Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Use Restrictions

Use microfilm copy, Russell County (Va.) Reel 81.

Preferred Citation

Russell County (Va.) Register of Convicts, 1880-1956. Russell County (Va.) Reel 81, Local government records collection, Russell County Court Records. The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia 23219.

Acquisition Information

This volume came to the Library of Virginia in a transfer of court papers from Russell County.

Reel 81 was generated by Backstage Library Works through the Library of Virginia's Circuit Court Records Preservation Program.

Historical Information

Russell County was named for General Willliam Russell, a Clinch Valley pioneer and the member of the House of Delegates who introduced the legislation forming the county from Washington County in 1786.

During the 1869-1870 session, the General Assembly passed an "Act to Secure Identification of Persons Convicted of Criminal Offences." On 2 November 1870, the act was approved. The act specified that "every clerk of the court of each county and corporation shall keep a register of full and accurate descriptive lists of every person convicted in his own or any other court of record of his county or corporation, of felony or other infamous offence, and a duly certified and attested copy of any such descriptive list may be used as prima facie evidence of the facts therein stated in any question of identity. Such registers shall be kept written up, well indexed, and shall be open to public inspection at reasonable hours. The register shall follow a set form and each descriptive list shall be attested by said clerk."

In addition, "the clerk of every court of record of each county or corporation, other than the county or corporation court, shall within ten days from the date of conviction of any person in his court of any offence mentioned in the first section of this act, deliver to the clerk of the county or corporation court, for record in said register, an attested descriptive list of the person so convicted, in the form hereinbefore prescribed." The judges of the respective courts are responsible for seeing that the provisions of the act are "punctually and properly carried out" by their respective clerks. The act was amended on 18 January 1871 and outlined the following: "For the services mentioned in this or the first section of this act, the clerk shall be entitled to a fee of fifty cents, to be paid out of the state treasury." By and large, the county and circuit court clerks went about compiling these registers throughout the counties of Virginia as late as the 1960s.

Order books record all matters brought before the court when it was in session and may contain important information not found anywhere else. A wide variety of information is found in order books--including individuals convicted of felonies.

This original register was created by the County and Circuit Courts.

Scope and Content

Russell County (Va.) Register of Convicts, 1880-1956, is a comprehensive register of convicted felons for the county. This register includes the name in full of the convict and whether there are any aliases, the present and last known residence of the accused, the color or race of the individual (including white, black, dark brown, and mulatto), the individual's height, eye color, hair color and any identifying marks, the apparent and known age of the criminal, his or her occupation, the offense, the court in which convicted, date of conviction and page of record book and whether the judgment was reversed or pardon granted (later identified as penalty or sentence or term of imprisonment.)

Arrangement

Entries are made by year of conviction.

Related Material

Additional Russell County Court Records can be found on microfilm at the Library of Virginia. Consult "A Guide to Virginia County and City Records on Microfilm."

Russell County is one of Virginia's Lost Records Localities. Additional Russell County Court Records may be found in the Virginia Lost Records Localities Collection at the Library of Virginia. Search the Lost Records Localities Database found at the Library of Virginia's web site.

Adjunct Descriptive Data