Circuit Court Clerk's Office

Special Preservation Project--Chancery Causes
The processing, indexing and digital reformatting of the Prince William County chancery causes was completed in 2009. The index and images have been added to the Library of Virginia’s (LVA) online Chancery Records Index and are now available for searching through the Chancery Index . The Prince William County chancery collection covers the years 1804 through 1951. The bulk of the collection consists of cases dating 1831 through 1921. Prince William County joins the growing list of localities whose chancery causes have been preserved and made available through the Library’s innovative Circuit Court Records Preservation Program which seeks to preserve the historic records of Virginia’s Circuit Courts. See the Chancery Records Index for a listing of additional locality chancery collections that are available.

Chancery causes are cases that are decided on the basis of equity and fairness as opposed to the strictly formulated rules of common law cases. Chancery cases are especially useful when researching local history genealogical information and land or estate divisions. They are a valuable source of local, state, social and legal history and serve as a primary source for understanding a locality’s history. Chancery causes often contain correspondence; property lists including slaves; lists of heirs; and vital statistics, along with many other records. Some of the more common types of chancery causes involve divisions of the estate of a person who died intestate (without a will); divorces; settlements of dissolved business partnerships; and resolutions of land disputes.

1937 Prince William County Aerial Photographs

The Clerk’s Office collaborated with the Prince William Historic Preservation Division and Wetlands Studies and Solutions, Inc. to digitize the 1937 aerial photographs of Prince William County. These are the earliest aerial images taken of the entire County. The images are available on the County website. The originals are in the Clerk’s Office Archives. To access the digitized 1937 aerial photographs:

• Access Aerial Image Viewer
• Locate and Zoom to an Intersection or a Parcel Address or GPIN
• In the Menu box (left) choose Map Layers Aerial Imagery 1937

Parcel History Tree
Prince William County Geospatial Technology Services GTS at the request of the Clerk's Office developed a program important to title searchers and researchers that helps the user to identify the Parent-to-Child and/or Child-to-Parent Relationships for a specific GPIN. The Parcel History Tree is available at http://gisweb.pwcgov.org/webapps/parcelhistory/.

Enhanced Geographic Information
State Highway Plat Books 15, 16 & 17 were added to our Land Records System. Searches can be done by Book & Page or name on document.

Please notify the Circuit Court Clerk's Office by email if you find that any of the links on this page do not work.