Chancery Order of Publication

You've probably seen a few of these when browsing the Notices section of your local newspaper.  Then, as now, Chancery and other estate and court proceedings were published so that all parties could be made aware of the Order (especially if they were out of State or hard to locate).

This Order of Publication concerned a chancery case between James Lawrence Cole, Executor of Jane Cole, deceased (his mother and my gggreat-grandmother) versus S. B. Howell and M.C. Howell.

Marriage License: Edgar Lee Moler and Olive E. Long

This marriage license between Edgar Lee Moler and Olive E. Long, daughter of Simeon and Margaret Long of Independent Hill, was Exhibit A in a 1921 chancery case in Prince William County.  Mrs. Moler (aged 34) was suing for divorce from her husband because he "gambled and staid away from home all the time." 

Chancery documents

Think Chancery records are filled with boring old legal documents and correspondence between attorneys?  They're not!  You might be surprised by some of the documents that are made of record to prove a party's claims, like the following marriage license in the 1913 divorce case between Martha Davis and John H. Carter.

Davis Carter marriage license

It's a copy of the ornate license, which includes the names of the parents of both bride and groom. 

Chancery records might also hold bonds, deeds, wills, plats, and genealogies.

PWCo. Chancery Records Online

For online digital collections, I highly recommend the Library of Virginia.  If you can't get to Richmond, LVA's Virginia Memory site is the next best thing to being there.  Here you can find links to records and scanned images of Revolutionary War Bounty Warrents, Confederate pension rolls, and more.

One link that I never tire of visiting is the Chancery Records Index.

What is a chancery cause?  To quote the LVA FAQ, "a chancery case was one that could not be readily decided by existing written laws. A judge, not a jury, determines the outcome of the case. These types of court documents are useful when researching genealogical information and land or estate divisions and may contain correspondence, lists of heirs, or vital statistics, among other items. Cases in chancery often address estate and business disputes, debt, the resolution of land disputes, and divorce."

The Chancery records for Prince William County in the collection cover the years 1804 to 1954 with scanned images available online.  It is searchable by surname or date range.

Searching the index and viewing the images is free.