The people who settled Virginia, when all was Virginia had some differences that help in distinguishing them from each other.

English

__Cluster on plantations

__Younger sons of great families

__Marry within their social class

__Maintain households with servants—may be indentured, often related to the family

__Land holdings in more than one county; more than one state

__May be Quaker or Baptist before it is legal to practice their religion

Scots

__Merchants and their factors (almost always related to the family)

__Concentrated along rivers and major roads:  trade routes

__Trade with the Indians and intermarry with them (called alliances)

__Do not fight the Indians

__Purchase plantations as a seat of operations and to qualify to vote

__Usually not soldiers

__Rely on others to prefer, appoint, recommend, and aid

__Not frontiersmen per se, arrange trade zones and centers around their residences

__Employ  only their own relatives!

__May be Loyalists—low legal profile, stay out of public eye

Welsh

__Clannish, congregate in “Welsh tracts”

__Acquire landholdings—land is essential  for an on-going pedigree in Wales and that characteristic is brought to America when they come

__Immediate family members often have different surnames—versions

of the same patronymic or metronymic

__Migrate in groups of families, usually interrelated before they move

Scots-Irish—also called Ulstermen, Ulster Scots

__Protestants who lived in Scotland and settled in Ireland before coming to America–one or more generations in Ireland.

__Neither Scots nor Irish as a race, their origins are shrouded in the mists

of Eastern Europe; tartans have been found in the hoarfrost of Western China

__Frontiersmen, always pushing westward away from the crowds

__Willing to fight—in court for their rights, in battle for their freedom

__Willing to fight the Indians for control of lands

__Attend church, religious participation is a passion.  They accepted their relationship with God by Covenant before they left Scotland; they taught their children the same relationship with God

__Marry within their own blood, brothers frequently marry sisters to keep their lands and property within the family

__Own land wherever they settle—move on quickly if owning land is not an option, or if land ownership requires too much chaos

Indian

__Includes Melungeon background—VA, NC, TN, and into KY

__Cherokee most common; Shawnee, Iroquois including Seneca, Chickasaw, Creek, Seminole (less common), Choctaw, smaller tribes from NC and SC

__May speak English from the time of early settlement

__Identified as “free people of color” or “all other free persons” on censuses; also classified as “mulatto” and of “mixed blood” in records

__20% of  the American people have Native American blood in their veins

__Ally themselves with frontiersmen

German

__Settle on the outskirts of the other groups on self-contained farms

__Often Anabaptist by religion:  Dunkards, Mennonites, Brethren, Schwenckfelders, as well as German Reformed and Lutheran

__Law-abiding, willing to pay fines for refusal to muster and fight

__Attend court-days, serve on road details and juries willingly

__Culturally adaptive, very compatible with Scots-Irish, often intermarry

Huguenot

__Merge identity into other groups so they do not call attention to

themselves—even attend whatever church is nearby (except Roman Catholic), although they prefer the Reformed religion

__Origins in Europe—Switzerland, Italy, German provinces, Netherlands where they fled for refuge from French persecution.  So while considered French, they are almost always something else too

__Usually speak English before coming to America–indicating that they spent time in England or Ireland

__Low legal profile, stay out of public eye if possible–unwilling to fight if it calls attention to themselves

Do any of these sound like your ancestors?  Review the information you have collected on your Virginia ancestors–who do they most closely fit?  Your favorite Virginia genealogist, Arlene Eakle  http://arleneeakle.com

PS  I have developed several NEW presentations on Virginia and Southern Research.  Watch for the posting of these topics on my Home Page.  If your group needs a speaker–I may be available.

Each entry is complete enough so that you can recognize your ancestors.  You can print the whole surname or selected entries for specific time periods and localities.

Yesterday, I had the chance to search the database for several ancestors I am currently researching.  And I am so excited  about what I found!  Instead of searching page by page through unindexed books and issues of  hard-to-read periodicals, I can go to the exact entry I want.

When you plan your next research trip, put the Washington County Historical Society on your itinerary.  Go there and check their database for your ancestors!  Your favorite Virginia genealogist, Arlene Eakle  http://arleneeakle.com

PS  Or when I next come to Virginia to do research, I will check it for you! This is one of the big reasons that I still do field research–to take advantage of the quiet work done by local societies and their members.

