to Wayne County, West Virginia

Wayne County was created in 1842 from Cabell County when West Virginia was actually Virginia. Because of the threat of Indian attack, there were no settlers in Wayne County until after 1794 when General "Mad" Anthony Wayne defeated the the Native Americans at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in northwestern Ohio, making the area safe. To honor General Wayne, the county was named for him. Most of the original pioneer settlers of the area were nearly self-sufficient farmers, raising their own food and sheep for wool clothing, and building their homes, stores, furnishings and tools from the wood harvested in the surrounding forest. There were a few trading posts and general stores providing manufactured goods. Later, grist mills at Wayne, Dickson, and Lavalette ground corn into meal and wheat into flour.

During the Civil War, the majority of the county inhabitants were loyal to the Confederacy, since they had come from present-day Virginia. They were Virginians and their loyalty was to that state. Many went south to enlist and some units were formed locally. A Confederate cavalry regiment was organized in Wayne by Milton J. Ferguson, who had been the county's Prosecuting Attorney when the War broke out. However, a number of residents remained loyal to the North — Camp Pierpont was a Union garrison at Ceredo. In addition to Ceredo, many families in the Crum area, Cove Gap and elsewhere in the county supported the Union cause. At least two battles were fought in Wayne County — a battle on Bloss Hill at Lavalette and on Lick Creek, above East Lynn. After June 20, 1863, Wayne County was part of the new state of West Virginia.

ATTENTION!!!
This site is getting a facelift!
There are many outdated links and there is new information available. So please bear with us as we perform badly needed updates.
Thank you.

Hello, Wayne County researchers. My name is Marilyn Gouge and I am the volunteer coordinator of this site.

I have tried to include as much information as I can on these pages, but for those out of the area, it isn't enough, I know. I am hoping this update will include more information you can use. And I will be updating surname and family website pages more frequently now that I have more time to devote to the webpages. So, please, bear with me. I know how frustrating it is not to be able to find information or get answers, which is one of the reasons I volunteered to host these websites — I am hoping to learn more about my ancestors as I try to provide free information to you about your ancestors.

If you would like to include your surnames of research, have family genealogy webpages, are willing to do lookups for others in books you own, or have transcriptions you would like to see on these pages, please contact me.

While I would love to help you all individually, I'm sorry I cannot do lookups, recommend places to stay when you visit, etc. I do not live in West Virginia (though my paternal roots are there). Hopefully, the new sites added here will provide tourism information, county court and library locations and similar helpful information.

Good luck with your research and Y'all come back now.

Wayne County West Virginia Mailing List

The Wayne County West Virginia Mailing List, hosted by RootsWeb, is for anyone with a genealogical interest in Wayne County. To subscribe, send a plain-text email to: [email protected] with only the word subscribe in the body of the email.
If you would prefer the digest mode (where messages are grouped together and sent out once a day), send your email to
[email protected]. To post to either list, send a query to: [email protected].
Browse or search the archives of the mailing lists.

Wayne County West Virginia Message Board

   This board will allow you to post queries and search for obituaries, bible entries, wills, and other information regarding Wayne County folks and connect with others researching in the same area. Messages on the current Rootsweb/Ancestry boards are those posted since mid-1998 and are fully searchable.
   Older queries are separate from the Rootsweb/Ancestry board and can be browsed through the following links. To respond to an individual query on these older boards, contact the poster of the message. WVGenWeb is not responsible for e-mail addresses that have been inactivated by the owners. If you find your query on the 1996-1998 pages linked below and the e-mail address is incorrect, please notify me and I will change the address. At this time, all new queries should be directed to the Rootsweb/Ancestry message boards.

    1996 queries
    January-June 1997 queries
    July-December 1997 queries
    January-June 1998 queries
    July-December 1998 queries

Wayne County Resources

    Biographies
    Cemeteries — a work in progress!
    Census (Selected records transcribed)
    Civil War Website
    Communities, past and present
    Deeds (Selected records transcribed)
    Family Bibles (Selected records transcribed)
    Legal Stuff
    Letters (Selected records transcribed)
    Lookup Volunteers
    Marriage Records (Selected records transcribed)
    Military Records (Selected records transcribed)
    Miscellaneous Transcribed Documents
    Newspaper Articles (Selected records transcribed)
    Obituaries
    Photos and Other Scanned Documents
    Regional Books Available
    Search — COMING SOON
    Surnames & Family Websites
    Vital Records (Selected records transcribed)
    Vital Records Information, West Virginia Counties
        Birth and Death records since 1917; Marriage records since 1921; and Divorce Records since 1968. Send to individual counties for records earlier than those years maintained by the state offices.

