Public Records Public Records Eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth century records from thirty West Virginia counties have been preserved in their original form, on microfilm, or as transcriptions. Records from the offices of the county clerk and the circuit clerk provide documentation of deeds, surveys, property taxes, voter registration, election returns, school reports, naturalizations, road maintenance, births and deaths, marriages, wills, estate settlements, criminal trials, etc. General descriptions of the types of documents available for each county are found in the Guide to Manuscripts and Archives in the West Virginia Collection. Detailed inventories of most county archives are available upon request. In addition, detailed indexes are available for court case papers from the counties of Brooke, Fayette, Hampshire, Jefferson, Kanawha, Lewis, Mason, Monongalia, Ohio, Tucker, and Wood.
County records are essential resources for genealogical research.
An act of the 1853 Virginia legislature required the recording of vital statistics by the county courts, and most of these records have fortunately survived the ravages of time. Records of births and deaths before 1853 are virtually nonexistent, because no law required them to be officially recorded. However, before 1853, Bible records and church registers will occasionally provide documentation for births and deaths. Early marriages can be found in county court records as well as in ministers' lists and church registers. However, county marriage records seldom provide more information than the names of the bride and groom, the name of the security, and the date of the bond.