PPS  Copies are 30 cents per page.  Evidently researchers express shock, for there is a big-letter warning on  the computer screen–giving you a chance to back out.   So come prepared.

1. Surnames as given names–first or middle position.  These surnames usually identify the kinship network within which your ancestor lived.  These surnames also earmark the migration patterns followed by your ancestors.  And they supply an in-house recommendation for source materials to check first.  Read family histories for these surnames and look for family trees online that identify which generations of the specific surname intermarried with your family surnames.  Review family traditions for related families and name changes.   When you search census records, probates, and tax lists–watch for these surnames in the lists as well as your own.  Then carefully evaluate what you find.
2. Alternate spellings of surnames.  Many surnames have been Americanized.  When you watch for alternate spellings of these surnames, you can gain evidence of countries of origin and “lost” places of residence where the surviving records are more complete or easier to access.  Other places to research if the courthouse burned or records are lost by war.
3. Namesakes.  People travel together, settle in clusters.  Search lists of early settlers and note leaders of events, of militia and army forces, of churches, of political movements.  Check biographical sources in print and online for these leaders.  Who are they?  What families are related to them?  Where do they come from?  What level of society do they represent?  Where do they lie buried?

Allow enough time in your work to evaluate the evidence you already have in your possession–when you zip into and out of sources now indexed online, you can easily overlook the very evidence you seek.  You may have had it all the time.  Just never spent time reviewing what you had.  We all fall into this research pit at least once or twice.  Your favorite Virginia genealogist, Arlene Eakle   http://arleneeakle.com

PS  Your names are an essential key to your lineage.  Use them to actively search for your origins.

Nearby was a large iron forge at New Providence, in Charles City County with others not too far distant.

These busy enterprises employed slave labor from surrounding plantations, loaned,  leased, and rented.  They also employed local residents to build and repair ships.  And although the records that seem to have survived, are not extensive, those available in Record  Group 48, Auditor of Public Accounts, Library of Virginia, Richmond document both white and black workers, 1776-1780/81.

The author sites specific studies completed on both shipyards.  And he references published lists of non-commissioned seamen and marines, as well as soldiers who served in the Virginia State Line during the Revolutionary War.

Grundset indicates the work of ancestors at these shipyards may serve as proof of patriotic service for admission to lineage societies.

Actually, finding records of this kind of service and employment is a matter of jurisdiction.

Jurisdiction is often thought of as locality–one of the four principal search dimensions that  genealogy instructors stressed in classes of yore.  Jurisdiction, however, is much broader.  Business enterprises are jurisdictions with authority to engage, oversee, and pay employees.

Not every one was a farmer!  Skilled occupations were in great demand.  And the need for ships required a work force large enough to fill that need and of efficient cost to render production feasible.

Virginia was in a special place to supply ships:

1. Virginia had many navigable rivers that all emptied into the tidewater Chesapeake Bay.
2. Virginia had a large slave population on plantations conveniently  located to those rivers.
3. Plantation masters welcomed paid work for their slaves to supplement their own regular incomes.
4. White workers nearing fulfillment of indentured servant contracts were also available to expand the work force–many with precision skills needed at the shipyards.
5. Virginia’s peacetime seamen were just as patriotic and eager to serve in the Revolutionary commitment as were the soldiers.  Don’t overlook the miles of tidewater frontage present in this large colony.

Many thanks to Eric Grundset for sharing these documents and their whereabouts.  Oh, that we all had the time to explore among the unused records at the Virginia Library in Richmond and through collections of Virginia documents on microfilm at the Family History Library.  Or,secreted away in the uncatalogued and unprocessed collections at other libraries across the country with Virginia interests.

On each research trip I make, I try to factor in some exploratory time to locate both printed and original documentation for Virginia ancestors.  Keep tuned in–as I continue  this research.  I’ll keep you posted on what I find.  Your favorite Virginia genealogist, Arlene Eakle   http://arleneeakle.com

PS  When I speak on Virginia Genealogy at conferences and at Family History Expos, I incorporate these new discoveries so you too can track your hard-to-find Virgina forebears.

