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Henley Marriage & Obituary Index to VA Newspapers

Marriage and obituary notices selected from more than 150 Richmond-area and Virginia newspapers. The index covers 1736 through 1982, with the major emphasis on the years 1780 to 1910

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Henley Marriage and Obituary Index

Overview

This index contains marriage and obituary notices selected from more than 150 Richmond-area and Virginia newspapers. The index covers 1736 through 1982, with the major emphasis on the years 1780 to 1910. Each entry includes the full text or abstract of the notice, as well as the newspaper title, publication date, page and column numbers, and place of publication.

Most of the newspapers indexed are available on microfilm at the Library of Virginia. Where available, the microfilm number is listed in the entry.

Bernard J. Henley (1909–1989) served as a reference librarian for more than 37 years at the Richmond Public Library. After he retired in 1967, he began a systematic examination of Richmond and Virginia newspapers, selectively indexing and compiling abstracts of the marriage and obituary notices he found. He recorded each entry by hand, in chronological order by newspaper. In addition, he compiled a detailed index card file relating to marriages, obituaries, and other topics gathered from Richmond and Virginia newspapers. This index combines entries from both sources.

Search Tips

  • Search terms can include personal names, newspaper title, date of event, and event location. Note that the month may be abbreviated and the year is often omitted. Not all entries have an event location or date.
  • On the results page, you can narrow by publication date. Keep in mind that an event occurring near the end of the year may appear in publication the following year.
  • Using quotes around phrases may return fewer, more relevant results.
  • Boolean operators OR, NOT and AND written in ALL CAPS may be used.  By default, all search terms will be combined with the AND operator. To exclude terms, use the NOT operator before a term.
  • Wildcards can be used to find variant spellings or words. The question mark (?) will match any one character. For instance, "Ols?n" will match "Olsen" or "Olson". The asterisk (*) will match any number of characters (including zero). "Ch*ter" will match "Charter", "Character", and "Chapter", and "Temp*" will match "Temptation", "Temple", and "Temporary".

Related Resources

  • Bernard J. Henley Papers, 1917–1989, Acc. 33623, Personal Papers Collection.

The following resources provide access to some of the indexed articles:

Revised February 2021