The Coroners’ Inquisitions Digital Collection is Now Live & Available for Transcription

Given the popularity of true crime documentaries, movies, and podcasts, it’s not surprising that researchers have likewise found the Library of Virginia’s Coroners’ Inquisitions a source of morbid curiosity for years. To enhance access to these popular records, Local Government Records staff, in partnership with staff from Digital Initiatives, are working to process, index, digitize, and provide transcriptions for all the Coroners’ Inquisitions currently in the Library’s holdings.

Coroners’ records are a trove of valuable material relating to all areas of history. They perhaps most obviously track the professionalization of medicine; however, coroners’ records also provide names and familial connections that can prove pivotal to genealogical research. Corporate names indicated in the inquisitions can help uncover long-forgotten local business history. Deaths involving workplace incidents are important for assessing local labor history. Studying the transition of deaths attributed to horses, trains, bicycles, cars, and finally airplanes provides a sense of the advances and proliferation of various modes of transportation across the Commonwealth. So, although the records fundamentally concern death, coroners’ inquisitions also provide insight into how people lived.

A carryover from the British legal system, the separate office of coroner appeared in Virginia about 1660. The judicial duty of the office was to hold inquisitions in cases when persons met a sudden, violent, unnatural, or suspicious death, or death without medical attendance. Virginia law did not encourage the coroner to be a medical professional until the 20th century, and only stipulated that the local court be responsible for the appointment. Although not historically reliant on profession, this system allowed affluent white men, who largely made up local government, to make the decisions thus ensuring that only other white men served in this position for much of its existence.

Prior to the Civil War, the coroner would summon a jury of twelve white men, usually men of influence in that locality, to assist him in determining the cause of death. The jury viewed the body of the deceased and heard the testimony of witnesses which included white, Black, and multiracial individuals. Unlike other judicial proceedings of this period, enslaved people could also provide depositions in coroner’s inquisitions, making these inquisitions potentially valuable sources for those interested in African American genealogy.

This witness testimony was recorded, and after seeing and hearing the evidence, an all-white jury delivered to the coroner, in writing, their assessment of the cause of death. This formal conclusion is referred to as the inquisition. So, although Black and multiracial individuals were at times consulted in the process of these coroners’ inquisitions, white men were the ones providing the “official” narrative of events, a bias that should be kept in mind when consulting these records.

After the Civil War, the process remained the same but the racial distinctions stipulating jury eligibility no longer remained. However, as the position remained by appointment and juror eligibility was reserved for those “entitled to vote and hold office,” the authority and influence remained in the hands of white citizens throughout the late 19th and early 20th century.

In 1877, an act of the General Assembly changed the number of jurors from 12 to 6, and by 1926, only the coroner himself determined the cause of death; however, they could require physicians to assist them. Then in 1946, the General Assembly abolished the coroner’s office/office of Coroner’s Physician altogether and instead appointed a Chief Medical Examiner. By 1950 Virginia transitioned to a statewide Office of the Chief Medical Examiner which now lives within the Department of Health, meaning that all post-1949 records are state records subject to the Department of Health: Office of the Chief Medical Examiner retention schedule.

While a work in progress, the Coroners’ Inquisitions Digital Collection is now available through the Library’s Digital Collections Discovery page as part of the County & City Records. Currently, there are over 900 individual inquisitions available from eight localities: Accomack County, Arlington County, Amelia County, Alexandria (Va.), Clarke County, Lunenburg County, Page County, and Wythe County.

Local records staff have identified 66 total localities with coroners’ records, which will be worked through alphabetically and added to the digital collection as staff capacity allows.

At this time, all coroners’ records related to free and enslaved Black and multiracial individuals pre-1865 previously digitized for Virginia Untold will remain accessible through the Virginia Untold Coroners’ Inquisitions Digital Collection and will not be included in the large Coroners’ Inquisitions Digital Collection. This inconvenience is due to difficulties updating the old metadata to new standards, as it is currently a rather laborious task; however, as new workflows are developed, we hope to be able to have all coroners’ records available in one digital collection in the future.

Record Types in Coroners’ Inquisitions

Documents commonly found in coroners’ inquisitions include the inquisition (the official ruling on cause of death), depositions, and summons. Some inquisitions contain other documents such as exhibits (drawings, photographs, items found with the body, etc.) and autopsies.

If a criminal act was determined to be the cause of death, the coroner delivered the presumed guilty person to the sheriff and the inquests would be used as evidence in the criminal trial. In these cases, the coroners’ inquisitions may be filed with the trial papers. If there was not a trial, coroners’ inquisitions were filed separately and are more likely to appear in this collection as a stand-alone set of documents. Occasionally, some of the criminal papers may be filed and remain with the coroner’s inquisition. We recommend consulting criminal papers in addition to the coroners’ inquisitions when possible.

Information and language

Information found in the inquisition includes the name of the coroner, the names of the jurors, the name and age of the deceased if known, sex and race of the deceased, and when, how, and by what means the deceased came to their death. If the coroner knew the deceased person to be Black or multiracial, the inquest should identify the person as either enslaved; a “free Negro”; a “person of color”; or a “mulatto.” If the coroner knew the deceased person to be enslaved, the inquest should include their name, their enslaver’s name, and the enslaver’s residence.

Information found in the depositions can include the name of the deponent, age, residence, profession, relation to the deceased, and their account of the circumstances that led to the death of the deceased.

Additionally, it should not be surprising that much of the material in this collection contains graphic depictions of death, given that the purpose of the inquisition was to determine cause of death.

In an attempt to connect records based on causes of death, at the time of indexing, the archivist assigns standardized cause of death terms (up to five terms). These terms function as tags or subject headings that when clicked on [in the Library Catalog view] will return all the coroners’ inquisitions associated with that cause of death.

The reports communicating these causes of death can be emotional to read, and the context surrounding the deaths can be even more affecting. Some of these records contain descriptions of violence against children and partner abuse, as well as racial violence, self-harm, and overdose deaths. Additionally, due to the historic nature of records, material may contain outdated and harmful language particularly regarding race and ethnicity. We recommend researchers take care when engaging with these records.

Before viewing a coroner’s inquisition in the digital collection, you will see a box appear with a content warning to better advise of the potential contents of the material.

We also recommend checking the standardized cause of death terms (listed above) attached to the descriptive records to help prepare yourself for potentially harmful content.

In addition to recently launching the digital collection, staff in Digital Initiatives have also added Coroners’ Inquisitions images to the transcription platform From the Page.

By assisting with the transcription of Coroners’ Inquisitions, you can be part of making the full text of these records searchable through the Library’s catalog. Once complete, researchers will then be able to locate more individual and surnames, geographic locations, corporations, and institutions found in these records.

Stay tuned for more updates and information concerning the coroners’ inquisitions records!