Additional Prince Edward County chancery causes are now available on the Chancery Records Index. These additions span the years 1754 through 1883. Combined with the previously released images for Prince Edward County, the locality’s chancery causes have been digitized for the years 1754 through 1913.

Chancery cases are especially 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. Chancery causes often contain correspondence; property lists, including slaves; lists of heirs; and vital statistics, along with many other records.  Some of the more common types of chancery causes involve divisions of the estate of a person who died intestate (without a will); divorces; settlements of dissolved business partnerships; and resolutions of land disputes.

Here are a few of the cases you will find in the newly updated Prince Edward County chancery collection. To see more suits, go to the EAD guide and choose “Selected Suits of Interest” on the menu at the left.

 1755-001- Bridget Braithwaite by etc. v. Edward Braithwaite.  The wife sued for separate maintenance. Her husband abandoned her and was cohabiting with Joanna Sinclair, “a woman of ill fame and reputation” in the same parish and county. Bridget Braithwaite and her small children “are likely to be reduced to the utmost Distress of Indigence & poverty having nothing to support &* maintain her self & children but what she gets by her own labour which is very Little being upwards of 47 years of age and very infirm.” The court ordered an inventory of the husband’s estate.

 1779-003 –  Legts. Of Charles Rice v. Charles Chattrel, etc. The suit contains a detailed bill showing the cost of building a house.

 1805-013 –… read more »