New Database of West Virginia Births, Deaths, Marriages

It's not complete, but there's a new database available that has information on over one million West Virginia births, deaths, and marriages. The West Virginia Division of Culture and History hosts it; you can search it at http://www.wvculture.org/vrr .

You start by choosing a type of record to search -- birth, death, or marriage. For birth, records are currently limited to Calhoun, Gilmer, Hardy, Harrison, Mineral, and Pendleton county; date ranges are provided on the site. Marriage records are limited the same way, but death records are spread across a huge number of counties.

Each vital records search has its own interface. I searched birth records for Smith. I got 1958 records in a table that showed name, birth date, county, and image size; name and image size are hyperlinked. Name takes you to a summary of information, while image size takes you to an image reproduction of the actual birth information. (All the ones I looked at were from birth registers, not birth certificates.) Images have a big NOT FOR LEGAL USE watermark stamped across 'em, but other than that are easy to read.

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