Jamestown & Colonial Virginia

Forget the Mayflower and Plymouth, Massachussetts this Thanksgiving. Jamestown, Virginia was the first permanent English settlement in North America.

English settlers founded Jamestown and the colony of Virginia in 1607. Around 7,000 people would arrive in Virginia between 1607 and 1625.

Find your earliest Virginian ancestors with these books in the Genealogy & Local History Room.

Adventurers of Purse and Person, Virginia, 1607-1624/5
Genealogies of the earliest settlers in Viriginia through at least three generations.

Jamestowne Ancestors, 1607-1699: Commemoration of the 400th Landing at James Towne, 1607-2007
A list of all residents of Jamestowne Island from 1607-1699. The lists include information the time period the person resided in Virginia and their place of origin.

Jamestown People to 1800: Landowners, Public Officials, Minorities, and Native Leaders
Provides a thorough history of Jamestown and colonial Virginia. Includes in-depth biographies of  colonists and members of the native populations living in and around Jamestown.

Virginia Immigrants and Adventurers, 1607-1635: A Biographical Dictionary
Short biographies of the earliest prominent Virginian settlers.

Look for even more colonial Virginian resources in the Genealogy Room including vital records and local histories.

WEST VIRGINIA ARCHIVES AND HISTORY LIBRARY

Do you have West Virginia ancestors?

West Virginia Archives and History Library: Culture Center offers YouTube presentations on the first Tuesday and second Thursday of the month.

They record all speakers in the Library and post them on their YouTube channel.

Library patrons must register to use the Library, and can provide an e-mail address to receive notices announcing their speakers.

Their online newsletter, West Virginia Archives and History News, contains articles about upcoming lectures.  A schedule with several months programming is listed in each issue.  Not all speakers address topics limited to a West Virginia audience.

Do You Have West Virginia Ancestors?

West Virginia Archives and History offers a genealogy newsletter and a genealogy surname exchange. You can print the online form or submit it electronically.

The Surname Exchange is a list of surnames and researchers compiled from the West Virginia State Archives' Genealogy Exchange cards submitted since 1987, a surname exchange conducted during the second "Mining Your History" Conference at The Cultural Center, and all genealogy exchange requests submitted by patrons since October 1995. More than 3,200 researchers from all fifty states and ten countries currently participate in the exchange, which is designed to allow genealogists to contact others who are conducting research on identical surnames.