Welcome to the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society Margaret Martin O’Bryant Research Library
200 Second Street, NE
Charlottesville, Virginia 22902
434.296.1492
[email protected]
******** The Library will be closed from Monday, December 23rd until January 2nd, 2025 for the Holidays. We will reopen on Thursday, January 2, 2025. ********
The Research Library is currently open Monday – Friday, 8am – 4pm, and on Saturdays, 10am – 2pm (depending upon volunteer availability). We highly recommend emailing to make an appointment. This ensures that we have staff available to assist you. To make an appointment please email [email protected]. All inquiries are answered M-F during our business hours.
Our Collections
Our collections will soon be available for discovering. Please be patient as we compile our catalogs.
If you’d like to help with our catalog projects, please contact our volunteer coordinator Sterling Howell at [email protected]
Vertical Files
Our Vertical Files cabinets contain newspaper clippings, researchers’ notes, family trees, and other miscellaneous information on a variety of area families and topics. Click on each category to access the index.
(Partial Index)
Manuscript and Pamphlet Collection
Discover our manuscript and pamphlet collection with our new online catalog.
New manuscript collections are added weekly!
Magazine of Albemarle Charlottesville History
The Magazine of Albemarle Charlottesville History, published annually by the Historical Society, features articles on various topics related to Charlottesville, Albemarle County, and Central Virginia.
Coming Soon - Albemarle and Charlottesville Maps
Other Local Resources
Newspapers
Charlottesville Daily Progress Digitized 1892-1964 (University of Virginia)
Virginia Chronicle (Library of Virginia) – Virginia newspapers
Chronicling America (Library of Congress) – nationwide newspapers
Central Virginia Genealogical Association
The Central Virginia Genealogical Association (CVGA) was formed in July 1977, to encourage, foster, and organize genealogical research, teaching, publishing, education, and recording.
The Central Virginia Heritage is CVGA’s quarterly publication. We have the following issues in the ACHS collection:
Volume 1 – Volume 36 (current)
Albemarle County in Virginia by Rev. Edgar Woods
Rev. Edgar Woods’ 1901 classic, Albemarle County in Virginia, has been digitized (text searchable too!) and is available at archive.org.
Virginia Cavalcade
Virginia Cavalcade was a quarterly Virginia history and culture journal published by the Library of Virginia from 1951 to 2002. Want to know what articles were published about Albemarle County? You can search the table of contents of every issue! Then come visit us at the Historical Society – we have every issue published in our library.
