Tombstone Inscriptions of Orange County, Virginia

Carved out of Spotsylvania County in 1734, Orange County, Virginia was one of those peculiar "feeder" counties, a conduit for migration to points south and west, yet it also managed to attract a large number of permanent settlers. There is, however, comparatively little published genealogical material available on Orange County, though a good deal of unrecorded information exists, especially in cemeteries. This simple discovery led Dr. Klein to make a record of gravestone inscriptions and unmarked but known burials throughout the county. The work in hand records tombstone inscriptions in 150 cemeteries, thirty-three church cemeteries, and some half-dozen proprietary cemeteries, resulting in the enumeration of perhaps as many as three thousand Orange County inhabitants, giving dates of birth and death and frequently specifying family relationships. To keep the data within practical limits, the author recorded the inscriptions of persons who either died before 1900 or were born before 1850, including, where appropriate, data on wives, husbands, and children who did not fit the criteria. In family cemeteries, of course, every headstone was transcribed.