Abstracts of Bath County, Virginia Will Books 5 and 6 (1843-1875)

                                                  compiled by Holly Wanless Cochran
                                                           ISBN 0-9666399-0-1                                                       

• abstracts of the entire contents of Will Books 5 and 6 (March 1843 through
  September 1875) of Bath County, Virginia, plus one unrecorded will found among
  loose papers in the county courthouse
• contains wills, estate inventories (names only, not estate contents), estate sale buyers,
  heirs mentioned in estate settlements, guardian bonds for minor children, records of
  commitment for insanity, children born out of wedlock, land sales, slave sales, slave
  emancipations, marriage contracts; licenses to operate various businesses, to perform
  marriages, or to be a minister in a specified church; bonds to guarantee performance
  in public office; powers of attorney for distant heirs to receive their portion of an estate
• includes many residents of Highland County and some residents of other adjacent counties
• information presented in an easy-to-find manner
• 282 pages; includes decedent index, heirs index, slave index, location index, complete
  index, glossary of legal terms used in will books, and explanation of probate process
• index includes maiden names of married women where they could be deduced from
  cross-referencing entries in these will books
• paperback, glossy cover, 5.5x8.5 inches
• $25.00 plus shipping (see order form for details)

Will books are fascinating reading, because in addition to a wealth of information about
family connections, these records provide a picture of the emotional relationships within
families and information about how and where they lived and who their friends were. By
paying careful attention to the provisions of a will, you may deduce the order of the
children in the family, which child was the favorite, and which sons-in-law were disliked
by their fathers-in-law. Some wills even mention the parents or grandparents of the
testator, allowing you to extend your family linkage further back. By following the estate
settlement records through the years, you may discover who the children married, where
they moved, when they came of age, and which family members or close friends were
chosen as their guardians when they were minors.

See a SAMPLE PAGE

Since Bath Co came out of Augusta, Botetourt, and Greenbrier counties, and originally contained portions of Alleghany, Pendleton, Highland, and Pocahontas counties, you'll find many families from those counties in this book, plus a few folks from adjacent Rockbridge Co. A companion volume to Jean Randolph Bruns's abstraction of Will Books 1 through 4, this book takes Bath Co through the 2 decades before the War Between The States, the War itself, and the post-war reconstruction period. Most valuable, it includes many names from the critical pre-1850 census years (before the census listed every name in the household). Find those elusive missing ancestors and relatives, and perhaps discover how your ancestors were related to one another!

 Search a plain-text version of the EVERY-NAME INDEX

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