PPS  Join us at the  Family History Expos in Independence-Kansas City MO at the end of July and in Atlanta in November for more Virginia presentations. Check http://www.fhexpos.com for details.

Grundset also indicates their work may serve as proof of patriotic service for admission to lineage societies.

There is much interest.  And a considerable amount of new research–genealogical and historical–for you to draw on.  Free persons of color are more intelligible when studied within context of slavery.

Add these studies to your reading list:

1. Bancroft, Frederic.  Slave Trading in the Old South. Columbia SC:  University of South Carolina Press, 1996.  Bancroft was a contemporary author.  His work is here edited with a new introduction by Michael Tadman.  Many specific examples are presented.  Good index.
2. Breen, T.H., and Stephen Innes.  “Myne Owne Ground:”  Race and Freedom on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, 1640-1676. New York:  Oxford University Press, 1980.  A study of Black Virginia family migrations–Johnson, Rodriggus, Cane families featured.
3. Gammell, Paula.  “Review:  A Critical Evaluation of Sally Hemmings Children, A Genealogical Analysis of the Evidence,” East Tennessee Roots 9 (Number 2): 159-71.  Gammell calls for separating fact from fiction, truth from Lies, proof from speculation.  See pages 148-59.
4. Kegley, Mary B.  Free People of Colour:  Free Negroes, Indians, Portuguese, and Freed Slaves. Wytheville VA:  Kegley Books, 2003.  Data drawn from Augusta, Wythe, Montgomery, Giles, Pulaski, Lee, Russell, Scott, Carroll, and Washington counties.  Some examples from Powhatan, Chesterfield, Goochland, Northumberland, Richmond, Louisa, and Henry counties.  Well indexed.
5. Leary, Helen F.M.  “Sally Hemmings Children:  A  Genealogical Analysis of the Evidence,” National Genealogical Society Quarterly 89 (Sept 2001): 165-217.  Important article.
6. MacDonald, Joy.  Online database, Handley Regional Library Archives website http://192.168.4.4/Handley/Archives/free_blacks Covers 1795-1862 for old Frederick County (including Berkeley, Jefferson, and Shenandoah until 1772, Page until 1831, and Clarke and Warren until 1836).  Personal property tax lists which contain expanded information for some years–spouse, age, occupation.
7. Schweninger, Loren, etal.  Runaway Slaves:  Rebels on the Plantation. New York:  Oxford University Press, 1999.  Computer-generated Runaway Slave Database: 1790-1816, 1838-1860.  Some 8,400 entries from Newspaper ads appearing in VA, NC, SC, TN, LA.  Extensive, chatty footnotes.
8. Tadman, Michael.  Speculators and Slaves:  Masters, Traders, Slaves in the Old South. Madison WI:  University of Wisconsin Press, 1996.  2nd edition of book first appearing in 1989.  Includes extensive list of sources and Appendix 2:  “Structure of Planter Migrations.” Highly recommended.
9. Williams, Gary M. “Links Before Emancipation:  Afro-American Slave Genealogy in Virginia,” Magazine of Virginia Genealogy 32 (Number 1):  3-10.  Discussion of the complexities of slave naming patterns–unraveling the origins of the names requires determining the origin of the slaves on the plantation as well as tracing the genealogy of white owners–often white owners on several plantations.  Important article.

Watch the evidence carefully–this is the advice of most of these studies.  What appears as the easy answer, is frequently wrong!  Your favorite Virginia genealogist, Arlene Eakle  http://arleneeakle.com

PS  At the Colorado Family History EXPO 25-26 June in Longmont CO,  I will speak on the importance of Naming Patterns to prove origins of American families.  When you register for the conference at http://www.fhexpos.com you can access my handout online.  The information in this handout alone is worth the cost of the conference.  True story.

1. Elizabeth A Crowell and Norman Vardney Mackie III.  “The Funerary Monuments and Burial Patterns of Colonial Tidewater Virginia, 1607-1776,”  Markers VII (1990):  103-38;  with a second article on “Charles Miller Walsh:  A Master Carver of Gravestones in Virginia, 1865-1901 ” by Martha Wren Briggs.
2. Lynn Rainville, “Home at Last: Mortuary Commemoration in Virginia Slave Cemeteries,”  MarkersXXVI (2009):  55-83.   Mostly Albemarle County examples.

