The West Virginia Vital Research Records
Project is a collaborative venture between
the West Virginia State Archives and the
Genealogical Society of Utah (GSU) to place
online via the West Virginia Archives and
History Web site selected West Virginia
county birth, death and marriage records,
and selected statewide death records in
a viewable, downloadable and searchable
format accessible at https://wvculture.
org/vital-records-interactive/. While the
majority of the eligible records are now in
the database, the project is on-going, with
more records being added when possible
and the system undergoing renement as
needed. In Virginia/West Virginia, births
and deaths were rst reported to the counties
in 1853, while marriages were recorded
in the counties from the inception of each
county (see West Virginia Counties chart
in our brochure or online at http://archive.
wvculture.org/history/counties/wvcounties.
html for formation dates). All three types
of records are still reported to county clerks
today. In 1917, the West Virginia Dept.
of Health Vital Registration office began
collecting the county reports of births and
deaths and issuing ofcial state birth and
death certicates from that year through
the present, as well as creating “delayed”
birth records by afdavit. Additionally, the
state issues copies of marriage applications
from 1964 to the present, available through
the Vital Registration office. Please note
that divorce records are available only from
the appropriate circuit court clerk, and are
not available from county court clerks, the
Vital Registration ofce or the West Virginia
Archives and History Library.
The death records made available online
in the Vital Research Records database come
from two sources: county records as recorded
on microlm by the GSU largely from 1967
to 1970, and statewide death certicates as
selected for release by the West Virginia
Dept. of Health Vital Registration office.
Currently both state and county death records
are withheld 50 years from date of issuance.
State death certicates for individuals from
all 55 counties dating from 1917 through
1964 are available online through this project.
Additional state death certicates will be
added in a batch once a year (usually January
1) as all the certicates for a given year pass
the 50-year mark of issuance. For example in
2016, the state death certicates for 1965 will
be added to the database.
Six counties were included in the initial
database for birth, death and marriage
records: Calhoun, Gilmer, Hardy, Harrison,
Mineral and Pendleton. For these six counties,
as for all the other 49, marriage and death
records are included up to the last record
microlmed for that county by GSU: Calhoun,
Gilmer, and Mineral through 1969; Hardy,
Harrison and Pendleton through 1970. For
these six counties birth records may include
up to 1938, with records 75 years or older at
the time of selection posted online. Due to
a change in the selection parameters since
the records of the initial six counties were
posted, subsequent counties added include
only births recorded in those counties more
than 100 years ago, meaning in 2015 only
births for 1853 through 1914 are available,
with additional births in one year batches to
be added sometime after all the records for
that year pass the 100-year mark, usually
the number of the year recorded plus 101
years. For example, 1915 birth records will
be available in 2016. The addition of state
birth certicates and of state delayed birth
certicates to the database is not anticipated,
although some delayed birth records may
show up in the regular county birth records.
The records in the database are not fully
West Virginia Vital Research Records Project
Online Searchable Database and Digital Images
of Selected Birth, Death and Marriage Records
transcribed and are searchable only by the
information requested in the search boxes for
each type of record. The “Detail” pages were
set up to transcribe most of the record, but
once the tasks of indexing and transcription
were underway, GSU found full transcription
to be far too complicated and time-consuming,
so while earlier entries in the database include
more details, most of the subsequent records
have basic information with explanatory notes
where applicable. The county record images
are double-paged, as they were microlmed,
so if the record you want is not visible on the
rst page shown on the screen, scroll right or
left to the adjacent page to nd your record.
Some of the certicate-like marriage records
were recorded two to a page and lmed two
pages at a time, so scrolling up and down, left
and right, may be necessary to locate a record.
Regarding West Virginia state death
certicates, a group of 1920 death certicates,
#4501 through #5000, are not available.
Sometime after the deaths for 1920 were
indexed, but before the record books
themselves were microlmed and transferred
to the State Archives, that certicate book
was lost. The following information appears
in the Vital Registration index: name, date of
death, county of death, and original certicate
number. Although the Dept. of Health and
the State Archives do not have copies of these
particular death certicates, the relevant
county courthouses should be able to provide
county death records for them, and the county
records are included in WVVRR. The Archives
and History Library has the county records
on microlm for the use of its patrons, and
also can provide copies by mail in response
to mailed research requests that enclose
the required $5.00 fee for in-state requests,
or the $15.00 fee for out-of-state requests.
(Please note that only the county that issued
the certicate can provide a certied copy for
legal purposes.)
