West Virginia Historical Societies

This directory lists 3 historical societies, museums, and archives in West Virginia, including Harpers Ferry National Historical Park and the West Virginia State Museum at the Culture Center in Charleston. The guide below the listings covers what matters most to a West Virginia researcher: the Archives and History Library and its free Vital Research Records database, the Vital Registration Office, the County Clerk's deed books, the Virginia-era land grants, and the State Historic Preservation Office's survey tools.

West Virginia became the 35th state on June 20, 1863, when its counties broke from Virginia during the Civil War. Every record created before that date is a Virginia record: county births and deaths kept from 1853 under Virginia's registration law, marriages from each county's formation, and the original land grants issued by the Virginia Land Office. The state has 55 counties, several of them (Mineral, Grant, Lincoln, Summers, Mingo) created after 1863, so a family that never moved may appear in three different county record sets.

Featured Historical Societies

Major repositories for West Virginia research

West Virginia Archives and History is the state archives, housed in the Culture Center at 1900 Kanawha Boulevard East on the Capitol Complex in Charleston. The Archives and History Library is open Tuesday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and holds the records a genealogist needs on one floor: county court records on microfilm for all 55 counties, bound and microfilmed newspapers, city and telephone directories, naturalization records, historical maps, manuscripts, photographs, and the state government archives. Manuscripts, photographs, and special collections are pulled by appointment made a week in advance. The research databases page lists every online index, from vital records to the Veterans Memorial database and the vertical clipping files.

• West Virginia and Regional History Center, West Virginia University Libraries, Morgantown. The largest collection of West Virginia manuscripts, with more than 1,100 reels of state newspapers on microfilm, photographs, and the West Virginia Collection of printed material.
• Library of Virginia, 800 East Broad Street, Richmond. Holds the Virginia Land Office patents and grants, including those for land now in West Virginia, with online images.
• Marshall University Special Collections in Huntington covers the southwestern counties and the Ohio Valley.

West Virginia vital records and the free Vital Research Records database

West Virginia is one of the easiest states in the country for historical vital records because Archives and History scanned them. The Vital Research Records database is free, name-searchable, and returns images of the original county register pages and certificates for births, deaths, and marriages; coverage varies by county but reaches back to the 1853 Virginia registers for births and deaths and to county formation for marriages, and forward into the mid-20th century for records that have passed their restriction periods. Certified copies, however, come only from the issuing county or the state office.

• Statewide registration of births and deaths began in 1917 and of marriages in 1964. The Vital Registration Office of the West Virginia Health Statistics Center, 350 Capitol Street, Room 165, Charleston, holds those records plus a marriage index from 1924. Certified copies cost $12 each, with same-day walk-in service, mail orders, and VitalChek online; the office searches the year requested plus one year either side.
• Restrictions: births are closed for 100 years and deaths and marriages for 50 years, after which the images appear in the free database.
• Pre-1917 births and deaths were recorded by the County Clerk from 1853 under Virginia law, with a drop-off during the Civil War and spotty compliance until the 1880s; the originals are in the county courthouses and on microfilm in Charleston.
• Marriages are with the County Clerk from the formation of each county (as early as 1776 for the oldest). Divorces are circuit court cases held by the Circuit Clerk of the county that granted the decree.

Land grants, deed books, and the County Clerk

West Virginia is a state-land state inherited from Virginia. The first title to any tract came as a Virginia grant: colonial patents, then Commonwealth grants after 1779, treasury-warrant and military bounty-warrant grants for Revolutionary service from 1782 onward (most of which soldiers sold to speculators), and after 1863 grants issued by West Virginia itself until the state stopped granting land in 1912. The grants by county for 1748-1912 are on microfilm at Archives and History and on FamilySearch, and the Sims Index lists grantees alphabetically by county for the whole span. The original Land Office record books and plats are at the Library of Virginia in Richmond, which has put the patents and grants online.

Once land was in private hands, every deed, deed of trust, and plat was recorded by the County Clerk, who in West Virginia is both the recorder of deeds and the keeper of wills, estate settlements, and marriage records. Deed books are indexed by grantor and grantee, and the county land books, the annual real-property tax assessments, let you follow a parcel's acreage, value, and owner year by year even when no deed was recorded; a jump in building value in the land book is often the best evidence of when a house went up. For counties formed after 1863, the parent county's deed books hold everything before the split. Our guide to tracing a property's deed history shows how to run a grantor-grantee chain.

West Virginia newspapers and city directories

Nine newspapers were publishing in the new state by 1863, and the Wheeling Intelligencer, which pushed for statehood, is the single most important title for the period. The Archives and History Library keeps the largest newspaper collection in the state, organized in its databases of bound newspapers, microfilmed newspapers, boxed miscellaneous titles, and currently received papers, and the West Virginia and Regional History Center at WVU holds a comparable microfilm run. West Virginia titles digitized under the National Digital Newspaper Program are free and full-text searchable in the Library of Congress Chronicling America database; subscription services such as GenealogyBank and NewspaperArchive cover additional runs, and many public libraries provide free in-library access.