Both articles include photographs and drawings of stones and graveyard settings.  They are also well referenced with numerous other studies of stones and inscriptions from a variety of Virginia burial grounds–in other words, many footnotes to follow-up on.

The authors consider the usual aspects of time and form, with changes over  time indicated and size and format with funeral art and plantings also discussed.  They also include the distribution of similarities from one place to another. 

Burial of the dead in Virginia was first around or in proximity of the church, although the site may not be a specific churchyard.  Then as the plantation system grew and spread up river valleys, burials were made in designated sections of the plantation.  Owners, tenants, and slaves were buried together, although in separate sections.

As sons and daughters set up their own plantations, they followed this same burial pattern.  Much to the distress of the English authorities who sought the traditional churchyard burial pattern.

Because the parishes were large and the church buildings spread far apart, transporting the dead to the church for burial was impractical:

But it is a common thing all over the country (what thro’ want of ministers,what by their great distance and the heat of the weather, and the smelling of the corps), both to bury at other places than Church yards and to employ Laicks to read the funeral service; which till our circumstances and laws are altered, we know not how to address.  Letter to James Blair to Governor Alexander Spotswood, 1719. 

Conclusions of Crowell and Mackie– 

In Virginia there was a dearth of stone for building floors, steps of houses and public buildings, and for gravestones.  The stone had to be imported from England–and wills, as well as account books, include the importing of stones.  Such notations in account books, when dated, can serve as death and burial dates.  Crowell and Mackie give pages of specific examples.

These stones memorialize the dead, mark the final resting place, and state the position in society of your family members.  Size and elaborate carvings were considered an indication of wealth, connection, and place in the community.

Headstone, ledger (flat slab directly on the ground), chest-tomb, table-tomb, and obelisk were used in Colonial cemeteries of Virginia.  The latter three were raised above the ground and were considered as evidence of upper society burials.

The chest-tomb was a stone box with a ledger on the top.  The table-tomb is a ledger raised on four legs–often carved with elaborate decorations.

Two obelisks are found in the Tidewater area of Virginia–on the graves of William Byrd II (1744) and David Bray (1731).  Both stones were imported from England. 

Burials within the church itself, were reserved for persons of high social position and wealth.  Ledger stones were used,both flat and wall-mounted because they fit better into the smaller church structures found in Virginia.  Coats of  arms, as well as soul imagery motifs, were carved directly on the stones.

An interesting find by Crowell and Mackie is the use of the word “gentleman” in the deeds and wills correlated to the coat of arms on the tombstone for that man. 

The term “mister” is correlated to persons above the status of “yeoman.”

Stones written in Latin matched those persons who had a coat of arms or used a title in the inscription, including the use of “Honorable.”

Women of high status are listed as daughters of gentlemen; women not of high status in their own right and married to a man of status are listed as “wife” of the gentleman. 

Places of residence or birth are used for those of high status.  And statements of “ancient and worthy family” are also included.  Class, ancestry, and family ties are associated with these same persons.

Status indicated by Places of burial: 

1. within the church or in the churchyard with a chest-tomb–highest social status
2. under a ledger in the church yard–of community prestige, although not entitled to a coat of arms
3. memorialized only with a headstone, lower segments of society
4. lacking a gravemarker all together, lowest social class.

When names are compared with documents, the same designations appear on their documents and legal papers.  These trappings of social position differentiate between men, and women, of the same name living in the same place.

Watch for the next episode where I will summarize the slave burials–you will be rqther amazed!  Your favorite Virginia genealogist, Arlene Eakle   http://arleneeakle.com

On the 23rd of April, William Shakespeare was born and died.  And on the very same day, Cervantes who gave us Don Quixote, also died.  These two great writers knew each other.  And their stories are re-lived in movies and television and book plots.

Finding time to read for pleasure or for profit today takes much ingenuity as you juggle and multi-task and re-schedule to get it all done.  Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s I-PAD pre-loaded with thousands of digital books of your choosing–or chosen for you for that matter–now are carried, although they may not be read as much you would like.

