Gloucester County was created in 1651 from the northeastern portion of its parent county, York. Settlement in the region had begun as early as 1635, when the first land patent was made to Augustine Warner. The new county was named for Gloucester County, England. in 1791 Gloucester was divided, with its eastern portion becoming Mathews County.
Most of the early records of Gloucester are no longer extant. An 1821 fire in the clerk's office destroyed many early books, and most of the remainder went up in flames in April, 1865 in Richmond, where they had been sent for "safekeeping".
To order by phone, call 1-706-546-6740 M-F 8a-6p EST.
You may call the number above during business hours to check the status of an order, or
E-mail us
Please see our HELP PAGE for mail-order instructions, wholesaler policies and other contact information.
We specialize in records for Virginia 1650-1900.
Use these convenient pull-down menus to jump quickly to a county of interest:
GLOUCESTER CO. VA. METHODIST RECORDS
Abstracted by Michael Pollock. viii, 501pp. every-name index (10.75"x8.25"),paper.A major reason for the lack of records in Methodist churches is that historically ministers have been assigned by the bishop of the governing conference for a term of 2 years with the possibility, when the same was requested, for an extension of a further 2 years. With many ministers either being circuit riders or working part-time because their congregations were too small, most record-keeping was done by the ministers and those records generally followed the minister when he moved on to his next assignment. Those instances where the records for a specific congregation extend for a longer period of time were likely to be instances where the congregation had what is known within the Methodist Church as a “local preacher”, i.e., a minister who was paid solely by his congregation, or in this specific instance, as the results of the efforts of such extraordinary individuals as Jefferson W. Stubbs, who served for 50 years as recording steward of the Gloucester Circuit of the Methodist Episcopal, South, Conference of Virginia. They survive because of the keen interest of his son William Carter Stubbs in both history and genealogy.For records pertaining to Gloucester COUNTY, VIRGINIA see:
To order by phone, call 1-706-546-6740 M-F 8a-6p EST.
You may call the number above during business hours to check the status of an order, or
E-mail us
Click here for mail-order instructions.
Copyright © 2006 New Papyrus Publishing Company