Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Use Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Preferred Citation

Staunton (Va.) Chancery Causes, 1914-1951. (Cite style of suit and chancery index no.). Local Government Records Collection, Staunton (City) Court Records. The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.

Acquisition Information

These items came to the Library of Virginia in a shipment of court papers from the city of Staunton under accession number 43238.

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.

The City of Staunton, in Augusta County, was named, according to tradition, for Rebecca Staunton, wife of Sir William Gooch, lieutenant governor of Virginia from 1727 to 1749. Staunton was laid out in 1748 at the site of the Augusta County courthouse and was established as a town in 1761. It was incorporated as a town in 1801 and as a city in 1871.

Scope and Content

Staunton (Va.) Chancery Causes, 1914-1951, 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 Staunton 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-1914 Staunton 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.

Index Terms

Corporate Names:

• Staunton (Va.) Circuit Court

Subjects:

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

Geographical Names:

• Staunton (Va.) -- Genealogy
• Staunton (Va.) -- History -- 20th century

Genre and Form Terms:

• Chancery causes -- Virginia -- Staunton
• Deeds -- Virginia -- Staunton
• Judicial records -- Virginia -- Staunton
• Land records -- Virginia -- Staunton
• Local government records -- Virginia -- Staunton
• Plats -- Virginia -- Staunton
• Wills -- Virginia -- Staunton

Adjunct Descriptive Data