The Bassett Historical Center is a regional research facility which currently houses over 20,000 genealogy books and manuscripts, over 10,000 genealogy family files including 995 genealogy files in the Pilson Collection, over 3,000 local history files, 1,000 family photograph files, and 300 different periodicals. Local company collections from DuPont, Tultex, Bassett-Walker, and Blue Ridge Hardware & Supply Co., are housed here. Henry County is one of the seven counties in Virginia that has a Cohabitation List. Slaves were not permitted to marry legally but did have families, with the counties keeping records of which slaves were cohabitating. Also, available is the “Afro-American Marriages of Henry County, Virginia”, by Harris and Millner, which would be helpful to find an ancestor dating back to the early or mid-1800s.