Virginia Genealogy Trails welcomes you to Buchanan County Genealogy and History Volunteers Dedicated to Free Genealogy This Site is Available for Adoption! Our goal is to help you track your ancestors through time by transcribing genealogical and historical data and placing it online for the free use of all researchers. We're looking for folks who share our dedication to putting data online and are interested in helping this website become a useful research tool. If you would like to join our group and become the host of this county, please visit our Volunteer Page and contact Kim. (A desire to transcribe data and basic webpage skills are necessary) We regret that we have no time to perform personal research for anybody. All data we come across will be added to this site, so please keep checking back here. If you would like to be notified of when our Virginia sites are updated, Subscribe to our Mailing Lists. Virginia is covered on the Northeast States List County History The county was formed in 1858 from parts of Russell Co and Tazewell Co.  It was named for James Buchanan, 15th President of the United States.  In 1880, the southwestern part of Buchanan County was combined with parts of Russell Co and Wise Co to become Dickenson Co.  Helen Timmons Henderson (1877-1925) helped participate in the work of the Buchanan Mission School at Council VA.  She and Sarah Lee Fain (1888-1962) of Norfolk, became the first two women to be elected into the Virginia General Assembly.  They were both Democrats in the House of Delegates.  When Helen was in office, the delegates agreed to let 6.2 miles of improved road to be placed from Russell Co, across Big "A" Mountain, to Council.  Route 80 is also known as "Helen Henderson Highway." Paul Crouse (born in 1938) was the longest serving sheriff of Buchanan Co (from 1984-2004).  After the 2004 elections, he was defeated by Republican candidate and current Sheriff Ray Foster.  Crouse has retired from law enforcement and his record still stands. TOWN - Grundy UNINCORPORATED COMMUNITIES: Big Rock - Council - Davenport - Harman - Harman Junction - Hurley - Keen Mountain - Mavisdale Maxie - Oakwood - Prater - Short Gap - Stacy - Vansant - Royal City - Whitewood Online Data Biographies Births Cemeteries Census Church Histories / Records County Records Death Records Family Bibles Mortality Schedules Marriages Military Miscellaneous Data Newspaper Data Obituaries School Records Wills/Probate Records Website updates: Dec 2011: Hon. Meshack S. Ratcliff Biography Aug 2011:1860 Mortality Schedule Search our Sites Surrounding Counties Dickenson Co VA - McDowell Co WV - Mingo Co WV - Pike Co KY - Russell Co VA - Tazewell Co VA Visit our National Site Visit our VA State Site Copyright © Genealogy Trails All data on this website is Copyright by Genealogy Trails with full rights reserved for original submitters.