Skip Navigation

Welcome!

West Virginia Archives and History

Whether studying for the Golden Horseshoe exam, researching your family lineage, or looking for information on the history of West Virginia, the Archives and History website is the premier on-line resource. The site features primary and secondary source documents, photographs, and databases; lists, collections, and other materials available in the State Archives; and provides research guides and assistance for genealogists.

  

Latest News...

Guidelines and applications for the 2009-10 Records Management and Preservation Board grants are now available. 

The finding aids for the Cecil H. Underwood Collection and Cecil H. Underwood Photograph Collection, consisting of private and first term gubernatorial papers and photographs, are now available online. 

The West Virginia Archives and History Library is continuing its series of history- and genealogy-related workshops in August and September.  

A list of newspaper clippings on West Virginia mine disasters filed in the Archives vertical clippings files is now on-line. 

The new Archives and History online public access catalog is now available for searching at http://archives.lib.wv.us:71.  

The finding aid for the Jennings Randolph Photograph Collection can now be viewed on-line. 

Back By Popular Demand! Check out our Pic of the Week. 

View recent donations to the West Virginia State Archives. 

View Photographs of Schools in West Virginia. 

Super Sale!! Eight back issues of the West Virginia History Journal are now available for the reduced price of $3.00 per copy. 

A number of audio/video clips showing important events in West Virginia history can now be viewed on-line. 

The Vital Research Records project is now online. Users can now search and view birth, death, and marriage records from sixteen West Virginia counties as well as most statewide death records from 1917-1957.  

Picturing West Virginia, a new publication by Archives and History, is now available. 

The Archives and History Library has updated its Services and Fee Guidelines. 

A finding aid for the Adjutant Generals' Papers for West Virginia Union Regiments, a collection of more than 13,000 letters and other documents relating to the Civil War in West Virginia, is now available on-line.  

More Archives and History News...

Articles and documents on this site contain the exact wording of the original. Comments and suggestions about the website www.wvculture.org/history may be addressed to Joe Geiger at the West Virginia State Archives. The Archives will not answer e-mail research requests. All research requests must be submitted in writing to the Archives and History Library; The Cultural Center; 1900 Kanawha Boulevard, E.; Charleston, WV 25305-0300. Requests from outside West Virginia must be accompanied by a $15 research fee; a $5 research fee must accompany in-state requests (checks made payable to Division of Culture and History). Please read the Archives' listing of services available for more details on research correspondence.

The Archives Library is located in the Cultural Center at the State Capitol Complex in Charleston. Current hours are 9-8 Monday-Thursday, and 9-5 Friday-Saturday. To visit, take Exit 99 (State Capitol/Greenbrier Street) of Interstate 64/77. Visitor parking is now available in metered lots on the Capitol Complex. The fee is fifty cents per hour. Additional visitor parking is available at Laidley Field on Elizabeth Street with shuttle service to the complex. For more information, contact West Virginia Archives and History at (304) 558-0230.