Keeping up with sites that regularly update or add more information can be time-consuming. Some sites send out press releases about new databases and improvements. Others do not.
Personally I’m waiting for a few counties to be added to the online chancery records at the Library of Virginia, some records to be added to the free War of 1812 pension file here at Fold3.com, and newspapers to the Library of Congress “Chronicling America” collection. I may be waiting a while.
I’ve have a list of things I’m waiting for on various sites that are “in progress” and I’ve decided to check monthly (or even less often) to see if new to me items are there. There’s no need to check daily or weekly and a list keeps me more organized and helps me not to forget all the items in which I have an interest.
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Yes, I’m waiting for the chancery records at LVa, too… and I run into so many people that don’t realize what a valuable resource it is… that, and they don’t know when counties formed and from which counties they broke off of… for instance Orange County used to run practically to the Mississippi River. So, looking for a record for an ancestor you know lived in the Winchester, Virginia area… it might do you well to look in the older Orange County records. I search by surname and not county. People also, used to go to the courthouse closest to them and not necessarily in the county they lived.
My genealogy research has been greatly enhanced since I discovered the chancery records. It pays even though it’s exhausting, to read through chancery records, I’ve found an ancestor’s receipts for land in other people’s case, after they bought the land from my ancestor and were squabbling over it after someone’s death… and the stories, just for the stories… from selling a lame horse to spousal abuse to illegitimate children to a slave’s personal history… sometimes they will give a full account of how a slave was bought and all her previous owners and her offspring.
All this and it’s free… not to mention bible records found at LVa, as well… and they’re on-line.
That’s a good reminder about the county boundary changes. I’ve got families who were in Amherst well after the lines were fairly set and am hoping that there are records there. Unless the name is really common, I usually do a statewide search as well. I’ve found several things that way.