Category Archives: Research

Oct. 14, 2017: Learning about VirginiaChronicle.com

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The Library of Virginia has an extensive collection of digitized newspapers that can be accessed online. However, only some of them are searchable. Learn how you can help make them all searchable by transcribing these valuable records and maybe add some context to your own family history.

The meeting will take place from 1:30 pm-3:30 pm at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The address of the Church is 1275 Timberwood Blvd., Charlottesville, VA. It is located on the corner of Airport Road and Timberwood. Coming from U.S. 29, the entrance is on the right (north) side of Airport Road immediately before you reach the church. Drive to the back of the building where you will see the entrance to the Family History Center.

Hope to see you there!

Free Access to Revolutionary War Records, July 1-15, 2017 on Fold3.com

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Access Revolutionary War Records for Free*

Revolutionary War Signing for Payment VouchersDo you have ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War? Now is the perfect time to learn more about them, as Fold3 is giving free access* to our Revolutionary War Collection July 1–15.

There are 20+ titles in our Revolutionary War Collection. Popular ones include:

Revolutionary War Pensions
The records in this collection include entire pension files for soldiers and sailors who served in the Revolutionary War. Unlike selected records, which were typically chosen subjectively for genealogical content, these records reveal more details about each veteran’s history and service, as well as more information about his family, state of health, and life after the war. Every name mentioned in the pensions has been indexed, not just the soldier’s name, which makes finding people even easier.

Revolutionary War Service Records
These are compiled service records for the regular soldiers of the Continental Army, and for the militia, volunteers, and others who served with them. The records are arranged under the designation “Continental Troops” or a state name, then by organization, and then alphabetically by a soldier’s surname. Records consist of card abstracts of entries relating to each soldier from original records. Also included are regimental lists including muster rolls, pay lists, and caption cards.

Revolutionary War Rolls
The primary function of the many Revolutionary War rolls maintained by the American Army was to provide basic information about the identities, numbers, condition, equipage, and pay status of the men and units that comprised the Army in order to facilitate administrative control. Browse these rolls by state and name of organization (regiment, battalion, guard, company, etc.). Find names of soldiers with the help of annotations supplied by other Fold3 users and feel free to add your own. Thousands of records from 138 rolls of microfilm provide names and details about the men who fought for independence.

Final Payment Vouchers Index for Military Pensions, 1818–1864
Pension payment records are not typically found in pension application files. These cards were created as an index for the final payments made to either the veteran or his widow. They provide additional details on where a family may have moved in the early- to mid-19th century, death dates of veterans, widows, or dependent children, and sometimes the maiden name of a widow.

Get started searching or browsing the Revolutionary War Collection on Fold3!.

*Access to the records in the featured collections will be free until July 15, 2017 at 11:59 p.m. MT. Free access requires registration for a free Fold3 account. After the free access period ends, you will only be able to view the records in the featured collections using a paid Fold3 membership.

 

Spring 2017 Central Virginia Heritage Available!

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Hi all — I was aiming at March 1st as the publication date for the Spring issue, but I managed to make it a Valentine’s Day baby instead!

First, a snippet from the article by Bernadette Whitsett-Hammond & Edwina St. Rose, titled “Preserving the Daughters of Zion Cemetery in Charlottesville, VA.”

“The Daughters of Zion Cemetery, located near Oakwood Cemetery in Charlottesville, VA, was established in 1873 by members of the Daughters of Zion, a women’s benevolent organization that sought to support the needs of African Americans following Reconstruction. One of the important efforts conducted by the Daughters of Zion was to provide a place of dignified burial as an alternative to segregated cemeteries such as Oakwood Cemetery…”

For the rest of this article, and several others, 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.”)

For those who are not members, we offer the opportunity to purchase a printed copy of each issue. The Spring 2017 issue is available from Createspace.com/6566260 for $6.50. Click on the CreateSpace.com link above or search for “Central Virginia Heritage” on the Createspace.com Store site.

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

Contents of the Spring 2017 issue:

  • The Blue Ridge Heritage Project, by Bill Henry … page 1
  • Freedmen’s Bureau Transcription Project Completed … page 4
  • The Rushes of Chestnut Grove, by Regina Rush … page 5
  • Polish Genealogical Society of America … page 10
  • A Letter From the Editor … page 10
  • Ehart’s Mill in Earlysville, by Everette M. Huff … page 11
  • 2017 Legacy Family Tree Webinar Series Announced … page 12
  • Midwest African American Genealogy Institute Celebrates Milestone Year! … page 13
  • Preserving the Daughters of Zion Cemetery in Charlottesville, VA, by Bernadette Whitsett-Hammond & Edwina St. Rose … page 14
  • Research at the American Baptist Historical Society … page 15
  • Blanket Lists for 1817 & 1818 in the Account Book of John George Woolfolk for Shepherd’s Hill Plantation, 1811-1819 … page 16
  • DNA Talk Rescheduled to March 14, 2017 … page 16
  • The Times-Dispatch Genealogical Column: The Duke Family of Virginia … page 17
  • Hollywood Cemetery (Richmond, VA), by Jean Cooper … page 20
  • A Simple Way To Read Old Tombstones … page 20
  • The Bible Comes Back to the Family! by Shelley Murphy … page 21
  • The Clark Allison Story, by Diane Inman … page 23
  • Packing list for a genealogical trip … page 24
  • Molecular Genealogy of a Mongol Queen’s Family and Her Possible Kinship with Genghis Khan, by Gavaachimed Lkhagvasuren, et al. … page 25
  • President’s Column, by Patricia Lukas … page 26

