Additional information
by Kenneth Fischer Jr. Craft (Author)
Volume 8 continues the series by starting to publish an exciting new group of Ohio County, Virginia/West Virginia Records - the "Card Index to Ohio County Courts' original case files and loose papers" housed at the West Virginia and Regional History Collection at WVU. During the 1930s, another massive project was undertaken to collect and [partially] index all the surviving Ohio County, Virginia/West Virginia court case files and loose papers [about 500,000 items] from every court: County, Circuit, Superior, Circuit Superior, etc. from 1776-1930! An index card was made for each document showing the plaintiff and defendant (or personal entry), the offense (or subject), the envelope number [at WVU] containing the original papers and a brief description of what documents are included in the envelope. These cards have been entered into a database and are being published for the first time ever in this book. Volume 8 covers the period 1776-1825. By covering all the courts, we find criminal cases such as horse stealing and murder. There are also a number of Chancery court cases and files dealing with disputes over estates. There is more detail on more persons involved in "Road Orders', Grand Juries, Witnesses, wolf scalp payments, militia officers and war service. Some Land Grants and Naturalization records appear. Numerous documents [such as bonds, notes in debt cases] are indexed that have original signatures that can be helpful in confirming your ancestor's identity. What document did your ancestor leave behind! Original 1777 Ohio County, [West] Virginia covered all of the present-day counties of Ohio, Brooke, Hancock, Marshall, Wetzel and Tyler and small parts of Doddridge and Pleasants Counties. Ohio County/Wheeling were in the middle of several migration trails to the "West", including the Ohio River, the National Road and Zane's Trace. Some migrants might have stayed for a while in Ohio County before moving "West" and may have been caught up in these records. Searching is also made much easier by the unique "Personal Time Line" Index whereby every name, place or stream is sorted by year - with a database of the original card information. There are over 36,000 names in the index - more names per page than any other regular OCI volume!
