The Circuit Court Records Preservation (CCRP) consulting archivists from the Library of Virginia routinely travel across the Commonwealth assisting the state’s 120 circuit court clerks’ offices with the preservation of their records. More often than not, this comes in the form of assisting the clerks and their staffs in selecting items for CCRP conservation grants. While the CCRP program offers grants for essential equipment and storage, fire detection/security systems, and reformatting court records for each locality’s records management system, the CCRP item conservation grant is by far the most popular. Finding good candidates for conservation involves examining numerous items and sometimes exploring courthouses’ out-of-the-way places. Once the items are identified, the CCRP consulting archivist writes up a condition report which will be used later for more paperwork needed to apply for the grant.
Most of Virginia’s circuit court clerks’ offices are in or near the locality’s courthouse, and all of them have public records rooms. These records rooms are where one typically finds deed books, plat books, and other land records, as well as will-books and fiduciary records. These records rooms are inhabited by title searchers, genealogists… and CCRP consulting archivists. Depending on the size of the records room and the amount of records that have survived, all the circuit court clerk’s office records could be stored in the records room. But typically, that is not the case.
Some localities have dedicated archival storage areas. This is where the overflow or second tier records are stored, and researchers must request access to these areas. These rooms usually contain older, less frequently used records such as minute books, order books, fee books and the like. These records, when they were created, were probably more important to the clerk as they pertained to the clerk’s business. They are the administrative records, documenting the day-to-day activities of the office. Often loose records, such as civil and law cases, chancery suits, and marriage records, might be stored there as well. Some researchers, such as genealogists and social and local historians, take interest in these record types.
If the circuit court clerk’s office does not have an archival storage area, the clerk might transfer the records to the Library of Virginia. Depending on the type of records and their overall research value, these records might be processed and made accessible at the Library. For example, many of the pre-1913 chancery causes transferred to the Library have been made freely available online. In other instances, the Library of Virginia simply serves as an off-site storage facility, where the records are maintained in a secure, climate-controlled environment.
When the records aren’t in the circuit court clerk’s records room, its archival storage area, or at the Library of Virginia, they are sometimes stored in more creative places within the clerk’s office (or courthouse). One of the more popular areas for overflow storage is the circuit court clerk’s office evidence room. There, among the high heeled shoes, cartons of cigarettes, and assorted tagged revolvers, rifles, and shotguns can be found a mixture of habitually unused records. The records can accumulate quickly, especially if the circuit court records retention and disposal schedule (or the GS-12) is not followed.
However, because it is an overflow area and with no other storage options, CCRP archivists can wind up there searching the second tier records for item conservation candidates. These often-cluttered rooms with creatively stacked and shelved records can present innumerable challenges for the CCRP archivist searching for diamonds in the rough. These areas might involve precarious stairwells and fenced-off areas (where evidence or recent voting records might be secluded). Just because the evidence room is used doesn’t mean that other interesting areas in the courthouse are precluded from use. CCRP archivists have heard stories of court records being found in attics, bell towers, and basements, and while it’s been a long time since one of the archivists has been in a courthouse bell tower, it has not been that long since they have strayed into attics and basements (and even what seemed like an abandoned building in one instance). CCRP archivists might appear nosey to nearby researchers, but they have learned that things are not always as they seem and it is always worthwhile to look in freestanding cabinets, or the cabinets above or below the roller shelving and Woodruff Drawers.
So, if you see someone straying into an area where they look like they shouldn’t be going, please tell the staff in case it is not a Library of Virginia CCRP consulting archivist snooping around.
-Tracy Harter and Eddie Woodward, Sr. Local Records Consulting Archivists
