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Database to help slaves' descendants
October 27, 2006 12:50 am
By CHELYEN DAVIS
RICHMOND--In 1867, a freed slave from Caroline County wrote to the Freedmen's Bureau in Richmond seeking help in finding the family he lost when he was sold 24 years earlier.
"I am anxious to learn about my sisters, from whom I have been separated many years," the letter reads. "My name is Hawkins Wilson and I am their brother, who was sold at Sheriff's sale and used to belong to Jackson Talley."
Wilson, who was then living in Galveston, Texas, listed his sisters' names and the families who owned them. He said he had no one else to turn to for help.
There's no indication that Wilson ever found the sisters and mother he was seeking. A letter he included to be sent to his sister Jane is still in bureau records. [To see the letter that Wilson wrote see: http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/F...0272006/232390.-Emmanuel Dabney]
But state leaders hope a new project will help the descendants of slaves trace their ancestors. The Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia is working with the Genealogical Society of Utah to digitize thousands of records of the Freedmen's Bureau.
The "Freedmen Project" was announced yesterday by Gov. Tim Kaine, along with Richmond Mayor Doug Wilder, state legislators and representatives from the museum, the Genealogical Society and other groups.
"This is equivalent for African-Americans [to] the records of Ellis Island being put up," Kaine said.
The Freedmen Bureau records, which were stored in the National Archives in Washington, for 140 years, have been converted to microfilm. The project will use that film to create a database that people can search online to find information about their ancestors.
"So much of that time was about the violent and forced tearing-apart of families," Kaine said. Those families can't be put back together, he added, but this project will "put back together stories of family."
Project leaders hope to have the online database up and running by the spring. Kaine said the state also plans to erect a historical marker at the corner of 10th and Broad streets in Richmond, where the Freedmen's Bureau was located.
African-Americans often have difficulty researching their genealogy because their slave ancestors were sold, families were separated, marriages were not officially recorded, and what records existed were sometimes lost or destroyed.
Del. Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond, said her family can't trace its ancestors back beyond her grandfather, himself a former slave.
The Freedmen's Bureau--officially titled the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands--was created after the Civil War to help newly freed slaves get on their feet and adjust to their new freedom. It existed for only a few years before whites who resented the integration of former slaves into society forced its closure.
In the years the bureau operated, it offered such services as food and clothing, legitimizing marriages, recording deeds and work contracts, establishing schools, opening bank accounts. It also helped reunite families separated by slavery, like Wilson's.
"The Hawkins Wilson letter really exemplifies what this project is all about the importance of this bureau in legitimizing the existence of these slaves who had become freedmen," said Darrell Walden, a University of Richmond professor who got involved with the project through studying the bureau's bank records. "He was sold and he never saw his family again."
The bureau had 300,000 records in Virginia alone, but they have been inaccessible to the public until now. Walden said about 30 percent of those records are expected to have genealogical value, like Wilson's letter.
Wilson named not only his sisters and the white families to whom they belonged, but his own former owners.
"It says a lot about the relationship that slaves had with their owners, which I think is neat in itself," Walden said.
Wilder, who also is chairman of the U.S. National Slavery Museum, said he hopes to have this sort of genealogical information available in the museum planned in Fredericksburg.
"We will have a component in the slavery museum that will do this," Wilder said.
He envisions visitors coming not just to see artifacts, but to "find out and trace and come to understand how this country was built."
To reach CHELYEN DAVIS: 804/782-9362
Email: cdavis@freelancestar.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2006 The Free Lance-Star Publishing Company.
October 27, 2006 12:50 am
By CHELYEN DAVIS
RICHMOND--In 1867, a freed slave from Caroline County wrote to the Freedmen's Bureau in Richmond seeking help in finding the family he lost when he was sold 24 years earlier.
"I am anxious to learn about my sisters, from whom I have been separated many years," the letter reads. "My name is Hawkins Wilson and I am their brother, who was sold at Sheriff's sale and used to belong to Jackson Talley."
Wilson, who was then living in Galveston, Texas, listed his sisters' names and the families who owned them. He said he had no one else to turn to for help.
There's no indication that Wilson ever found the sisters and mother he was seeking. A letter he included to be sent to his sister Jane is still in bureau records. [To see the letter that Wilson wrote see: http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/F...0272006/232390.-Emmanuel Dabney]
But state leaders hope a new project will help the descendants of slaves trace their ancestors. The Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia is working with the Genealogical Society of Utah to digitize thousands of records of the Freedmen's Bureau.
The "Freedmen Project" was announced yesterday by Gov. Tim Kaine, along with Richmond Mayor Doug Wilder, state legislators and representatives from the museum, the Genealogical Society and other groups.
"This is equivalent for African-Americans [to] the records of Ellis Island being put up," Kaine said.
The Freedmen Bureau records, which were stored in the National Archives in Washington, for 140 years, have been converted to microfilm. The project will use that film to create a database that people can search online to find information about their ancestors.
"So much of that time was about the violent and forced tearing-apart of families," Kaine said. Those families can't be put back together, he added, but this project will "put back together stories of family."
Project leaders hope to have the online database up and running by the spring. Kaine said the state also plans to erect a historical marker at the corner of 10th and Broad streets in Richmond, where the Freedmen's Bureau was located.
African-Americans often have difficulty researching their genealogy because their slave ancestors were sold, families were separated, marriages were not officially recorded, and what records existed were sometimes lost or destroyed.
Del. Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond, said her family can't trace its ancestors back beyond her grandfather, himself a former slave.
The Freedmen's Bureau--officially titled the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands--was created after the Civil War to help newly freed slaves get on their feet and adjust to their new freedom. It existed for only a few years before whites who resented the integration of former slaves into society forced its closure.
In the years the bureau operated, it offered such services as food and clothing, legitimizing marriages, recording deeds and work contracts, establishing schools, opening bank accounts. It also helped reunite families separated by slavery, like Wilson's.
"The Hawkins Wilson letter really exemplifies what this project is all about the importance of this bureau in legitimizing the existence of these slaves who had become freedmen," said Darrell Walden, a University of Richmond professor who got involved with the project through studying the bureau's bank records. "He was sold and he never saw his family again."
The bureau had 300,000 records in Virginia alone, but they have been inaccessible to the public until now. Walden said about 30 percent of those records are expected to have genealogical value, like Wilson's letter.
Wilson named not only his sisters and the white families to whom they belonged, but his own former owners.
"It says a lot about the relationship that slaves had with their owners, which I think is neat in itself," Walden said.
Wilder, who also is chairman of the U.S. National Slavery Museum, said he hopes to have this sort of genealogical information available in the museum planned in Fredericksburg.
"We will have a component in the slavery museum that will do this," Wilder said.
He envisions visitors coming not just to see artifacts, but to "find out and trace and come to understand how this country was built."
To reach CHELYEN DAVIS: 804/782-9362
Email: cdavis@freelancestar.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2006 The Free Lance-Star Publishing Company.
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