Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Use Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Preferred Citation

Prince George County (Va.) Chancery Causes, 1918-1956. (Cite style of suit and chancery index no.). Local Government Records Collection, Prince George County Court Records. The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia 23219.

Acquisition Information

These items came to the Library of Virginia in a shipment of court papers from Prince George County under accession number 44500.

Historical Information

Chancery Causes are cases of equity. According to Black's Law Dictionary they are "administered according to fairness as contrasted with the strictly formulated rules of common law." A judge, not a jury, determines the outcome of the case.

Prince George County was named for Prince George of Denmark, husband of Queen Anne of England. It was formed from Charles City County in 1702.

Most court records were destroyed in 1782 by British troops during the Revolutionary War and again in 1864 by Union troops during the Civil War. A few volumes that record deeds, court orders, and wills exist.

Scope and Content

Prince George County (Va.) Chancery Causes, 1918-1956, are indexed into the Chancery Records Index . Cases are identified by style of suit consisting of plaintiff and defendant names. Surnames of others involved in a suit, including secondary plaintiffs and defendants, witnesses, deponents and affiants, and family members with surnames different from the plaintiff or defendant are indexed. Chancery causes often involved the following: divisions of estates or land, disputes over wills, divorces, debt, and business disputes. Predominant documents found in chancery causes include bills (plaintiff's complaint), answers (defendant's response), decrees (court's decision), depositions, affidavits, correspondence, lists of heirs, deeds, wills, slave records, business records or vital statistics, among other items. Plats, if present, are noted, as are wills from localities with an incomplete record of wills or localities other than the one being indexed.

Chancery causes are useful when researching local history, genealogical information, and land or estate divisions. They are a valuable source of local, state, social, and legal history and serve as a primary source for understanding a locality's history.

Arrangement

Organized by case, of which each is assigned a unique index number comprised of the latest year found in case and a sequentially increasing 3-digit number assigned by the processor as cases for that year are found. Arranged chronologically.

Related Material

Additional Prince George County Court Records can be found on microfilm at The Library of Virginia web site. Consult "A Guide to Virginia County and City Records on Microfilm."

Digital images of pre-1918 Prince George County Chancery Causes are available on the Library of Virginia's Chancery Records Index .

See the Library of Virginia's Chancery Records Index for the chancery records of other Virginia localities.

Prince George County is one of Virginia's Lost Records Localities. Additional Prince George County Records may be found in the Virginia Lost Records Localities Collection at the Library of Virginia. Search the Lost Records Localities Digital Collection available at Virginia Memory.

For more information and a listing of lost records localities see Lost Records research note .

Index Terms

Corporate Names:

• Prince George County (Va.) Circuit Court

Subjects:

• African Americans -- History
• Business enterprises -- Virginia -- Prince George County
• Debt -- Virginia -- Prince George County
• Divorce suits -- Virginia -- Prince George County
• Equity -- Virginia -- Prince George County
• Estates (Law) -- Virginia -- Prince George County
• Land subdivision -- Virginia -- Prince George County

Geographical Names:

• Prince George County (Va.) -- Genealogy
• Prince George County (Va.) -- History -- 20th century

Genre and Form Terms:

• Chancery causes -- Virginia -- Prince George County
• Deeds -- Virginia -- Prince George County
• Judicial records -- Virginia -- Prince George County
• Land records -- Virginia -- Prince George County
• Local government records -- Virginia -- Prince George County
• Plats -- Virginia -- Prince George County
• Wills -- Virginia -- Prince George County

Adjunct Descriptive Data