I carry a Sherlock Holmes mystery in my purse, snatching a few minutes here or there to read a few paragraphs.  Somehow I think to myself  that if I have the book with me, I am a reader.  Me, who read every book in the Bountiful Public Library when I was 12-13 years old!  And who’s entire existence is surrounded by books–in every room.  On built-in book shelves.  On tables small and large.  Stacked high near and around my bed, my chairs, my sofa, my breakfast nook.  Loaded in my pick-up truck to be transported to my Genealogy Library Center for preservation.

And my idea of a good day is discovering Virginia books new to me, that include specific ancestors I am researching.  Let me re-visit just two Virginia books about early churches:

1. Nelson, John K.  A Blessed Company:  Parishes, Parsons, and Parishioners in Anglican Virginia, 1690-1776. 2001.  University of North Carolina Press, PO Box 2288, Chapel Hill NC 27515-2288.  http://www.uncpress.unc.edu There were 47 parishes in 1690 and 95 in 1775, on the eve of the American Revolution which changed established religious worship and record keeping for all time.  Appendix A is a “Biographical Dictionary of Virginia’s Anglican Parish Clergy, 1690-1776″–some 365 clergyman.  Included among these is William Stith, born 1707 in Virginia.  He married Judith Randolph.  He graduated from the College of William and Mary and served as master of the grammar school.  He was also a local historian. I’m hunting now for what he wrote.
2. Worrall, Jay R.  The Friendly Virginians:  America’s First Quakers. 1994.  Available Iberian Publishing Company, 548 Cedar Creek Drive, Athens GA 30605-3408.  Quakers appeared first in Virginia in Sep 1655.  The population was 18,000 scattered through the woods along the rivers and creeks of the Tidewater.  About 50% of these were indentured servants who had to serve their masters for a period of years before they could acquire lands of their own.  There were also about 5,000 Black slaves and 4,000 Indians.  Appendix A is a “List of Quaker Meetings in Virginia” and there is an accompanying map showing the locations by number.  Quakers brought America their commitment to peace and their desire to end war and violence; their belief in religious freedom, civil rights, women’s rights, aid for Native Americans, and recommended changes to the penal system.  Included among the pages at random are several references to John Hunnicutt, of Burleigh who along with James Ladd, a minister from Charles City County, and Pleasants Terrell of Caroline Meeting partnered with Robert Pleasants to represent the Virginia Monthly Meeting in 1787.  Virginia was in the middle of an earnest debate over whether slavery should be abolished.  And Robert Pleasants and six other Friends, including John Hunnicutt, proposed the formation of the Virginia Abolition Society in 1790.  They invited other churches to participate.  George Washington suggested that this took real courage, since “nearly all Virginians are convinced that the general emancipation of Negroes cannot occur in the near future and for this reason they do not wish to organize a society which might  give their slaves dangerous ideas.” p. 243.

I just love to discover entries showing pedigree ancestors involved in important historical events of the day.  Churches led the way in the drive to abolish slavery and in several states, when the civil authorities moved too slow, they held organizing meetings, collected funds to compensate slave owners, encouraged their own members to emancipate their Blacks in their wills (even when it was illegal to do so).

How excited I am to discover that the Hunnicutts and their relatives put their actions behind their beliefs.  Such discovery requires reading.  Actually sitting down with the book.  Studying the index.  Testing its completeness–is every name included?   Checking each entry.  And savoring the story present in what is recorded.   Then doing the follow-up:  taking the story to the original church records, where almost without exception, there are other details that endear these ancestors to the reader.

And in celebration of Book Lovers Day, 23 April 2010, I offer this recommendation to you:  As you hurry from task to task, take some time each and every research session to check a Virginia book new to you, that can supply the story of your ancestors and their lives in Virginia.  Your favorite Virginia genealogist, Arlene Eakle.    http//arleneeakle.com

PS  The more Virginia records I search, the more I am convinced that there are more records out there than we will ever live long enough to search–or read.  And that gives me my genealogy optimism!  We can find those hard-to-find ancestors and reveal the stories they lived.

