Powhatan County Virginia History and Genealogy

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Iberian Publishing Company's On-Line Catalog:
Powhatan County Virginia

Powhatan County was formed on 1 July 1777 from the eastern portion of Cumberland County and named for Powhatan, the noted Indian ruler. A small portion of Chesterfield County was added to Powhatan in 1850. Powhatan was one of the sites where numerous Huguenot families settled in the great immigration of French Protestants in 1700.

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POWHATAN CO., VA 1810 CENSUS transcribed, with an index by John Vogt. 10 1/2 x 8 1/2, x, 15 pages, illustrations, maps, index.. This is the first surviving census for Powhatan, since both the 1790 and 1800 censuses have been lost. A complete index is included for easy access. This document should be a complement to the fine work of Roger Ward (below) on land taxes in the county.
[POW10] $6.00 (printed version)

The above title is also available as a digital e-book in PDF format:
[EPOW10] $3.50 (electronic version)

THE DOUGLAS REGISTER, Being a detailed record of Births, Marriages and Deaths together with other interesting notes, as kept by the Reverend William Douglas, from 1750 to 1797 [With an Index of Goochland Wills and Notes on the French Huguenot Refugees who Lived in Manakin-Town].
Richmond, Va., 1928 edition, vi, 408 pages AVAILABLE IN ELECTRONIC (PDF) FORMAT ONLY

The celebrated Douglas Register is an indispensable compilation of births, marriages, and deaths covering the period from about 1750 to 1797, with some miscellaneous records going back to 1705. The registers are for the parishes of St. James Northam (Dover Church) and King William, but they concern individuals who were residents of the Virginia counties of Fluvanna, Goochland, Louisa, Orange, and Spotsylvania. Entries under the headings of births, marriages, and deaths are arranged alphabetically, with marriages divided into separate lists for husbands and wives. The entries exceed several thousand in number. The book also includeslists of Huguenot settlers at Manakin-Town (King William Parish) and an index of Goochland County wills, 1728-1840, containing about 1,000 names with references to dates and locations.

[EDREG] $18.00 (electronic version only

POWHATAN COUNTY MARRIAGES, 1777-1850 John Vogt & T. William Kethley, Jr. 1985, viii, 143 pages, indices, figure, map. Powhatan County was organized in 1777 from a portion of Cumberland County. From the county's registers in the Virginia State Library, Archives Division, 1,425 marriages have been compiled. Ancillary data in most records include bondsman, parents, witnesses, and minister's name.
[Powh] $17.00

The above title is also available as a digital e-book in PDF format:
[EPOWH] $10.00 (electronic version)

POWHATAN COUNTY, VIRGINIA WILLS, 1777-1795 by Benjamin B. Weisiger, III, 1986. 70 pages, index. This book contains abstracts of Will Book #1.
Family names and miscellaneous data included in the Powhatan Wills, 1777-1795 are available here: Surname list
[Pwh1] $14.95

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[EPwh1] $9.00 (electronic version)

Powhatan Co. 1815 Directory of Landowners by Roger G. Ward. 2005. 13 pages, map, 5 1/2X8 1/2.
For a full description of the 1815 LAND DIRECTORY Records and a listing of available counties, see combined volume below

[Vd82] $6.00

The above title is also available as a digital e-book in PDF format:

[EVd82] $4.50 (electronic version)

1815 DIRECTORY OF VIRGINIA LANDOWNERS & GAZETTEER, vol. 1 Central Region (Includes the counties of Albemarle, Amelia, Amherst, Buckingham, Charles City, Chesterfield, Cumberland, Dinwiddie, Fluvanna, Goochland, Hanover, Henrico, independent city of Petersburg, independent city of Richmond, Louisa, Nelson, New Kent, Nottoway, Powhatan, and Prince George.) abstracted by Roger G. Ward. 1997, vi, 239 pages, indices, maps.
In 1782 the General Assembly of Virginia enacted new tax laws which created within each county an enumeration of land and certain personal property. These early land tax laws required a tax commissioner in each district of a county to record a list of the names of persons owning land or town lots, the quantity of land owned and its value, and the amount of tax owed. By 1813, a brief geographic description (usually citing an adjacent stream, road, or other landmark) was required; in 1814, the distance and direction from the courthouse for each parcel was also added to the tax rolls.
The present work is an alphabetical listing of all 1815 landowners found in each county, as well as the accompanying description of the location of the said property. We have not included the number of acres, taxes assessed, or any transactions between landowners which may have been noted on the tax rolls; also, in many cases the geographic location was provided as "adjacent to John Smith", etc. and, while useful many times to a genealogist, was considered to be beyond the objectives of this project. The reader is encouraged to consider the information here-in as an "outline" of early landowners in Virginia rather than a "text" due to the year-to-year variation in information provided to the clerk (or recorded by the clerk), omissions, lack of "identifiers" to determine if "same name" was also "same person" within a district or across districts, marginal quality/clarity (in a few cases) of the microfilm copy, and, not least, errors on the part of either the original clerks or the current author while transcribing.
Some of the approaches to utilizing the 1815 landowner information include:
observe distinct clusters of the same surname within a county in order to clarify the common surnames such as "Smith", "Anderson", etc;
identify non-resident landowners and their county (or state) of residence (these people often being former residents of the current county);
determine neighbors with different surnames (often being relatives);
use the 1815 information as a "bridge" from the 18th and 19th century deed/will books to the 17th and 18th century land grants/patents in the county;
evaluate the 1810 to 1840 census information which generally grouped neighbors;
substitute this information for missing deed/will books in the "burned" counties; and, clarify/enhance vague deed/will information in the counties with more complete records.
FORMAT OF PRESENTATION: Each entry is listed as: Surname, name, personal identifiers (if any); location/place-name of land; miles/direction from the 1815 courthouse. If multiple owners are listed for a property, the listing is duplicated under each of the owner's surnames (i.e "Smith and Brown" is also listed as "Brown, --see Smith"); when multiple owners share a common surname, the property is only listed once. When a landowner had land at more than one location/place-name, the miles/direction listing for each parcel is in the same sequence as the location listing (i.e. James RV, Slate CK; 12N, 5SW.). In the few cases where a landowner had "many" parcels, the miles/direction notation is attached to the location listing (i.e. Sandy RV- 5NE, Willow CK-7S, etc.)

[Vdl1] $32.00 (paper version)

The above title is also available as a digital e-book in PDF format:

[EVDL-1] $20.00 (electronic version)

Powhatan Co. Revolutionary Public Claims transcribed by Janice L. Abercrombie and Richard Slatten.. 2005. 40 pages, 5 1/2X8 1/2.
For a full description of the Virginia Revolutionary Public Claims and a listing of available counties, see: Revolutionary "Publick" Claims series

To view a digital copy (pdf) of the index to this book, visit Index-Powhatan
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[Pc54] $7.00 (printed version)

The above title is also available as a digital e-book in PDF format:

[EPc54] $4.00 (electronic version)

For more records pertaining to POWHATAN COUNTY, VIRGINIA see also:

MEN IN GRAY INTERMENTS series
Cumberland County
Chesterfield County
Guide to Virginia Militia Units in the War of 1812
Chart on the Formation of Virginia Counties
Atlas of County Boundary Changes in Virginia, 1634-1895
Index to the 1810 Virginia Census

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Iberian Publishing Company's On-Line Catalog: Powhatan County Virginia

Iberian Publishing Company's On-Line Catalog:
Powhatan County Virginia