If you have any articles you’d like to share with CVGA members, please send an email to cvgaboard@gmail.com, Attention: The Editor.

Central Virginia Heritage (online edition), Winter 2016 Available Now

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A snippet from Sam Towler’s article, “Albemarle County Chancery Cases Preservation Project”:

In the 1970s, Albemarle County sent most of the chancery cases in its files which ended before 1912 to the Library of Virginia. The Library of Virginia preserved all the cases they received and put them in acid-free folders to prevent deterioration.  With the Albemarle County Clerk’s approval, I have been working on a project to preserve the post-1900 cases that Albemarle still had at the Courthouse in Charlottesville by unfolding the documents and putting the papers in acid-free folders provided by the Clerk’s Office.

For the rest of this article, and several others, 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.”)

For those who are not members, we offer the opportunity to purchase a printed copy of each issue. The Winter 2016 issue is available from CreateSpace.com/6782694 for $6.50. Click on the CreateSpace.com link above or search for “Central Virginia Heritage” on the Createspace.com Store site.

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

Table of Contents for the Winter 2016 issue:

  • Division of the Negro Property of the Estate of William Morris of Louisa County, Virginia, 1832 … page 1
  • Albemarle County Chancery Cases Preservation Project … page 4
  • Last Will and Testament of Benjamin Franklin, of St. Anne’s Parish, Albemarle Co., VA … page 6
  • Early Broadus Wood High School History … page 7
  • The Wyatt Family of Albemarle County, Virginia … page 9
  • Reductions in Service at the Library of Virginia … page 11
  • The Times-Dispatch Genealogical Column: The Walker Family of Virginia … page 12
  • Castle Hill … page 16
  • James Govan Estate Settlement and Division of Slaves (1831-1835), Hanover Co., VA … page 18
  • List of the Hire of Negroes [of the Heirs of] Richard Terrell of Louisa Co., VA (1771) … page 19
  • Funeral Home Records Available Online … page 20
  • Letter from Edward Govan to Mary Govan Hill, near Fredericksburg, VA (1831) … page 22
  • Slaves of John Ambler (April 1829) at his Plantations in Amherst and Louisa Counties … page 23
  • President’s Column, by Patricia Lukas … page 24

P.S. Wouldn’t you like to see your research published in this beautiful magazine? Send it to any of the CVGA officers on the About CVGA page.

Freedmen’s Bureau Transcription Project Completed!

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On December 6th, Alison Barnes, the Corresponding Secretary of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society (AAHGS), sent the following email to members of that organization who have been transcribing the records of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (the Freedmen’s Bureau) for the past 18 months.

Thank you for all your hard work on the Freedmen’s Bureau Project.  Together, AAHGS members were part of making history and contributed to the 100% completion of indexing the Freedmen’s Bureau Project.

The database is now a permanent part of the Genealogy Exhibit at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) in Washington, D.C.

Tomorrow, December 6th, 2016, marks the culmination of the project. At 9AM EST the indexed Freedmen’s Bureau Records was formally presented to NMAAHC. Go to http://www.discoverfreedmen.org to watch the recorded celebration.

The members of CVGA congratulate the members of the AAHGS on the successful completion of this project. It is a noteworthy achievement and will make these records available to genealogists and historians alike.

Reading rooms of the Library of Virginia will be closed …

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A letter from the Library of Virginia

The reading rooms of the Library of Virginia will be closed on Saturdays and Mondays starting November 14, 2016. The move is a result of the drop in recent revenue projections, which led to Governor McAuliffe reducing the operating budgets for executive agencies by 5 percent for the current fiscal year. The Library had no option but to turn to staff cuts to absorb the 5 percent operating budget reduction. With the loss of 18 employees, the Library is unable to keep the reading rooms open six days a week. Effective November 14, 2016, the reading rooms will be open Tuesday through Friday from 9:00 AM until 5:00 PM.

“The decision to close the reading rooms was made reluctantly but providing effective service on Saturdays and Mondays for patrons without adequate human resources was no longer possible. Since the Governor’s announcement of the staff reductions at the Library of Virginia I and other members of the Library Board have been contacted by members of the general public who are very upset about these staff reductions,” said R. Chambliss Light, Jr., chairman of the Library Board.

