There are extremely few marriage records for Albemarle County prior to  
1780. At some point prior to the Revolution, there was apparently a courthouse  
fire, and some early records were lost. In addition, during the Revolution 
when  Tarleton headed to Charlottesville in an attempt to capture Thomas 
Jefferson,  the surviving records in the courthouse were evacuated. There is a 
list that  shows what was saved from the British in that evacuation, and the 
list matches  almost exactly the surviving court record books for the 
period 1745-1781 that we  still have today. Marriage records are not in the list, 
so either they were  already destroyed earlier or were left behind for the 
sake of saving the major  record books. I'm working on a small article on 
this very topic because one of  my ancestors in Albemarle was a deputy sheriff 
during the Tarleton Raid and the  list is in a surviving record book that 
he kept.
 
It is extremely unlikely that many Albemarle marriages would be recorded in 
 another county after 1745 unless the couple requested it for some reason 
or for  some other special reason. Marriages were usually recorded in the 
county of  residence (we've often heard residence of the bride, but I wonder 
about that  some times). Just because Albemarle was formed from Goochland 
doesn't mean  anything for subsequent record keeping for Albemarle residents 
unless a couple  "went home" to one of their families to be married. 
 
Searching neighboring counties is, of course, always a thing to do, but  
marriages would not automatically be recorded in them. I'm afraid there just  
isn't any hope of finding many pre-1780 Albemarle County records.
 
Eric Grundset
Burke, Virginia

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