Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Use Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Preferred Citation

Petersburg (Va.) Chancery Causes, 1914-1960. (Cite style of suit and chancery index no.). Local Government Records Collection, Petersburg (City) Court Records. The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.

Acquisition Information

These items came to the Library of Virginia in shipments of court papers from the city of Petersburg under accession number 43614.

Historical Information

Chancery Causes are cases of equity. According to Black's Law Dictionary they are "administered according to fairness as contrasted with the strictly formulated rules of common law." A judge, not a jury, determines the outcome of the case.

Petersburg was formed from parts of Dinwiddie, Prince George, and Chesterfield counties. A garrison and fur trading post called Fort Henry was established in 1645 on the site of the Indian village of Appamattuck. The present name, suggested in 1733 by William Byrd II, honors Peter Jones, Byrd's companion on expeditions into the Virginia backcountry. Petersburg was established in 1748 and incorporated as a town in 1784. In the latter year the towns of Blandford, Pocahontas, and Ravenscroft were added to Petersburg. It was incorporated as a city in 1850.

Scope and Content

Petersburg (Va.) Chancery Causes, 1914-1960, are indexed into the Chancery Records Index . Cases are identified by style of suit consisting of plaintiff and defendant names. Surnames of others involved in a suit, including secondary plaintiffs and defendants, witnesses, deponents and affiants, and family members with surnames different from the plaintiff or defendant are indexed. Chancery causes often involved the following: divisions of estates or land, disputes over wills, divorces, debt, and business disputes. Predominant documents found in chancery causes include bills (plaintiff's complaint), answers (defendant's response), decrees (court's decision), depositions, affidavits, correspondence, lists of heirs, deeds, wills, slave records, business records or vital statistics, among other items. Plats, if present, are noted, as are wills from localities with an incomplete record of wills or localities other than the one being indexed.

Chancery causes are useful when researching local history, genealogical information, and land or estate divisions. They are a valuable source of local, state, social, and legal history and serve as a primary source for understanding a locality's history.

Arrangement

Organized by case, of which each is assigned a unique index number comprised of the latest year found in case and a sequentially increasing 3-digit number assigned by the processor as cases for that year are found. Arranged chronologically.

Related Material

Additional Petersburg Court Records can be found on microfilm at The Library of Virginia web site. Consult "A Guide to Virginia County and City Records on Microfilm."

Digital images of pre-1914 Petersburg Chancery Causes are available on the Library of Virginia's Chancery Records Index .

See the Library of Virginia's Chancery Records Index for the chancery records of other Virginia localities.

Index Terms

Corporate Names:

• Petersburg (Va.) Circuit Court

Subjects:

• African Americans -- History
• Business enterprises -- Virginia -- Petersburg
• Debt -- Virginia -- Petersburg
• Divorce suits -- Virginia -- Petersburg
• Equity -- Virginia -- Petersburg
• Estates (Law) -- Virginia -- Petersburg
• Land subdivision -- Virginia -- Petersburg

Geographical Names:

• Petersburg (Va.) -- Genealogy
• Petersburg (Va.) -- History -- 20th century

Genre and Form Terms:

• Chancery causes -- Virginia -- Petersburg
• Deeds -- Virginia -- Petersburg
• Judicial records -- Virginia -- Petersburg
• Land records -- Virginia -- Petersburg
• Local government records -- Virginia -- Petersburg
• Plats -- Virginia -- Petersburg
• Wills -- Virginia -- Petersburg

Adjunct Descriptive Data