Burned County Data, 1809-1848 (as found in the Virginia Contested Election Files)

The author has examined a previously unexplored source of information for valuable genealogical information regarding "burned counties." The bulk of the data consists of depositions regarding qualifications of the voter (e.g., land ownership, age, length of residence in the county, etc.) as well as data gleaned from a number of attached wills, deeds, and even a Bible register.

From the author's introduction:

Genealogical research in the burned record counties of Virginia poses a real challenge. Any data that can add to our store of knowledge in this area is always helpful. An unexplored source of information is in the State Contested Election Files. These are found in boxes dating from 1790 to 1950. Data of a genealogical nature is found in the depositions regarding land ownership, age and length of residence in the county, as well as in a number of attached wills, deeds and even a Bible register.

The General Assembly in 1818 updated the election laws in regard to voter qualification. White male landowners had always been the only voters. The law of 1818 spelled out qualifications as follows:

"Every male citizen of the Commonwealth, aged twenty-one years (other than free negroes or mulattoes, or such as have refused to give assurance of fidelity to the Commonwealth), being possessed or, whose tenant for years at will or sufferance is possessed of twenty-five acres of land, with house, the superficial content of the foundation of which is twelve feet square, or equal to that quantity, and a plantation thereon, or fifty acres of unimproved land, or a lot or part of a lot in a city or town by act of General Assembly with a house thereon of the like superficial quantity, having in such land an estate of freehold at least, and unless the title shall have come to him by descent, devise, marriage or marriage settlement, having been so possessed for 6 months; and no other person shall be qualified to vote for delegates to serve in General Assembly for the county, city or borough respectively in which the land lieth. If the fifty acres of land, being one entire parcel, lie in several counties, the holder shall vote in the county where the greater part of the land lieth only; and if the twenty-five acres, being one entire parcel, be in several counties, the holder shall vote only in the county wherein the house standeth. In the right of land holden by parceners, joint tenants or tenants in common, but one vote shall be given by all the holders capable of voting, who may be present and agree to vote for the same candidate, or candidates, unless the quantity of land in case partition had been made thereof, be sufficient to entitle every holder to vote separately, or unless some one or more of the holders may lawfully vote in right of another estate or estates in the same county; in which case the others may vote, if holding solely they might have voted; provided nevertheless that no person inhabiting the District of Columbia or elsewhere not within the jurisdiction of this Commonwealth shall be entitled to exercise the right of suffrage therein, except citizens thereof employed abroad in the service of the United States or of this Commonwealth, and whose foreign residence is occasioned by such service."

The procedure in contested elections was also specified in the law. There was no secret ballot, so that the contestants knew who voted for and against them.

The following counties and elections are included in the current volume: Hanover (1825); Buckingham (1809, 1840, 1848); Charles City (1821, 1838); Gloucester (1827); New Kent (1838); James City (1845); and Caroline (1843).

In the preparation of this book only the burned record counties were surveyed, up to 1850.

The reader is advised to go to the original if he or she finds data of interest here.

Indexed.