African American Families

CVHR Meeting (June 7 ): Prof. Patrice Grimes, African American Education in Virginia

admin — Wed, 09 May 2012 16:58:49 +0000

Hold the date, more information to come.

4pm, June 7th, Monticello – Kenwood Library.

CVHR Meeting May (3): Family History (Edwina St. Rose) and Morven Archaeology (Steve Thompson)

admin — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 14:54:18 +0000

Edwina will tell “Emma’s Story,” about discovering her mother’s Charlottesville roots (aka “How W L met Harriet”). She says she has become hopelessly addicted to researching her mother’s paternal and maternal ancestry, adding to the family tree, and learning about the social interactions of Charlottesville’s African-American families in the late 19th Century.

Steve will give an overview of archaeological research at Morven since 2009: its goals, results, and potential next steps. This will include reference to salient aspects of the history of this estate near Ash Lawn-Highland that once belonged to Jefferson’s friend William Short, local merchant David Higginbotham, and others.

CVHR April Meeting (5th): Gayle Schulman and Bob Vernon (and Tinsley family members)

admin — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 14:11:43 +0000

Next meeting of Central Virginia History Researchers: Thursday, April 5, 4 PM, at the Jefferson Library

Gayle will tell us about seven persons of color born in Charlottesville/Albemarle between 1862 and 1882 who went on to become physicians. She is exploring their local roots as well as their professional careers. One of the doctors married a woman from Newaygo, Michigan (she says, Check it out on a map!). Gayle is also interested in knowing if and how their stories should be made available to others.

Bob will talk about his work on the Tinsley family of Louisa County. He will use Wilson and Marcia Tinsley, owned by two different Green Springs residents, as an example of an ‘abroad’ marriage and a springboard to using historical sources to understand the nature and extent of such marriages in central Virginia. He has asked members of the Tinsley family to come to the meeting to share their photographs and stories.

CVHR February Meeting (2nd): Visualizing Emancipation (Dr. Scott Nesbit, University of Richmond)

admin — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:53:32 +0000

Scott Nesbit will talk about two attempts to use online visualization to gain a better understanding of the history of emancipation. ”Marriage & Migration,” is a map of the cohabitation records in Virginia and was published to accompany an essay in the journal Southern Spaces. Visualizing Emancipation, to be released in February 2012, is an attempt to harvest and organize a large amount of information from the Official Records and other sources on where and when black southerners became free during the U.S. Civil War. He especially looks forward to thinking about the ways in which such projects could foster conversation and collaboration with local historians.

CVHR meets at 4pm on Thursday, February 2nd in the Kenwood Library at Monticello.

CVHR January Meeting (5th): 2012 Goals for our website/database

admin — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 14:19:29 +0000

A get-to-grips with 2012 meeting. Updates on the NEH database project, fixing on ways to populate our website with non-database-related information we’ve gathered, and anything else you want to bring up. Come help chart a course for the year ahead.

Time: 4pm, Thursday

Location: The Jefferson Library is located on Route 53, almost half a mile past the Monticello entrance, if you’re coming from Charlottesville. Turn right at the white gateposts (an oval sign mentions Kenwood and the Jefferson Library). Park in the first lots you come to and walk uphill to the Library, the large building at the top of the circle.

CVRH December Meeting (1st): Commonwealth vs. Judy (slave), 1859, and Beyond

admin — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 16:31:57 +0000

Alice Cannon will return to the story of Judy Woodfolk, convicted at the age of eight of attempted murder of her mistress, Margaret Rogers Terrell of Glen Echo. In Part One, Judy’s story ended with her delivery to the State Penitentiary in Richmond. In the midst of a microburst last June, Alice gave us Part Two, in which she discovered a Juda/Judy Holmes, presumably Judy Woodfolk, who survived prison and returned to Albemarle County by the end of the century.

In Part Three Alice will tell us how the revival of the once-rejected plan to build a Route 29 Bypass led to confirmation of the story she had pieced together but, as she says, “never imagined might one day be verified.” A proposed route for the Bypass would have gone through the Woodfolk cemetery behind Rio Hills shopping center, thus generating an archaeological impact study that provided the clinching testimony.

Members of the Woodfolk family will be with us at this meeting, which I hope will range in its discussion over the whole area including Hydraulic, Union Ridge, and Woodburn that was settled largely by African Americans after the Civil War. Much of the land they lived on is in the current path of the proposed Bypass.

Next meeting of Central Virginia History Researchers: Thursday, Dec. 1, 4 PM, at the Jefferson Library

CVHR November Meeting (3rd): Carter G. Woodson and the Woodsons of Buckingham County

admin — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 16:36:32 +0000

Joanne Yeck, our Ohio member, will be in town this week, so we can get her to tell us about how her research on white Buckingham County residents led to discoveries about Carter G. Woodson’s enslaved ancestors. Her resources include our beloved post-Civil War personal property tax records, white church records, and birth records.

CVHR October Meeting (6th)

admin — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 16:19:10 +0000

Topic: Enslaved Community at Bremo

We’ll have updates and announcements until 4:30. Then Andi Cumbo will tell us about her work on the people who were enslaved on the Bremo Plantations, established in the early nineteenth century by Gen. John Hartwell Cocke. She is writing a book that blends formal historical essays and creative personal essays in an attempt to tell the stories of these families. As part of this project, Andi has been seeking out descendants of the Bremo slaves.

And we’ll also discuss a good time to take up Andi’s generous invitation to us: an opportunity to visit the grounds of Bremo.

CVHR September Meeting (8th)

admin — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 15:37:40 +0000

Next meeting of Central Virginia History Researchers: Thursday, Sep. 8, 4 PM, at the Jefferson Library*

NOTE this is second Thursday, not first Thursday

Topic: Summer re-cap with focus on Hydraulic-Earlysville community

A lot has been happening since the spring, particularly in connection with families connected to Hydraulic Mills, Bleak House, and Earlysville. Alice Cannon will tell us about the Evans reunion in late May. We hope that a newly-found Evans descendant will be able to attend (he has photographs of Nathaniel “Link” Evans we’ve not seen before). I’ll report on some other new connections. And I hope some of you will want to bring us up to date on what’s been going on as well.

African-American Genealogy Workshop Announced at the Library of Virginia

admin — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 18:06:23 +0000

The Library of Virginia will offer Researching Your African American Ancestors: Genealogy to 1870 on September 29 from 10 AM to noon. Cara Griggs, reference archivist at the Library of Virginia, will discuss methods and resources for African American genealogy prior to the end of the Civil War. Workshop participants will explore ways of determining whether an individual was enslaved or free and what types of records will be useful for further research based on this information. The workshop will focus on records from the Library of Virginia collections including cohabitation registers, free negro lists, wills, deeds, Bible records, and personal papers, as well as selected federal records that can be accessed through its databases. To register for the workshop, call 804-692-3592.