City directories for Wheeling, Charleston, Huntington, Parkersburg, Clarksburg, and the other larger towns are at the Archives and History Library, which lists its holdings in a city directory database, and at the WVU center. In coal country, company-town records and union publications stand in for directories that were never printed; see our article on old city directories for how to use the ones that exist.

Census, military, and statewide indexes

West Virginia has never taken a state census. The federal census of 1870 is the first to enumerate it as a state; earlier returns from 1790 to 1860 are filed under Virginia by county, with the 1790 and 1800 Virginia schedules lost. The 1890 census is gone, but the 1890 Union veterans schedule survives for West Virginia and is unusually useful here because so many families had men on both sides.

• Vital Research Records: free statewide images of county births, deaths, and marriages.
• Civil War and Revolutionary War ancestor guides from Archives and History, plus the Civil War medals database for the state's Union soldiers.
• Veterans Memorial Archives: database of West Virginians who died in service from World War I onward.
• Naturalization records, vertical surname files, and a genealogy surname exchange, all searchable from the Archives databases page.
• West Virginia Memory Project: digitized photographs, documents, and manuscripts from the state collections.

For burials, county death registers after 1853 usually name the cemetery; our guide to finding where someone is buried covers the hollow and family cemeteries that no index records.

Researching a house or building in West Virginia

The West Virginia State Historic Preservation Office shares the Culture Center with the Archives (1900 Kanawha Boulevard East, Charleston; 304-558-0240). It administers the National Register of Historic Places for the state, where roughly 26,300 West Virginia resources are listed individually or as contributors to historic districts, and it publishes the Historic and Archaeological Survey webGIS, an online map of surveyed historic properties. If a building has been surveyed or nominated, the survey form and the National Register nomination will already contain a construction date and ownership history you can verify.

The state's highway historical markers are documented by Archives and History. Sanborn fire insurance maps exist for Wheeling, Charleston, Huntington, Parkersburg, Martinsburg, and dozens of smaller towns and are held by the Archives and WVU; paired with the County Clerk's land books they usually settle the construction decade of a town house. For rural property, start from the Virginia or West Virginia grant, then the deed chain, then the land book values. Our articles on dating your house and researching an old building give the sequence.

Working with West Virginia historical societies

Local history here is organized by county, and many county societies double as the county genealogical society and the keeper of the courthouse's older loose papers. Hours are typically one to three days a week, often in a library or courthouse annex, and winter closures are common in the mountain counties. Because Archives and History has already digitized the vital records, bring your questions about cemeteries, church records, coal company records, and family photographs, which is where the county societies hold material no state office has.

Additional West Virginia History Resources

• West Virginia Archives and History - State archives and library at the Culture Center, Charleston
• Vital Research Records - Free searchable images of West Virginia births, deaths, and marriages
• Archives and History research databases - Index of all online finding aids: newspapers, county records, veterans, naturalizations
• Vital Registration Office - Certified birth, death, and marriage certificates, 350 Capitol Street, Charleston
• West Virginia State Historic Preservation Office - National Register, survey, and tax credit programs
• Historic and Archaeological Survey webGIS - Map of surveyed historic properties statewide
• National Register of Historic Places in West Virginia - State listings and nomination forms
• Library of Virginia - Virginia Land Office patents and grants covering present-day West Virginia

Frequently Asked Questions

Are West Virginia birth, death, and marriage records free online?

Yes. The West Virginia Vital Research Records database, run by Archives and History, is free and returns images of the original county registers and certificates for births, deaths, and marriages once they are past the restriction periods (100 years for births, 50 for deaths and marriages). Certified copies must still be ordered from the county or the Vital Registration Office for $12.

Where are West Virginia records from before 1863?

Everything before June 20, 1863 is a Virginia record, but it stayed in the county courthouse when the state split. County births and deaths from 1853, marriages, deeds, and wills are with the County Clerk and on microfilm at Archives and History in Charleston. The original Virginia Land Office grants are at the Library of Virginia in Richmond.

Who holds deeds in West Virginia?

The County Clerk in each of the 55 counties records deeds and keeps the grantor and grantee indexes, along with wills, estate settlements, and marriage records. The annual land books (real property tax assessments) in the same office track each parcel's owner and value year by year.

How do I find out if a West Virginia building is on the National Register?

Use the State Historic Preservation Office's Historic and Archaeological Survey webGIS map or its National Register pages. About 26,300 West Virginia resources are listed either individually or as contributing buildings in historic districts, and the nomination forms include construction dates and owner histories.