Virginia Genealogy is being developed as a genealogical and historical resource for your personal use. It contains information and records for Virginia ancestry, family history, and genealogy. Specifically, it provides sources for birth records, death records, marriage records, census records, tax records, court records, and military records. It also provides some historical details about different times and people in Virginia history.
Virginia County Names
Virginia County Names: Two hundred and seventy years of Virginia History
This book tells the story of how Virginia’s counties received their names and, through those names, explores the history, thoughts, and sentiments of the people who named them. The county names themselves suggest a remarkable breadth of history and provide material for understanding Virginia’s colonial past from a perspective unlike that offered by the county names of any other state. While this is not intended as a history of Virginia, the names serve as a means of illuminating important portions of the Old Dominion’s history—the names being the magnet and the facts of Virginia history the iron filings drawn to them.
Every effort has been made to verify the facts presented and, where certainty was not possible, to indicate the degree of doubt involved. Because the origins and associations of Virginia’s county names extend far beyond the boundaries of the Commonwealth, the account reaches back as far as 1370 in Scottish history and forward to the Jamestown Exposition of 1907, where many men for whom Virginia counties were named were commemorated.
The subtitle, Two Hundred and Seventy Years of Virginia History, reflects the principal span of the narrative. It begins with the founding of Jamestown in 1607 and follows the naming of Virginia’s counties through 1880, when the state’s youngest county was organized.
Recent Virginia Genealogy
Virginia County Names: Two hundred and seventy years of Virginia History
Virginia County Names: Two hundred and seventy years of Virginia History aims to tell how the Virginia counties got their names, and in telling the story it endeavors to show that the thoughts and feelings of the Virginians are reflected in the names the counties bear.
Hon. Floridus S. Crosby
Hon. Floridus S. Crosby was a Staunton lawyer and judge, born in 1893. After graduating from the University of Virginia Law School in 1917, he served as Commonwealth attorney and Corporation Court judge before becoming judge of Virginia’s Eighteenth Judicial Circuit in 1942. His civic, professional, and Episcopal Church service, along with his 1925 marriage to Martha Virginia Bell, are also documented.
Harry Flood Byrd Jr.
Harry Flood Byrd Jr. (born 1914) of Winchester, Virginia, was a newspaper publisher, orchardist, and Virginia state senator. Son of Senator Harry F. Byrd, he edited the Winchester Evening Star, published the Harrisonburg Daily News-Record, and cultivated apples. A World War II Naval Reserve lieutenant commander, he married Gretchen Bigelow Thompson and had three children.
John Campbell Boggs
John Campbell Boggs (1896–?) was a Virginia educator and longtime principal of Randolph-Macon Academy in Front Royal. A Duke graduate, he served with the American Expeditionary Force during World War I, earning the Purple Heart and Distinguished Service Cross after being wounded. He also served in the Virginia National Guard, was active in the Methodist Church, and married Mattie Walton Epes.
Junius Parker Fishburn
Junius Parker Fishburn was a prominent Roanoke newspaper and radio executive, banker, and civic leader. President of the Times-World Corporation, he also served on banking, railway, utility, educational, and civic boards. A Princeton graduate and Presbyterian, Fishburn married Katherine Rodes Nelson in 1926; they had two children, Sally Hart and Robert Nelson.
Junius Blair Fishburn
Junius Blair Fishburn’s biography traces his rise from a young Roanoke banker to a leading financial, publishing, and civic figure in Virginia. It details his family heritage, marriage and children, decades with the National Exchange and First National Exchange Banks, leadership in business, major land and park donations, educational service, church work, and extensive organizational affiliations.
Charles Vernon Eddy
Charles Vernon Eddy of Winchester, Virginia, was a printer, publisher, librarian, civic leader, and prominent Freemason. Co-founder of the Eddy Press, he later led Handley Library and served numerous community organizations. Elected Sovereign Grand Master of the Allied Masonic Degrees in 1948, Eddy was also active in Presbyterian church work, the Red Cross, Boy Scouts, and local historical organizations.
Samuel Thomas Brown
Samuel Thomas Brown (1896–) was a Cornell-trained mechanical engineer, industrial executive, and consulting engineer who led several coal companies and the Virginia Iron, Coal and Coke Company. A United States Naval Reserve ensign, he belonged to prominent civic, fraternal, and business organizations and lived in Roanoke with his wife, Katherine, and their three children.
Major General Evarts Walton Opie
Major General Evarts Walton Opie (1893–?) of Staunton, Virginia, was a newspaper publisher, civic leader, and longtime Virginia National Guard officer. He led the 116th Infantry through expansion and wartime training, supervised combat replacements during World War II, and retired in 1946 as a major general. The biography also traces his family, Episcopal service, marriage, and children.
Eugene Paul Sakers
Eugene Paul Sakers (1922–?) was a Baltimore native who served in the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II before becoming a commercial pilot, flight instructor, and executive secretary of the Winchester Chamber of Commerce. This biographical and genealogical account covers his education, career, military service, Episcopal faith, and 1949 marriage to Marcia Whipple.
Robert L. Lynn
Robert L. Lynn was a longtime Roanoke business leader and president of S. H. Heironimus Company, one of the Shenandoah Valley’s leading department stores. A Virginia Military Institute graduate, he was active in civic and religious organizations. Lynn married Virginia Dawson in 1935, and they had three children: Robert, Elizabeth, and Richard.
