123-125.]

Military
French and Indian War


 * Bockstruck, Lloyd DeWitt. Virginia's Colonial Soldiers. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1988. Available at FHL. [Identifies some Rockbridge County veterans; see place name index.]

Revolutionary War


 * Morton, Oren Frederic. A History of Rockbridge County, Virginia. Staunton, Va.: [McClure Co.], 1920. 1973 reprint available at FHL. [Includes conveyances in Borden Tract 1741-1780, early patents outside the Borden Tract, secondary land conveyances prior to 1778, tithables of 1778, taxpayers of 1782 and 1841, militia officers prior to 1816, soldiers of the Revolution, Rockbridge Artillery, soldiers of the World War, and other various lists.]

World War I


 * Morton, Oren Frederic. A History of Rockbridge County, Virginia. Staunton, Va.: [McClure Co.], 1920. 1973 reprint available at FHL. [Includes conveyances in Borden Tract 1741-1780, early patents outside the Borden Tract, secondary land conveyances prior to 1778, tithables of 1778, taxpayers of 1782 and 1841, militia officers prior to 1816, soldiers of the Revolution, Rockbridge Artillery, soldiers of the World War, and other various lists.]

Newspapers
Indexed images of the Virginia Gazette(1736-1780) are available online through the Colonial Williamsburgwebsite. In addition, 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.

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.


 * Rockbridge County, Virginia Will Book 1, 1778-1796. Original records, Rockbridge County Courthouse, Lexington, Va.; also available on microfilm at FHL. [Includes 1778 List of Tithables on pp. 24-29; 1780 List of [Tax] Delinquents on p. 107.]
 * Morton, Oren Frederic. A History of Rockbridge County, Virginia. Staunton, Va.: [McClure Co.], 1920. 1973 reprint available at FHL. [Includes conveyances in Borden Tract 1741-1780, early patents outside the Borden Tract, secondary land conveyances prior to 1778, tithables of 1778, taxpayers of 1782 and 1841, militia officers prior to 1816, soldiers of the Revolution, Rockbridge Artillery, soldiers of the World War, and other various lists.]
 * 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 source of this publication is the 1787 personal property tax list. Rockbridge County is included in Vol. 2.]
 * 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 often identify migrants who left the county and their intended destinations. Rockbridge County's 1787 Delinquent List appears on 22:123-125.]
 * Images of the 1789 and 1801 Personal Property Tax Lists of Rockbridge County, Virginia are available to browse online, courtesy: Binns Genealogy.
 * 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. Rockbridge County is included in Vol. 5.]

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