Sign up for Genealogy Pointers »

The Tidewater Virginia county of Norfolk was originally a part of Elizabeth City County. About 1636, the portion of Elizabeth City County lying on the south side of the James River was split off as New Norfolk County, and in 1637 New Norfolk was further divided into Upper and Lower Norfolk counties. The former eventually became Nansemond County, while Lower Norfolk, in 1691, was split into Princess Anne and Norfolk counties.

Mr. Charles McIntosh, whose intimate knowledge of the probate records of this area owed to his careful efforts to trace the origins of the titles to a large number of timber tracts in Norfolk County, set himself the task of abstracting all extant wills for Lower Norfolk/Norfolk counties from 1637 to 1800. While he did not complete the task in its entirety, in these two volumes, originally published in 1914 and 1922, we have abstracts of all extant wills for Lower Norfolk/Norfolk Counties from 1637 to 1753. In both volumes the will abstracts are arranged in chronological order and thereunder give the name of the testator, date of the will, original source of the will, the names of all heirs, witnesses and other persons mentioned in the wills, a brief inventory of the estates, and, in many instances, places of residence or locations of property described in the estates. In all there are abstracts to about 1,000 wills from 1637 to 1753, referring to over 7,500 persons listed in the indexes at the back of the volumes. Here is the starting point for Norfolk County, Virginia genealogy.