Roanoke

Roanoke County Genealogy, Wills, Estates, Probate Records, Marriages

The county, located in the Blue Ridge Mountains, was established during March of 1838 when an Act of the Virginia Legislature took the southern part of Botetourt County. It was named for the Roanoke River. Later, in 1845, additional territory was transferred to Roanoke County from Montgomery County. Salem was originally the county seat until Salem became an independent city and the Roanoke Court House was removed to the Cave Spring District. Ultimately, the Roanoke towns and cities became a district for the territory known as ” Roanoke” Adjoining counties are Bedford, Botetourt (whose land was transferred into Kentucky), Craig, Floyd, Franklin, and Montgomery Counties. Essentially, genealogists with ancestors in the Blue Ridge Mountains should research all of these counties to understand more about where their ancestors resided or migrated from.~

Images of Wills and Estates 1838 to 1903

Images of Wills and Estates 1841-1844

Images of Wills and Estates 1841 to 1898

Marriages

Marriage Register (colored) No. 1, 1881 to 1919
Marriage Register No. 7, 1949 to 1959
Marriage Register No. 8, 1960 to 1967

The Other Side of the Bridge

Take a walk on the other side of the bridge and Join the Pioneer Families Community to enjoy more genealogy records and resources. Most families traveled rather extensively in the old days, searching for fertile land. While families grew in size, soil in Virginia was quickly depleted from planting tobacco, and planters, of necessity, had to let land lie vacant for several years in a stretch. Settlers were already searching for more land before the Revolutionary War. For this reason, the bounty grants and land lotteries opened up new opportunities. The custom was that the first-born son inherited the family plantation. Younger brothers had to move on and make their own way. An examination of deed records reveals that friends and relatives moved in droves towards the new opportunities. As families crossed into other States, it then becomes necessary for the genealogist to examine the county records at every stop they made. This website strives to upload as many county records as possible on a weekly basis. That means images of old wills, estates, inventories, appraisements, guardianships, deeds, and marriages, as well as bible records, cemeteries, pensions, obituaries, and traces of genealogies.

Take a look at this map to study how your ancestors may have crossed over in Virginia. A vast number of immigrants first entered Pennsylvania and took the wagon trails south and southwest.

About the French and Indian War

During the years that Cromwell and his party were in power in England and after Charles II was restored to the English throne, the colonists cleared the forests, planted fields, traded with the Indians, and established their homes in the wilderness of the New World. And the migration continued with settlers in Pennsylvania and Virginia pushing further westward into the valley of Ohio, while the English settlers in New York made their way through the forest towards the Great Lake. However, more than seventy years before Jamestown was settled, a French explorer by the name of Cartier entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence, sailed up the river of the same name, and took taken possession of the wilderness country in the name of France; afterward known as the great French stronghold in America.

Then, in 1608, a Frenchman by the name of Champlain sailed up the beautiful river St. Lawrence and was so charmed with the scenery of the country that he began to plant a colony on the site of what is now Quebec. The settlement soon became a city and the capital of the French possessions in America. The French were also the first explorers of the vast interior regions of our country. Their fur traders and trappers kept on good terms with the Indians, and slowly pushed along the shores of the Great Lakes until they had established a chain of trading posts from St. Lawrence to Lake Superior. About the time of King Philip’s War in New England, Father Marquette discovered the upper Mississippi and floated down this great river nearly as far as the mouth of Arkansas. However, it was the brave French explorers and fur traders by the name of La Salle who gave France the right to claim as her own the vast domain of the Mississippi valley. When these sons of the forest found the English encroaching upon their lands and hunting grounds, they resented it. Meanwhile, another concern, the Indian tribes had steadily diminished, and they were unable to cope single-handed with the English. Hence they naturally looked to the French for help, and the French readily induced the Indians to join them against the English and their American descendants. It was a fierce struggle. English and American blood flowed like water before it ended. The Indians never fought in an open field, but always after their own fashion. They trusted sudden attacks, especially at night, and to rapid raids, doing their savage work suddenly and retreating swiftly into the forest. Lonely families and small settlements suffered the most. Like lightning out of the clear sky came the horror of an Indian night attack. The war-whoop waked the midnight sleepers and the glare of burning cabins lighted up the darkness. The massacre of defenseless women and children crimsoned the earth in scores of settlements during these cruel wars. Source: The Story of American History for Elementary Schools by Albert F. Blaisdell (1902). Indian Villages, etc. The Battle of Crown Point Massacre and Torture of the Moore Family