You may notice some dates earlier than
1853 for county births and deaths. These are
either delayed records accepted by the clerks,
errors by an original clerk or by a transcriber,
or due to an exceptional circumstance as noted
on the Details page and/or in the record itself.
You may also disagree with the spelling of a
name as entered or as transcribed. We have
been correcting transcription errors of all
types as we nd them; however, we can not
correct errors in the original records, only
errors made in the transcription and indexing
process. To correct errors in the original
information recorded by a county clerk or by
the Dept. of Health, researchers must contact
the relevant agency. To report transcription
errors, indexing errors or broken links, send
an e-mail identifying the problem to chwvvrr@
wv.gov. Due to staff time limitations, please
do not telephone Archives and History with
questions about Vital Research Records,
and please do not make research requests
to the WVVRR e-mail address. For instance,
if a researcher does not find a record as
expected, and would like the staff of the
Archives to conduct further research to locate
that records, or a substitute source such as
a census record or an obituary, a written
research request letter is required. Research
requests must be sent in writing by regular
mail, with the proper fee enclosed, to the
West Virginia Archives and History Library
(address and details posted at http://archive.
wvculture.org/history/archives/services.
html). The West Virginia State Archives can
not provide certied copies of any of these
records. For certied copies of records, most
often needed for legal purposes, contact
the issuing agency, either the county clerk
or the West Virginia Dept. of Health Vital
Registration Ofce, (304) 558-9100, online
at https://dhhr.wv.gov/HSC/VR/Pages/
default.aspx.
We are aware that the images are over-
sized and that a user must scroll up and
down, left and right, to view the entire record.
Also, many of the two-page record images do
not print in a legible size. Before notifying
the Archives of any problem encountered
in downloading and printing, please fully
explore your options on your own computer
first. Unfortunately, identi fication of the
ledger in which a record was found was not
included in the transcription, so those needing
a specic citation of the county ledger volume
in which a record appears will have to refer
to the microlm itself, or contact the county
of record or the Archives. We have been
unable to determine any way to improve these
situations.
The Vital Research Records database has
been one of the most well-received projects
we have undertaken, and is probably the
most used portion of our Web site. We ask
for your patience if the system times out on
you by reporting “Records found,” but listing
none. Try making your search more specic,
or try again at a less busy time. Upgrades
of the image server and the database server
have signicantly improved service, so system
time-outs should be rare now. While there are
limitations and restrictions pertaining to both
the contents and the use of the Vital Research
Records Project database, we are offering these
records online as a public service to family
history researchers. We think the ability of
researchers to view digitized photographic
images of the actual records rather than
typed transcriptions is very important and
contributes to increased accuracy in family
history research. Please continue to send us
By Susan Scouras, editor, West Virginia Archives and History News.
The original version of this article appeared in Archives and History News,
Vol. X, No. 9 (November 2009).
Last revised December 2023.
your comments, suggestions and corrections
for the database to our special e-mail address
for the site, [email protected]. If you do not
have access to e-mail, call Debra Basham,
(304) 558-0230.
For greater understanding of West
Virginia’s vital records, we refer you to
articles in our monthly newsletter and Quick
Guides derived from those articles. While the
newsletter articles remain as written at the
time of publication, the Quick Guides were
most recently updated in October 2021.
Organizations, societies and teachers
are free to copy the Vital Records articles,
the Quick Guides, and this WVVRR article
for use as handouts or for reprint in other
publications, as long as each Guide is printed
in full with the statement of origin that
appears at the bottom of the page, and as
long as the reprint is not used for commercial
purposes.
• Vital Records in West Virginia: Deaths, West Virginia Archives and History News,
September 2007: http://archive.wvculture.org/history/ahnews/0907news.pdf
• Vital Records in West Virginia: Births, West Virginia Archives and History News,
October 2007: http://archive.wvculture.org/history/ahnews/1007news.pdf
• Vital Records in West Virginia: Marriages, West Virginia Archives and History News,
November 2007: http://archive.wvculture.org/history/ahnews/1107news.pdf
• Quick Guide to West Virginia Birth Records:
http://archive.wvculture.org/history/archives/quickguidetobirth.pdf
• Quick Guide to West Virginia Death Records:
http://archive.wvculture.org/history/archives/quickguidetodeath.pdf
• Quick Guide to West Virginia Marriage Records:
http://archive.wvculture.org/history/archives/quickguidetomarriage.pdf