Your favorite genealogist, Arlene Eakle http://www.arleneeakle.com

1. Apart from the World: An Account of the Origins and Destinies of Various Swiss Mennonites who fled from their homelands in remote parts of the Cantons of Zurich, Aargau, and Bern as well as Alsace, the Kurpalz, and later along the edges of the American Frontier in Pennsylvania and Virginia; Namely the Families Bachman, Bar, Bruppacher, Houser, Hiestand, Leaman, Ringger, Schmidt, and Strictler, 1495-1865.  1997.  J. Ross Baughman.  Also available on microfilm, FHL #2055473.  Includes pedigrees, migration routes, and many other families who intermarried with (and perhaps traveled along with) Baughman’s ancestors.
2. The Chain Rejoined; Or, The Bonds of Science and History Amongst Family, including Many Attempts to Recover Ties Across the Atlantic Ocean to Ancestors and Cousins of Baughmans and Bachmanns.  2005.  J. Ross Baughman.  Shenandoah History, PO Box 98, Edinburg VA 22824. Includes an extensive glossary of terms found frequently in records dealing with German and Swiss background ancestors.
3. Harvest Time: Being several essays on the History of the Swiss, German, and Dutch Folk in Early America named Baughman, Layman, Moyer, Huff, and Others; Across New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, and Four Centuries.  1994.  J. Ross Baughman.  Shendoah History, PO Box 98, Edinburg VA 22824.

These three volumes by J. Ross Baughman include copious footnotes referencing some very interesting emigration-immigration sources not usually consulted in the compilation of what is basically a genealogy study of specific families.  And you know that I read the footnotes first! The volumes also include numerous maps showing where the people come from, where they settle, and where they migrate to.  Land ownership maps have been drawn for several families and their neighbors.

If you have a German or Swiss background ancestry, you will benefit from reading these volumes–whether your ancestors are listed in the indexes or not.

4. From the Rhine to the Shenandoah:  Eighteenth Century Swiss and German Families to the Central Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and their European Origins. 3 vols. 2002.  Daniel W. Bly.   Available from the author, Box 242, Mt Sydney VA 24467.  (Printed by Gateway Press, Inc., 1001 N. Calvert St., Baltimore MD 21202-3897.)  Genealogies of many families.

5. Kentucky’s German Pioneers by H. A. Rattermann. 2001. Translated and edited by Don Heinrich Tolzmann.  Heritage Books 1540E Pointer Ridge Place, Bowie MD 20716.  Based on articles written by Rattermann in Der Deutsche Pioneer (1877-1880).   These writings are 3-4 generations closer to the actual settlement period and they include names and migrations into and from Virginia not found in other sources!

Make February a time of study in the origins and migration patterns of your German, Swiss, and perhaps Holland Dutch ancestors too.  Begin with these titles and then search out the additional references cited by the above authors.

Make 2010 a new beginning of successful searching by standing on the shoulders of writers who have ploughed the way.  Your favorite Virginia genealogist, Arlene Eakle  http://arleneeakle.com

PS  My presentation on Virginia at the St George Family History Expo is brand NEW.  You won’t want to miss it.  Register now and plan to attend 26-27 Feb 2010 at the Dixie Center in St George UT  http://www.fhexpo.com

We left Utah early that February.  The day in Utah was bitterly cold–below zero.  Our car windows did not thaw completely until we had been in Oklahoma for 2 days.

When we arrived in Virginia, the afternoon and early evening were balmy and so much warmer, that we walked cemeteries in Rockbridge county without coats!

But, oh…the snow fell!

The next morning, we awakened to 24 inches of snow in the Shenandoah Valley–and topping our car.  And it continued to snow all that day and into the night.  A total of 36 inches fell.  Of course it paralyzed Virginia.   They had to import snowplows from Pennsylvania.   It did not paralyze us.  We had snow tires with heavy grid and tire chains in the trunk!

We were staying in a small motel in rural Rockbridge.  Our focus was the courthouse at Augusta County–to the north.  We just had to wait until the main roads were cleared and the courthouse opened.  So we played games. Shoveled snow.  And ate the kitchen, attached to the motel, out of almost all their food.  All that is, except the lemon meringue pie, baked just for us.  It crashed as the waitress slid on the floor wet from opening the outside door  to cool the porch… and the pie.

