Genealogy Resources at Swem  

The College of William and Mary's main library is named for librarian and Virginia historian Earl Gregg Swem. Swem Library has a strong collection in local, family (primarily Southern) and Virginia history through the nineteenth century which many genealogists have found useful for their research.

This subject guide contains resources for research at the Mary and Dennis Rebman Virginia Genealogy Resource Center, located on the first floor of the Earl Gregg Swem Library at the College of William and Mary. We are grateful to the Rebman family of Atlanta for their enthusiasm and generosity, which is making it possible for the library to expand greatly its collection of print resources in family history and genealogy. Many of these resources are available in the general collection, while others are shelved in the Virginia Reference section on the first floor.

The library uses the following criteria as guidelines for the Rebman Virginia Reference collection. Those books that are more specific in nature (individual family, county, etc.) become part of the circulating collection.
 

• Virginia genealogy in particular and Southern genealogy in general as well as collections, such as Boddie’s Historical Southern Families and Pecquet du Bellet’s Some Prominent Virginia Families. Books of genealogical interest that might include those who settled in Virginia, such as Hotten’s Original Lists of Persons of Quality and Filby’s Passenger and Immigration Lists Index.
• Militaria, such as the Roster of Confederate Soldiers 1861-1865, Index to Revolutionary War Service Records, and Virginia Soldiers of 1776.
• The Virginia Historical Index, by E. G. Swem, and the publications indexed in it.
• Journals directly relevant to Virginia genealogy.
• Books about the College of William and Mary, including the Colonial Echo yearbooks
• An up-to-date reference collection that includes guides on doing genealogy, information on the census, online resources, etc.