Vital Records – The UncommonWealth

Black and white photography of a fenced cemetery. Notes in the margins of the photograph.

Archives Digital Projects Manuscripts & Special Collections The Stacks

Life, Death & Archives

The primary purpose of an archive is to act as a center for memory. This memory can be preserved in emails sent 2 months ago…

Mary Ann Mason, They/ThemOctober 14, 2026

Archives Education & Programming The Stacks

Records of a Paper Genocide

Editor's Note: Nora Birchett interned as part of the Library's Transforming the Future of Libraries and Archives Program in the Summer of 2024. She worked with…

Nora BirchettNovember 13, 2024

Archives Education & Programming

The Impact of the Act to Preserve Racial Integrity on Virginia’s Indigenous Tribes

March 20, 1924, is a moment in Virginia’s history when the governor, the General Assembly, state officials, and some in the general public believed that…

Ashley CraigJuly 17, 2024

Archives Digital Projects

Wanted: Volunteers to Index Virginia Vital Records!

The Library of Virginia houses an extensive collection of vital records, including birth and death records, 1853-1896, and marriage records, 1853-1935. Genealogists and family historians…

Paige NealMay 24, 2021

Education & Programming The Stacks

Finding the Unexpected

As a Library of Virginia volunteer, researching the Dictionary of Virginia Biography (DVB) has taken me into the lives of worthy but heretofore relatively unremarked,…

Leila ChristenburyMarch 10, 2021

Archives Manuscripts & Special Collections Newspapers

Dear Santa: Using Library Collections to Explore a Life Well-Lived

Every year, as the air turns cold and memories of Thanksgiving turkey fade away, children begin the age-old tradition of penning a letter to Santa…

Vince BrooksDecember 23, 2020

Alien Lands: Land Ownership and Inheritance Laws for Immigrants in Virginia

“Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a colony of aliens who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of Anglify…

Vince BrooksNovember 18, 2020

Who Do You Love?: Race and Marriage in Virginia Before the Loving Decision

Virginia’s marriage license requirements recently made the national news, and the state’s complicated history with racial classification is part of that conversation. Various records held…

Vince BrooksSeptember 16, 2019

Archives Digital Projects

Sometimes You DO Find a Needle in a Haystack: The Augusta Co. Cohabitation Register

Cohabitation registers are among the most important genealogical resources for African-Americans attempting to connect their family lines back through the murky past to their enslaved…

Sarah NerneyJuly 29, 2015

A Wedding, a Death, and a Pension: Charles and Sarah Butler’s Story

Portsmouth, Virginia, occupied by the Union army, was the scene of a wedding in November 1863. The happy couple was Charles “Charley” Butler, a private…

Bill BynumJune 3, 2015

Archives Manuscripts & Special Collections

There Are No Small Preventions, Only Smallpox

Before the Commonwealth of Virginia began officially recording vital statistics in 1853, many people recorded the births, deaths, and marriages in their families in the…

Tricia NoelApril 15, 2015

Archives Conservation Digital Projects

Henry County Cohabitation Register Update

The conservation of the original pages of the Henry County Cohabitation Register has recently been completed. Previously, only a poorly and confusingly microfilmed version of this…

Sarah NerneyFebruary 25, 2015

Archives Digital Projects

Henry Co. Cohabitation Register and African-American Naming Practices

The Library of Virginia has completed the digitization and transcription of the last of the cohabitation registers in its possession, the Henry County Cohabitation Register, 1866.…

Sonya ColemanFebruary 26, 2014

Archives Digital Projects

Washington and Scott Co. Cohabitation Registers Now Online

The Library of Virginia is pleased to announce the addition of Scott County and Washington County to the cohabitation register digitization project. This project, via the Virginia…

Sarah NerneyJune 7, 2013

Archives Digital Projects

Surry Co. Cohabitation Register Goes Digital!

The Library of Virginia is pleased to announce the addition of Surry County to the cohabitation register digitization project. This project, via the Virginia Memory website, aims to…

Sarah NerneyJuly 18, 2012