Below is an exchange I had with Brent Tarter at the Library of Va when I thought I would be able to make the trip down to Richmond this month.
   
  I have two death records on which I need to get as much info as possible in order to expeditiously obtain actual copies or transcriptions (moan) of the death records from BVS (I want to make their job simple).  From whatever records (LVA or BVS) I hope to get better dates of birth & death, parents' names and places of birth, ancestry, location at time of death etc.  But right now, anything, even if just the Death Record number, I can get will be helpful to go the next step.  If I have to go the newspaper route, I will; but I hope to get something from BVS if pertinent information is not in these microfilmed indices at the LoV.
   
  Francis Jordan
  DOD 1856 at around age 56
  most probably Norfolk City as that is where he is buried
   
  Nicholas M. (or W.) Tarrall
  DOD 1850s (sorry, he was alive in 1850 and gone by the 1860 Census)
   some records indicate he was born in 1810 but it may have been earlier
  most probably Norfolk City as that is where he is buried and probably from Yellow Fever based on the time period
   
  If you plan to be in Richmond, or live there, and would be willing to do two lookups for me, please contact me off list: [log in to unmask]
   
  Katie Holland
  Silver Spring, MD
  just barely outside Washington, DC

Brent Tarter <[log in to unmask]> wrote: 
      Katie,
   
  We have microfilm of the birth, marriage, and death registers for 1853-1896, but I think that the original documents remain at BVS. There are corresponding series of records for some of the counties and cities, which are available on microfilm here, too, and filed with the local records. All of those series are out in the public microfilm area in the main reading room.
   
  The Library of Virginia is open from 9:00 to 5:00 Monday through Saturday, state and federal holidays excepted. There is free underground parking accessable from Eight and Ninth Streets. The new building is on the north side of East Broad Street between Eight and Ninth, where the bus stations were in the olden days.
   
  Brent

    
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  From: Katie Holland [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2007 8:08 AM
To: Brent Tarter
Subject: RE: pre-1900 VA vital records


  
  Brent - I will schedule a trip down (just 2+ weeks away).
   
  It would be the 1853-1896 death registers right now that I am interested in (although birth records ar ore accurate for individuals).  Who holds the actual or microfilmed records of the certificates?  I distinctly remember them existing at least until 1973.
   
  I have a 4th cousin in CA who is also sweating a death certicate for Francis Jordan who died in 1856; I've been to his gravestone in Norfolk at the old Methodist Church, next to his wife Penelope.  And then there will be a search I have to make through the 1850s Norfolk death records for Nicholas Tarrall whose stone I've seen, although it is fairly washed away now, in Cedar Grove in Norfolk.  All I know is he was in the 1850 Census and gone by the 1860 Census.  He was transferred into Cedar Grove but the date is unknown.  Because of the Yellow Fever epidemic there in the 1850s he was probably buried in a group then the family transferred him.  But Mr Kirby at Elmwood has nothing further.  So you see I'll be there a while and hope to arrive on a full day not one where the budget has closed you guys down a half day!
   
  I'll check the web site for LoV hours (and location) since all is changed from the 1970s.

Brent Tarter <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
      Katie,
   
  The offices are now at the old Willow Lawn shopping center. We have here at the Library of Virginia microfilm of the birth, marriage, and death registers from 1853 to the 1890s and also the indexes, which for marriage records go up into the 1930s or so; and the marriage records into the 1930s, too; we also have indexes to the death certificates from the 1913 resumption of record-keeping up to some time early in the 1950s. We have microfilm of the death certificates from 1913 until some time in the 1930s.
   
  If you know an approximate time and place of a birth, marriage, or death, it is probably easier to come here and research in the film than to try to get original records from BVS, which as always is short-staffed, and there are now more restrictions on records that might be considered of a medical sort (birth and death, certainly) than there used to be.
   
  In our research for the Dictionary of Virginia Biography we use the microfilm here almost every day.
   
  Cheers,
   
  Brent Tarter
  The Library of Virginia
  [log in to unmask]
   
  Visit the Library of Virginia's web site at http://www.lva.lib.va.us

    
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  From: Katie Holland [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: Friday, January 05, 2007 2:06 PM
To: Brent Tarter
Subject: pre-1900 vital records


  
  Brent - back in the early 1970s I worked at BVS (I believe I have already told you this).  There were indices for birth, death, marriage and divorce records.  At that time records were available back to some month within 1856 (except for that 1896-1912 period when records were not records at the state level).
   
  Who now holds these records and/or indices?  I have heard nothing good about trying to records lately from BVS.  I don't even know if they are split still between the Monroe building and the one out in the west end or not.
   
  But I would like to be able to search the late 1850s, 1860s, 1870s, 1880s and the early part of the 1890s for records which I now have dates.
   
  Katie Holland

 
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