Administrative Information

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Preferred Citation

Shenandoah County (Va.) Register of Convicts, 1872-1927. Local government records collection, Shenandoah 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 Shenandoah County.

Historical Information

Shenandoah County was named Dunmore when it was formed from Frederick County in May 1772. A statute changed the name of the county effective 1 February 1778. The county was named for the Shenandoah River, which passes through the county.

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 Court until 1904. After this time, the names of the convicted were recorded by the Circuit Court in Common Law Order Books.

Scope and Content

Shenandoah County (Va.) Register of Convicts, 1872-1927, is a comprehensive list of "persons convicted of felony or other infamous offences" in the county. Based on a set form, the listings of each conviction include the individual's name in full and any aliases, the present and last known residence of the accused, the color or race of the individual (including white, black and colored), the individual's height, eye color, hair color and any identifying marks, the apparent or known age of the accused, his or her occupation, the offence, the court in which convicted, the date of conviction and page of record and whether the judgment was reversed or pardon granted and date thereof. Only pages 1-6 in the volume were used to record information. The volume has an internal index but there are single entries for only surnames with the letters, G, R and S. There is a single loose (yellow) page with names and information on additional convicts.

Related Material

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

Index Terms

Corporate Names:

• Shenandoah County (Va.) Circuit Court.

Subjects:

• African American prisoners--Virginia--Shenandoah County.
• African Americans--Employment--Virginia--Shenandoah County.
• African Americans--History--1863-1877.
• African Americans--History--1877-1964.
• African Americans--Virginia--Shenandoah County.
• Crime--Virginia--Shenandoah County.
• Occupations--Virginia--Shenandoah County.
• Prisoners--Virginia--Shenandoah County.
• Public records--Virginia--Shenandoah County.

Geographical Names:

• Shenandoah County (Va.)--History.

Genre and Form Terms:

• Criminal court records--Virginia--Shenandoah County.
• Local government records--Virginia--Shenandoah County.
• Order books--Virginia--Shenandoah County.
• Registers (lists)--Virginia--Shenandoah County.

Added Entry - Corporate Name:

• Shenandoah County (Va.) County Court.

Adjunct Descriptive Data