Category Archives: Events

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

5/14/2016 Meeting — Visit to University of Virginia Library

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The University of Virginia Library has many resources that may be used by Virginia residents. Our next meeting — on May 14 — will be a tour of Alderman Library, by Jean Cooper. We’ll meet in Memorial Hall of Alderman Library at 1:30 pm. If we have time, we can go over to the Small Special Collections Library and take a look at some of the current Shakespeare, Sadleir-Black Gothic Literature Collection, and the Declaration of Independence exhibits.

We suggest you park in the Central Grounds Parking Garage, which is near Alderman Library. It costs $2.00 per hour to park in the garage, but there is little free parking around the University.

We’d like a rough count of the number of people coming in order to have enough handouts, so please put a comment on this posting if you plan to join  us.

May 7, 2016 — Index-a-thon of the Freedmen’s Bureau Records

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Saturday, May 7th is an area-wide Index-a-thon to help FamilySearch.org finish the indexing and arbitration of the remainder of the Freedman’s Bureau records.  These records must be finished by June so that a database can be prepared for the opening of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in September.

Anyone who can help with this very important work can index records from the Freedman’s Bureau from any location you want, by downloading the free indexing software and selecting that project from the indexing program on the FamilySearch.org website.  Any questions, please contact Barbara Branham at 293-4404.

Beyond Family Tree Maker – educational video

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Here is a link to a video from Lisa Louise Cooke’s Genealogy Gems. It’s called ‘Beyond Family Tree Maker: How to Take Control of Preserving Your Family Tree’. Pat Lukas, who has viewed this video, says, “I don’t use Family Tree Maker but I found good information in this video about keeping computer files safe.”

It is available free through April 15 (2016), and can be viewed below.

NOTE: 4/28/2016. Apparently it is still freely available, since I was able to run the video just now.

Fredericksburg Family History Day 2016

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On Saturday, March 19, 2016, the annual Fredericksburg Family History Day will take place at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1710 Bragg Rd, Fredericksburg, VA. Walk-in registration begins at 8:00 am and the Keynote address begins at 9:00 am. The event runs until 3:00 pm.

The Keynote speaker will be Dr. William S. Pretzer, Senior Curator for History at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. which is slated to open in September of this year.

For more information and to register for this free conference, go to http://fredvafamilyhistoryday.com/wordpress/

Learn About African-American Genealogy

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The Brown Burke Steppe and Central Virginia Chapters of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society (AAHGS) and the Jefferson School African-American Heritage Center will present ‘Topics in Genealogy’ on March 5, 2016 from 10:00 am to 12 noon.

Angela Walton-Raji, B.A., M.Ed, Author, Lecturer and Podcaster will talk about the Freedmen’s Bureau Project and Shelley Murphy, B.S., M.A., D.M., Professor, Scholar and Writer will address African American Genealogy Research Challenges.

The Heritage Center is located at 233 4th Street NW, Charlottesville, VA 22903.