Volume 11 , Issue 45

Classification of Highland County Virginia Families

A complete history of a group-family should cover the following items: the name of the pioneer, the full maiden name of the wife, the national derivation of both man and wife, the place that the couple moved from, the names of their descendants in like manner, generation by generation, including the persons marrying into the family; also dates of birth, marriage, and death, and facts as to residence, occupation, civil and military service, and other matters of interest.

But the annals of Highland reach back a century and two-thirds. Private family records, where they exist at all, are fragmentary. Until 1853, such public records as will be of help are the packages of marriage bonds that have not been lost, the generally incomplete mention afforded by wills, and the very casual shreds of information found in deed books and county order books.

As to letters written during the first century of Highland, they are very rare. As to book publications bearing on our local family history, they afford little aid. As to the local newspaper, its age is too recent. The written sources of information are invaluable, so far as they go, but they do not go far enough.
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