To help others understand even more under the Virginia Code of April 11, 1853... The clerk of the County Court and the Coporation Court were each required to transmit to the auditor of public accounts, a copy of his marriages for the preceeding year... I am taking a leap here but I assume the same law applied to deaths and births for each county. For the Courthouses that were destroyed by fires we were fortunate to have these records saved by a Virginia law enacted in 1853 that covered the years of approxmiately 1853 to 1896. Kim Clarks work and sharing brings another example to light that even if we are told no records survived from a courthouse that even thou original records did not survive there are some handwritten copies of certain items still there for the determined researcher. Thanks a million Kim!!!!!!!!!!! Randy Kidd In a message dated 8/17/2006 12:15:30 AM Eastern Daylight Time, kim.clark@adelphia.net writes: I have debated on giving further explanation but decided that I should clarify one last time. Any further questions, especially regarding where I am finding my information should be directed to me directly in hopes of freeing up the mailing list. Death registers are available through inter-library loan through the Library of Virginia. These cover the years 1853-1896 (or somewhere thereabouts). These are the registers that contain handwritten entries that were maintained by each county. There are also marriage and birth registers available for most counties, although marriage registers can extend for longer time periods. You can have these sent to your local library (if they have microfilm readers) for a small postage fee and usually can keep them for several weeks. http://www.lva.lib.va.us/whatwehave/vital/BMDregisters/index.htm The information I have posted the last few days come from actual death certificates that span the years 1912-1939 for which there are no registers and are not available online nor through interlibrary loan, according the Library of Virginia. There are nearly 850,000 death certificates on over 300 reels for this time period (1912-1939) so scanning all 305 reels in a day trip is impossible. I have found this venue to be invaluable as I obtained two g-g-g-grandmother's maiden names that I had been unable to find through any other avenues of researching. Again the link is below: http://www.lva.lib.va.us/whatwehave/vital/death-certificates/index.htm If you know your ancestor's death date (1912 - ) you can mail the Virginia Department of Vital Statistics for a copy of the certificate although they charge you $12.00 per certificate and that is IF they have a copy on file (versus 75 cents at the Library - used to be 50 cents but they increased the price per copy) Just sending a request for a death certificate for grandpa John Doe who died in 1949 will have it returned to you, usually with nothing. You will need to provide identification also. http://www.vdh.state.va.us/vitalrec/mail_it.asp I hope this helps. Please feel free to contact me privately if you have any further questions. ==== VABUCKIN Mailing List ==== To unsubscribe, send ONLY the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line and message body to: VABUCKIN-L-request@rootsweb.com for list mode or VABUCKIN-D-request@rootsweb.com in digest mode VABUCKIN-D-request@rootsweb.com for digest mode ============================== Search Family and Local Histories for stories about your family and the areas they lived. Over 85 million names added in the last 12 months. Learn more: http://www.ancestry.com/s13966/rd.ashx