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Chalkley's Chronicles (VA-NOTES)

Lyman Chalkley's three-volume Chronicles of the Scotch-Irish Settlement in 
Virginia Extracted from the Original Court Records of Augusta County, 1745-
1800 (Rosslyn, Va., 1912-1913; reprint, 1965)  is a popular reference work that 
contains abstracts taken from the Augusta County court records. Chalkley's 
Chronicles may serve as a useful source for leads and to identify original records 
to consult, but there are many reasons to exercise caution when using it.
Before the publication of the Chronicles, the National Society of the Daughters of 
the American Revolution, which had been approached to become the publisher, 
commissioned genealogist and historian Thomas Forsythe Nelson to make an 
analysis of the work. Nelson's detailed evaluation, in which the Society as well as 
Herbert Putnam, who was then the Librarian of Congress, and historian J. 
Franklin Jameson all concurred, was that the typescript of Chalkley's abstracts 
that had been submitted should not be published. Nelson found that the abstracts 
contained an abundance of transcription errors, erroneous dates, misspelled 
names, material omissions, and other serious mistakes. He concluded that the 
abstracts were "condensed to the point of mutilation" and that many entries 
misrepresented the contents of the original documents.

Nelson also pointed out that Chalkley had abstracted only some of the records 
that pertained to persons and families in which he was interested. Publication of 
the abstracts could easily lead to the erroneous conclusion that the absence in 
the abstracts of information about a person or a family meant that there was no 
information on the person or family in the county court's records.
Nelson's whole report, containing detailed comparisons between Chalkley's 
abstracts and the original records, was published as a substantial pamphlet 
under the authority of the 21st Congress, National Society, Daughters of the 
American Revolution (Washington, D.C., 1912) with the title Report on the 
Chalkley Manuscripts.

Mary Smith Lockwood, an honorary vice-president-general of the Society, 
nevertheless proceeded on her own to have the typescript of Chalkley's abstracts 
published in the familiar three-volume edition.
Many users have no doubt concluded wrongly, as Nelson predicted, that the 
absence of references in Chalkley's Chronicles indicated a lack of data; and 
many other users have certainly been mislead by using Chalkley's faulty 
abstracts and not consulting the original records. Chalkley's Chronicles can be a 
valuable resource if it is used as a first finding aid for citations but not as a 
correct reproduction or representation of the full rich entries in the county court's 
original manuscript records. 

An online series on Research in Virginia Documents. 
Prepared by Daphne Gentry, Publications and Education Services Division. 
Copyright by The Library of Virginia; this note may be reproduced in full if proper 
credit is given and no changes are made.