The February 2025 issue of the Magazine of Virginia Genealogy is now available to members, and the print copy is on its way.
To access the digital version, members should log in to the website and then click on Publications > Magazine of Virginia Genealogy Archive.
An excerpt from “In This Issue: Following the Trail,” reminds us to follow a record’s trail to see what other records may have been created.
One thing leads to another is true of records. A marriage bond begets a license which begets a minister’s return, a newspaper announcement, an entry in the church register, another entry in the newspaper’s social column, etc. We could go on, but hopefully the message is clear. Rarely, if ever does a single record stand on its own, yet we frequently fail to follow the trail of a record to see what else we can learn.
Following trails is what research is about. Some may dead end, but if we are alert to the possibilities, we may finally find the answer.
Examples of “following the trail” are included throughout this issue’s articles (see the Table of Contents below) including following the order books to the loose papers; utilizing the overseers of the poor records which exist for all counties, even those with record loss; and little things in a will, like a husband who receives none of the land his wife apparently owns, written in a time when wives did not have the power to write a will without a husband’s consent.
TIPS FOR READING THE MAGAZINE
The editor introduces each issue’s contents in the “In This Issue.” section. If you don’t read this section, you will miss a tremendous amount of valuable information! If you haven’t made it a habit to read this section in the past, we highly recommend pulling your back issues off the shelf and doing so immediately.
Always read the article introductions. Don’t just skim the articles looking for surnames of interest. Read the article introductions even if the article isn’t for a county you’re interested in. Those same records may also be available for counties you are interested in, and when you find those records, you’ll know something about them.
