Monongalia County, West Virginia Genealogy

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

Parent County
1776--Monongalia County was created 7 October 1776 from the District of West Augusta. County seat: Morgantown

Neighboring Counties

 * Fayette County, Pennsylvania
 * Greene County, Pennsylvania
 * Marion
 * Preston
 * Taylor
 * Wetzel

Family Histories

 * [Jones] "Gale-Shinn-Stanton-Jones," The American Genealogist, Vol.31 (1955):54-56. Available at New England Ancestors.
 * [Shinn] See Jones.

Military
French and Indian War


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

Research Guides

 * "A Guide to the Counties of Virginia: Monongalia County," The Virginia Genealogist, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Oct.-Dec. 1974):293-295. Available at FHL; digital version at New England Ancestors ($).

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.


 * Indexed images of the 1790 Personal Property Tax List of Monongalia County, Virginia (now West Virginia) are available online at Binns Genealogy.
 * Images of the 1800 Personal Property Tax List of Monongalia County, Virginia (now West Virginia) are available to browse online at 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. Monongalia County is included in Vol. 6.]

Web Sites

 * Family History Library Catalog