    Vital Records (County Clerk)
        Wayne County
        County Clerk Office
        700 Hendricks St.
        Wayne, West Virginia 25570
        Phone: (304)272-6365 or 272-6369

    Vital Records Research Records Project
        The Vital Research Records Project of the West Virginia State Archives is placing Birth, Death, and Marriage certificates on-line. Users can search the records and view scanned images of the original records. Not all of Wayne County records are scanned, but do check back with theis site frequently since this is an ongoing project.

    Wills (Selected records transcribed)

Repositories, Libraries, and Societies

    Wayne County Genealogical & Historical Society
        Wayne County Genealogical And Historical Society
        P.O. Box 787
        Wayne, West Virginia 25570-0787
            This website hosts a number of webpages, including obituaries beginning in 1997, phone numbers for county offices, local books available, an index of cemeteries, society history and more.

    Wayne County Libraries
        Ceredo-Kenova Memorial Public Library
        1200 Oak Street
        Kenova, West Virginia 25530
        Phone: 304-453-2462
            This is the main library of the Wayne County Public Library and services southwest West Virginia and eastern Kentucky. The library and its branches (listed here) are part of the Western Counties Regional Library System & patrons can benefit from the collections of all libraries in Wayne, Cabell, Putnam, Mingo and Lincoln counties.

        Wayne County Public Library branch
        325 Keyser Street
        Wayne, West Virginia 25570
        Phone: 304-272-3756

        Fort Gay Public Library
        8608 Rear Broadway
        Fort Gay, West Virginia 25514
        Phone: 304-648-5338

    West Virginia State Archives
        1900 Kanawha Blvd. E.
        Charleston, West Virginia 25305-0300
        Phone: (304) 558-0230
             This site lists the county records available on microfilm at the Archives.
            Many other records are available at the State Archives, though few are online. In addition to the ongoing Research Records Project, which lists some birth, death, and marriage records, and the county records available of microfilm, other collections include newspapers on microfilm (Ceredo Advance for these dates: March 31, 1887-September 30, 1891; November 1, 1893-December 28, 1921; January 1, 1936-August 11, 1939; the Kenova Reporter for these dates: June 9 1916-December 25, 1919; January 3, 1936-December 25, 1936; and the Wayne County News for these dates: January 1911-December 1983; January 1986-December 1989), naturalization records, special collections, and more.

    Cabell County Public Library
        455 9th Street Plaza
        Huntington, West Virginia 25701
        Phone: (304) 528-5700
            The Local History & Genealogy Room is located on the second floor of the Cabell County Public Library. The Reference Department staff is available to answer questions, locate materials and assist with equipment. Cabell and Wayne counties border each other and many families have ancestors in both counties.

Wayne's Neighboring Counties

    Boyd County, Kentucky (Northwest)
    Cabell County, West Virginia (Northeast)
    Lawrence County, Kentucky (Southwest)
    Lawrence County, Ohio (North)
    Lincoln County, West Virginia (East)
    Martin County, Kentucky (South)
    Mingo County, West Virginia (Southeast)

West Virginia Links

    Cabell Huntington Convention and Visitors Bureau — Find places to stay, go, visit and eat in Hungtinton. Most are in Cabell County, which borders Wayne County. In fact, both counties share the city of Huntington.
    Huntington Regional Chamber of Commerce — Serving Wayne and Cabell counties.
     State of West Virginia —The official state page.
     West Virginia Chronology — Visit a page maintained by Jeff Miller and browse around his other interesting pages, including "Some Interesting" Facts about West Virginia, including historical events.
    West Virginia Facts —More facts and links about West Virginia.
    West Virginia tourism — Places and things to see and do throughout the state.

Genealogy Links

            The following are just a few of the many genealogy links available. In keeping with the intent of the GenWeb Project, we have provided as many free-access links as possible. As you enter these websites, though, you will find some require subscriptions for part of their services and you will often find additional genealogical links. However, even though subscriptions may be required for complete access to some sites, the websites listed here still have valuable information you can access for free. For example, RootsWeb was transferred under Ancestry.com's umbrella a number of years back (and subsequently both were purchased by MyFamily), but part of the original agreement was that everything which had been RootsWeb at the time of transfer would remain free — that is why a number of Ancestry's databases are available without a subscription service, SSDI (Social Security Death Index), for example.

    American History and Genealogy Project
    American Local History Network
    Ancestry.com — In addition to some free databases, this website has an extensive library of how-to's, free forms, and more.
    Cyndi's List of Genealogical Sites on the Internet — Cyndi's has more than 250,000 links.
    Everton's Publishers — free downloads of charts and forms.
    Family Search — LDS Family History Center.
    GenForum, Message Boards, part of Genealogy.com.
    Migrations, working together with members of The Veteran Ancestor Registry, USGen Web, The American Local History Network, and the American history and Genealogy Project.
    My Trees — a Kindred Konnections website — some free searches.
    RootsWeb — Mailing Lists, Message Boards, Family Trees and more.
    USGenWeb Project
    WVGenWeb Project
    WorldGenWeb Project
    Yourfamily.com