JOPLIN, Mo. —
Early settlers in the Ozarks came mainly from four areas: the Carolinas, Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia. If your ancestors came from West Virginia, which was formed from Virginia, you will want to check records of both states.
One of the best websites for researching ancestors in West Virginia is the Vital Research Records Project, which is sponsored by the West Virginia State Archives and the Genealogical Society of Utah. The free site is found at www.wvculture.org/vrr/va_select.aspx.
At the site, researchers can search databases of death, marriage and birth records. Because the records have been digitized, a copy of the original can be printed and studied. From the death records, a person can learn the cemetery where a person was buried, the cause of death, names of parents (including the maiden name of the mother), place and date of birth, the funeral home and similar information.
Marriage records provide the name of the groom and bride, the date and place of marriage, and sometimes the names of parents. Birth records list the date of birth, as well as the name of the father and mother. The website also provides a link to other helpful sites.
Another great site is www.usgenweb.org. When the site opens, scroll down to “West Virginia” and click. When the next screen opens, scroll down to the section called “West Virginia Counties: Images of West Virginia Showing Location of All Counties.” Click on that choice.
The next screen provides a list of maps that show the formation of counties and changes in boundary lines as the state developed and eventually divided into two states. Researchers can look at those maps to see how a site was classified at different times.
A researcher might learn that an ancestor lived at a place that was part of Monongalia County in the 1700s but was later listed as part of Harrison County, which was formed from Monongalia. The place might later be listed as part of Barbour, Webster, Braxton, Gilmer, Doddridge, Lewis or Upshur counties, which were formed from Harrison. A researcher might also discover that the place was in a region of Virginia that became West Virginia in 1863.
After checking the maps, click on the back arrow at the top of the screen and return to the page that lists the counties of West Virginia. That chart is helpful because it includes the date that each county was formed and the parent counties from which it was formed.
Look through the list and find a county where your ancestors lived. Click on that county. The information that you will learn at the county site depends on the volunteer coordinator for that site. Usually the coordinators post info about cemeteries, census records, maps, charts, obituaries, family records and queries. Contact info for other county resources is often included, too.
Upcoming program
If your ancestors lived in West Virginia, you will want to attend the Joplin Genealogy Society meeting on Thursday at 306 Wall. Don Mosley will present the program, which will start at 6 p.m.
Don grew up in a log cabin on a mountaintop in the Skygust community of the Appalachian region of West Virginia. His childhood home was but a few miles from Mingo County, where the famous Hatfield-McCoy feud and Matewan Massacre occurred.
The mountain where Don and his family lived had no road until the 1930s, when the young men of the Civilian Conservation Corps cut one. Before that time, families loaded supplies onto a sled and used a draft horse to pull the sled up and down the slick clay soil of the mountainside. Similar to most men in the area, Don’s father worked in the coal mines.
I recently visited with Don and learned some of the topics that he plans to include in his program, such as his family history, the community, the mountains, the mines and his experiences growing up in the area. Since local families often encountered copperheads and rattlesnakes, he will have some humorous stories about them, too. For more information, call 624-3125.
Suggestions or queries? Send to Frankie Meyer, P.O. Box 731, Joplin, MO 64802, or contact: frankiemeyer@yahoo.com.
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Frankie Meyer: West Virginian ancestors can be studied on Internet
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