Source Information

Ancestry.com. Virginia, U.S., Marriage Records, 1700-1850 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.
Original data:

Bentley, Elizabeth Petty, indexer. Virginia Marriage Records: From the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, the William and Mary College Quarterly, and Tyler's Quarterly. Baltimore, MD: Genealogy Publishing Co., Inc., 1984.

About Virginia, U.S., Marriage Records, 1700-1850

Elizabeth Bentley’s book Virginia Marriage Records contains details on Virginia marriages extracted from three publications: Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, the William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine, and Tyler’s Quarterly Historical and Genealogical Magazine. The book’s introductory note offers some background on the original sources:

“For the most part these marriage lists were compiled from marriage bonds, ministers’ returns, licenses, registers, ministerial records, and newspapers. While they represent only a fraction of the marriages recorded in Virginia through the mid-nineteenth century, their range is still quite substantial. If they are somewhat uneven in coverage, it is owing as much to the variety of contributors as the condition of the records themselves. In some cases the articles are copious and complete; in others merely fragmentary. Some have appeared in revised or expanded versions, or in different versions entirely, while a great many have never appeared anywhere but in the periodicals. Whatever their strengths or weaknesses, in the aggregate or individually, they have been brought together here for the convenience they afford the researcher in having a widely scattered body of materials available in a single volume.”

What You Can Find in the Records

Marriages are arranged by county and then date. Entries typically include

  • name
  • spouse’s name
  • marriage or bond date
  • marriage county

Some may also provide witnesses, residence, marital status, or other details.