Librarian of Virginia Sandra G. Treadway said, “Closing on Saturdays and Mondays is necessary because of the loss of 12 full time and 6 part time employees. Suspending our Saturday hours and closing our reading rooms on Mondays is heartbreaking for us, but is necessary. It will make it difficult for citizens who do research in the Library’s unique holdings; however, we will continue to offer our constituents alternative avenues to information. When the Library is not open, citizens can still access numerous reference and research resources through the Library’s main website (www.lva.virginia.gov) and also via Virginia Memory (www.lva.virginiamemory.com)<http://www.lva.virginiamemory.com)>.”

Other service areas will also be affected. It will take longer, for example, to fill orders for digital images of material in the collections. Training for state and local records officers will be offered less frequently, and response times for records management-related questions may be extended. Moreover, it will take longer to provide access to new collections, and the Library’s ability to offer programming will be diminished.

The agency will remain open from Monday through Friday. Full-time public service staff will continue to respond to mail, email, and telephone requests and will pull materials to fulfill research, photocopying, and digitization requests. This work will primarily be done on Mondays, since there is not sufficient staff coverage to complete this work when the reading rooms are open to the public.

If you would like more information about the Library, please visit our website, www.lva.virginia.gov.

 

Central Virginia Heritage (online edition), Fall 2016 Available Now

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Cover of Central Virginia Heritage, Fall 2016 issue.

Here is a snippet from Patricia Lukas’ article “Hill & Wood Funeral Service Records:
A Brief Overview”:

The business now known as Hill & Wood Funeral Service was founded in 1907 as the Irving, Way, Hill Company. Mr. Willard Irving handled the livery business, Mr. C.T. Way was a carriage maker, and J. Hercules Hill was the undertaker. It was located at Water and Main Streets. After one relocation, the business was moved to its present location at 201 N. First Street, Charlottesville, VA in 1936.

The company was incorporated as Hill and Irving in 1929. Mr. Paul H. Wood assumed the presidency in 1975 when a new corporation named Hill and Irving Funeral Home, Inc. was formed. Hill and Wood Funeral Service, Inc. became the name of the firm on January 1, 1978.

The earliest records held by the company date from August 1914. The first book consists of preprinted pages with the record of services provided …

For the rest of this article, and several others, 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.”)

For those who are not members, we offer the opportunity to purchase a printed copy of each issue. The Fall 2016 issue is available from CreateSpace.com/6549428 for $6.50. Click on the CreateSpace.com link above or search for “Central Virginia Heritage” on the Createspace.com Store site.

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

Table of Contents for Fall 2016 issue:

  • Excerpts from A Census of Pensioners for Revolutionary or Military Services … page 1
  • Burial Records of Jewish Cemeteries in Central Virginia … page 5
  • Thomas M. Appling (1 Jan 1832-ca. 22 Aug. 1862) … page 6
  • Hill & Wood Funeral Service Records: A Brief Overview … page 7
  • Genetic Genealogy in Practice: Book Announcement … page 8
  • Pension Testimony from Veterans of the American Revolution in Albemarle County … page 9
  • The Pension Act of 1818 … page 13
  • An 18th-Century Pre-Nuptial Agreement from Fluvanna County … page 14
  • Three Lists of Negro Slaves Owned by Lewis Holladay of Bellefonte, Spotsylvania County, Va., 1800-1817 … page 19
  • Spotsylvania County, Va. Tax Assessments, 1779-1780 … page 20
  • Central Virginia Historical Organizations … page 24
  • President’s Column, by Patricia Lukas … page 27

Contributions of research articles needed for next Central Virginia Heritage

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Dear Members of CVGA — Get out your pens!

In order to publish a newsletter for Fall 2016, we need several research articles to include in it. I know that you will be doing research all summer, and would like to share your efforts with other family history researchers, so please do send them in. The articles may be edited for length and content, and we cannot guarantee that all articles submitted will be included in the Fall 2016 issue.

Order a print copy of Central Virginia Heritage, Spring/Summer 2016

Please note that we can now use illustrations (black-and-white or color) with your articles on the web or in print. If you intend to include illustrations, please contact me for details on format and resolution needed.

We are looking for articles on topics such as:

  • Resources to be found in a specific archive or courthouse in Virginia,
  • How you solved a specific problem in your research,
  • Genealogy of a particular Central Virginia family,
  • Transcription of a Central Virginia document or record that you think will be useful to other researchers,
  • Instructions on how to use a specific resource, or
  • Any other sort of article that you believe will be useful to your fellow researchers.

Send your original articles to any of the Board members — Patricia Lukas, Susan Emert, Susan DuBar, Pam Vandenhoff, Diane Inman, or Jean Cooper. Our email addresses can be found here: http://cvga.avenue.org/?page_id=5