Wedding Wednesday: Mary Belle (Pridmore) Merchant / Benjamin Merchant

You never know what you're going to find when sifting through chancery and legal cases.  The marriage license shown below was an exhibit in the 1913 divorce suit between Mary Belle (Pridmore) Merchant and husband Benjamin Merchant.  It is a gold mine of information, including the names of both bride and groom's parents.  In addition, the case itself mentions the name of their child, Warren Merchant.

This divorce case can be found online at the Library of Virginia's digital collection under the chancery records.

(The suit was dismissed on 5 May 1913 at Mary's request.) 

Friend of Friends Friday: Statement of Sale

Exhibit B in the Chancery case of Adm. Of Hezekiah Fairfax etc. v. Margaret Fairfax, Widow (1858) (LVA Index No. 1858-001) is an “Statement of the sale of slave John" (also referenced in the Deed from Hezekiah Fairfax to William Fairfax).

~ ~ ~

B

Statement of the sale of slave John, mentioned in the deed from Hezekiah Fairfax decd. To Wm. Fairfax, who ran away from the latter on 1 September 1838, and was sold on the 12^th of the same month – with the expenses and charges attending his pursuit and taking up – per statement on oath of Samuel Tansill taken at instance of Fra. C. Davis the Plaintiff in this suit.

1838		Doll Ct	Doll Ct
Sept. 12	Amt. for which John was sold by Saml. Tansill as agent for Wm. Fairfax on this day per his statement		800.00
	Paid by same for taking John up per do [ditto]	200.00
	Other expenses attending the taking John up per do	97.26
	Balance after deducting charges and expenses of pursuing and taking up John as above stated	502.74
		800.00	800.00
	Balance of purchase money of John after deducting above		502.74

Wordless Wednesday: Bull Run battlefield

(Source:  Library of Virginia Special Collections Stereograph Collection; Soldiers' graves, Bull Run battlefield, Va. negative by Brady & Co., Washington)

Death Index of Virginia, 1853-1896

The Library of Virginia's Death Records Indexing Project is an index of microfilmed versions of local registers as part of a long-term, state-wide project to provide better access to local death records.  Each index entry provides the name of the deceased, the date of death, information about slaves and slave owners if present, and the year and page number of the register where the death is recorded.

The online database is fully keyword searchable and currently contains over 46,000 entries.

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.