Hi, all — I wanted to announce a new page on the website, a central place where those interested can see and purchase CVGA Occasional Papers:

CVGA Occasional Papers

Finding the Freedmen: Records From Louisa County, 1865-1870,
by Elaine L. Taylor

The identity of enslaved people, the names of their parents and siblings, where they came from, the work, and the wounds that filled their lives are extremely challenging to uncover. This book brings together public records and a few family papers containing information about the Freedmen of Louisa County, Virginia, in the years immediately after the Civil War. Many of those sources are now online but sometimes identifying, let alone accessing those online sources, creates another brick wall for many researchers. My experience in assisting people with research in the Louisa County museum convinced me that the most useful format for these records would be to make them available in a single source in print format. The following records are combined and presented in two forms, alphabetically by the Freedmen’s names and alphabetically by the names of employers….

To see the rest of this article, CVGA members should go to “Members Only” on the menu bar above, and choose “Central Virginia Heritage — Current Issue.” (Note: You have to be logged in to this website in order to see “Members Only.”)

If you have trouble logging in to the site to download your copy, please contact me at the webmaster link at the bottom of this page.

For those who are not members of CVGA, we offer the opportunity to purchase a printed copy of each issue. The Summer 2022 issue is available from Amazon.com at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B3MXKT29 for $6.50. Click on the Amazon.com link above or search for “Central Virginia Heritage” on Amazon.com.

Contents of the Summer 2022 issue:

• Two New Central Virginia Tools for Genealogists, by Elaine L. Taylor
• Marriage Announcements in the Daily Progress (Charlottesville, VA), November 1895, transcribed by Diane Inman
• Marriages in the Virginia Advocate (Charlottesville, Va.)
• Death Announcements in the Virginia Advocate (Charlottesville, Va.)
• The Best Way to Safely Label Photos, by Maureen A. Taylor
• Orange County (Va.) Sheriffs, 1734-Present
• Louisa County (Va.) Sheriffs 1742-Present
• More About the Bell Family of Buckingham County, by Jean L. Cooper

If you have any articles you’d like to share with CVGA members, please send an email to the editor, eleanordew at gmail dot com — The Editor.

Hi, all — Over the past few years I have been running lists of the people who have served as sheriffs of counties in Central Virginia in the Central Virginia Heritage. In order to complete this collection of information, I need lists of sheriffs from the following counties:

• Amherst
• Buckingham
• Campbell
• Culpeper
• Madison
• Page
• Rockingham

If anyone has done research in these areas, or has seen research that has been done, please contact me. I would love to be able to give credit to the compilers of such lists. Thank you for your help,

Jean (eleanordew at gmail dot com), Editor, Central Virginia Heritage

CVGA’s meeting has been postponed to next Saturday 20 March at 10 am.

Since this is Women’s History Month, we will have a program on finding female ancestors followed by a discussion on any research techniques any of us have used to find our female ancestors.

“Reading Old Handwriting” will be the topic at a virtual event at the Library of Virginia on January 19, 2021, from 4 to 5 pm.  This event is online and is free.  It will be hosted on Zoom and no pre-registration is required.  For additional information go to: https://www.lva.virginia.gov/news/calendar/

You may need passcodes for the virtual meetings referenced in the notice about our November 14 meeting.
451672   passcode for Friday meeting Freedmen’s Bureau records
327255   passcode for Saturday meeting beyond 1870 records
If you click on the link provided it will take you to a Zoom screen.  Click on Open Zoom Meeting and if the passcode is required a screen will open so you can enter the passcode. You should be able to access the meeting after that.