That trip we visited with relatives and those who knew the relatives.  Walked over 300 cemeteries. Personally dusted the original court case files tied tightly in neat bundles and stored in metal file boxes.  Hand-copied from the original land and personal property tax rolls.  Unfolded the original marriage bonds of many Virginia ancestors.

We attended the churches our ancestors attended and even sat in the same pews.  We watched the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier.  We walked down “bloody lane” at Antietam Cemetery and studied modern-day memorials for each regiment  and some individual companies who fought in that horrendous 2-day Civil War battle. We crossed the upper bridge over Antietam Creek, with its supports firmly planted on Eakle land, along the edge of the Battlefield.

Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania–the origins of the Eakle family and all the families they married into.  In the snow, as it fell, and after it was cleared from the roads,  and finally when it started to melt.

And on to Washington DC, where we visited the National Archives.  Not the White House.  Not the Pentagon.  The National Archives–where we examined the original enumerators books for our Eakle Ancestors.

…the strictest of need…

Never again, would we have the privilege of holding the originals of these documents in our hands.  And copying pertinent entries on our ancestors.

Today, its microfilm, microfiche, print, and computer screen where we view these documents.  The originals, now too fragile to be handled and exposed to florescent lights, are unavailable–except under the strictest of need.  Genealogy is not considered “strictest” of need.

So as the snow in Virginia piles higher, this week, I reflect on that wonderful trip and the work crew I assembled to help with the research.  Alma and his mother Mary Alice are gone.  There is a 4-drawer file cabinet where 2 very full drawers house the document copies and transcripts we collected.  Here are the photographs of the cemeteries and tombstones we copied.  Photographs of the homes and churches our ancestors inhabited.  And the photographs of the piles of snow on the land.

Virginia has not had a snow storm like we encountered…until now.  It still paralyzes the people.  And in Utah, where the snow is still piled over 2 feet in my  back yard and 12 feet over my yard well, we have snow tires with heavy treads and tire chains under the seat of my 3/4 ton truck.   Your favorite Virginia genealogist, Arlene Eakle

PS  Did you know…that snow and cemeteries are quite compatible?  Snow is strong enough to clear the green moss and lyken from the stones so they can be read and photographed, and soft enough not to damage them.

1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United Sates or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Ratification by all states was completed by 18 Dec 1865.  Presidential Proclamation 25 Jan 1949, ensured that all succeeding years from that point on, the US would celebrate that amendment and its signing.

What did you hear today about this momentous occasion for which so many gave their lives–more than all subsequent wars we have fought combined…

My media did not comment.  I marked the day gathering more references to Free People of Color for you:

Locating Free African American Ancestors:  A Beginners Guide. Aaron L. Day.  (Anaheim CA:  Carlberg Press, 2003.  Includes a master surname list based on census records and other sources.

“Slavery on the Upper Holston,”  Publications of the Historical Society of Washington County Virginia, Series II, #18 (May 1981).  Considers the total numbers of whites, slaves, and free people of color in the absence of complete census schedules.

Slaves Without Masters: The Free Negro in the Antebellum South. Ira Berlin. (New York City:  New York, 1974.)  A perceptive,  older study that created an historical uproar at the time.  Still worth reading.

And check out these websites:

http://www.freeafricanamericans.com Paul Heinegg’s  Database.

http://middlepassages.com Middle Passage Slave Ship Database.

http://americanrevolution.org/blk.html Black Revolutionary War soldiers.

Remember, if you are researching Native American/Five Civilized Tribes ancestors, your success will often be in direct proportion to the amount of study you invest in Free People of Color and “all other free persons.”  Your favorite Virginia genealogist, Arlene Eakle   http://arleneeakle.com

PS  I’ll be giving  a NEW presentation on Virginia at the Family History Expo in St George UT, 26-27 Feb 2010.  Written especially for those who attend this Expo.   Even if you can’t attend in person, you can access the syllabus I wrote online, once you register for the Conference.  It’s well worth the effort. You know that I am unbiased.  Ha!