Owing to the total destruction of the county courthouse in 1869, few records of Buckingham County, Virginia survive. From documents in the Virginia State Library and the University of Virginia's Alderman Library, and from materials still in private hands, the compiler of this book has amassed a genealogical record of the county--not continuous and complete, since that would be impossible, but a rich selection of the kind of materials that would have been in the old courthouse. Highlighting the work is a collection of family sketches.

This work, naming 4,000 related individuals, contains the lineages of about fifty families, the main branches of which were located in Virginia, Maryland, and North and South Carolina. Genealogies of the following families are given: Allen, Aston, Barker-Bradford-Taylor, Berkeley-Ligon-Norwood, Binns, Butler, Claiborne, Clark, Colclough, Crafford, Crayfford-Crafford, Davis, Doniphan, Eldridge, Flood, Godwyn, Gray, Gregg, Griffis, Grigsby, Harris, Haynes, Jones, Mallory, Mason, Moore, Mumford-DeJarnette-Perryman, Newton, Norwood, Pace, Peche-Cornish-Everard-Mildmay-Harcourt-Crispe, Reade, Ruffin, Sledge, Smith, Sowerby-Sorsby, Stone-Smallwood-Smith, Stover, Thomas, Travis, Warren, Woodliffe, Wynne, and Wythe.

"Bath County, in western Virginia, was formed from Augusta, Botetourt, and Greenbrier counties in 1791. It is itself the parent county for part of Alleghany County, Virginia, and Pocahontas County, West Virginia. This work consists of genealogical abstracts of the oldest surviving wills and inventories for Bath County--but that's not all. Interspersed with the inheritance records are abstracts of bonds, powers of attorney, estate settlements, articles of agreement, and other records of genealogical import. In general the will abstracts furnish the name of the testator, his county of residence, the names of witnesses and executors, the date of probate, and the names and relationships to the testator of the heirs to the will. All told, nearly 15,000 early residents of Bath County appear in these pages"--Publisher website (August 2007).

From Tyler's quarterly historical and genealogical magazine.