For me, one of the best places to start are your parents (and/or grandparents) in the 1940 Census on Family Search.
https://familysearch.org/search/collection/2000219
Then - once you have names and birth information and locations of family from 1940, do a general search on Family Search using each ancestor's names and this specific information (especially birth years and locations where they lived) - which will then allow you to see if they show up in the Family Search databases for Virginia births, Virginia deaths, and Virginia marriages, etc. - as well as the Census from 1930 and back.
Then - one of my favorite Virginia sites is the huge database of Chancery Court cases that are held by the Library of Virginia. Once you have your family names and specific counties where they lived known going back into the nineteenth century, you can find some amazingly detailed court cases on family members through a surname search by county. Many of the full case files are online, and some are just filled with information on families. Depending on the county, some of the records go back to the 18th century and even before that in the case of a few of the counties:
http://www.lva.virginia.gov/chancery/
