As referenced below, divorce proceedings were often heard in the
chancery court. The Library of Virginia is continually adding indexes
and images for chancery records to their Chancery records index (CRI).
Some of the records have been scanned, some microfilmed, and some are
available only in original format. I believe the original question
referenced Alexandria and/or Fairfax - chancery records for both those
localities have been indexed and scanned and are available for research.
See the below link for background on the records and the project. Please
take note that some of the images may be available intermittently for
the next several days due to a power outage at the LVA last week. We
hope this issue will be resolved quickly.

Carl

http://www.virginiamemory.com/collections/chancery/

Carl Childs 
Director, Local Records Services 
Library of Virginia
800 East Broad Street
Richmond, Virginia 23219
(804) 692-3739 (phone)
(804) 692-2277 (CCRP) (fax)
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-----Original Message-----
From: Research and writing about Virginia genealogy and family history.
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Tarter, Brent (LVA)
Sent: Tuesday, January 05, 2010 8:17 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [VA-ROOTS] Divorce

Here are several replies to the question about divorce:
 
 
My great-great grandmother divorced her husband in Louisa County..I
found the papers in the Chancery papers.. She petitioned the governor
for the divorce..

Shirley Cox Schroeder

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Betty - I'm no expert, but my ggrandmother listed herself as a widow in
1900 Illinois, and think she was divorced. I never saw divorce papers,
but I know he was still alive and living elsewhere.

Judy Simpson the DeWitt list admin told me that was common practice.

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I hope there is a response to this. I also have a couple of ancestors
who listed themselves as widowed and were alive about 50-100 miles from
each other with a kid each (I believe). My great grandfather was in
Pulaski County and my great grandmother was in Washington County
(specifically Goodson District which is now Bristol). I'm trusting that
there is a divorce decree somewhere because she remarried and my
grandfather took his step-father's name creating a problem in
determining his surname. 

Is there a central location which would have divorce decrees? They
married in Dec 1893 in Hamblen Co., TN (E. TN) and would have divorced
between 1893 and 1907. His name is Burrell Togwell Foster and his wife
was Elizabeth

"Lizzie" Swecker Foster. 

Cynthia McDaniel

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