Shenandoah County, Virginia Genealogy

United States &gt; Virginia &gt; Shenandoah County



Parent County
1772--Prior to January 12, 1778, Shenandoah County was originally called Dunmore County. Dunmore County was created 24 March 1772 from Frederick County. County seat: Woodstock

Neighboring Counties

 * Frederick
 * Hardy County, West Virginia
 * Page
 * Rockingham
 * Warren

Court
Chancery Court


 * Indexed images of Shenandoah County, Virginia Chancery Records 1772-1927 are available online through Virginia Memory: Chancery Records Index. These records, often concerned with inheritance disputes, contain a wealth of genealogical information.

Family Histories

 * [Byrd] Joslyn, Roger D. "Was Andrew Byrd of Greene County, Ohio, a Son of Colonel Abraham Byrd of Shenandoah County, Virginia, and Fayette County, Kentucky?", The American Genealogist, Vol. 74, No. 2 (Apr. 1999):131-146.
 * [Dilley] Jones, Thomas W. "Dilley of Northern Virginia and Ohio: A Proposed Solution Hanging on a Single Word," The American Genealogist, Vol. 79, No. 3 (Jul. 2004):220-227.

Land
Grants and Patents


 * Crown. 84 patents dated 1749-1858 in what is now Shenandoah County, Virginia placed on a map. DeedMapper. 2005. [Names of those who received land patents, dates, land descriptions, and references may be viewed free of charge (click "Index" next to the county listing); however, in order to view the maps, it is necessary to purchase Direct Line Software's DeedMapper product.]

Military
French and Indian War


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

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.


 * Clay, Robert Y. "Some Delinquent Taxpayers 1787-1790," The Virginia Genealogist, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Jan.-Mar. 1977):49-53. Available at FHL; digital version at New England Ancestors ($). [These records identify migrants who left the county and often their intended destinations. Shenandoah County's 1789 Delinquent List appears on pp. 49-50.]
 * Indexed images of the 1789 and 1799 Personal Property Tax Lists of Shenandoah County, Virginia are available 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 1815 land tax. Shenandoah County is included in Vol. 4.]

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