What is a finding aid?

Large collections of documents, including family papers and files, need a detailed guide or inventory of each piece of paper.  Scholars and graduate students painstakingly comb a collection.  Examining each document–all and every page–and describe the item in precise detail.  Who is it about?  Where does it take place?  What dates are covered?  What event is it connected to?

The pages on which this data are entered, whether handwritten on a pre-printed form or typed online using a template, become the finding aid.  Every library and archive with manuscript collections has finding aids to those documents.

Along comes the Library of Virginia with its commitment to preserving the raw materials for the history of Virginia.  And its corps of typists.  And  VOILA!  Online access to searchable indexes–the lifeline to “hidden” ancestors.

The Virginia Colonial Records Project

The Virginia Historical Society, the University of Virginia, and the Library of Virginia (then called the Virginia State Library) commissioned Virginia scholars to search foreign archives for records documented Virginia’s people and their history.  Between 1955 and 1985, these agents visited over 100 libraries and archives in the British Isles seeking Virginia documents:

1. Survey Reports, 14,704 of them, were prepared.  These reports describe Virginia-related records in detail.
2. Microfilm copies of the documents, 963 reels, were processed.  These microfilms are on deposit at the three sponsoring libraries. They can be borrowed through interlibrary loan.  For example, The original Muster of the Inhabitants, 1624-25 (Virginia Census) includes a copy of the List of the Living and Dead, 1623/24, sent back to England as part of an administrative report to the Crown and its ministers, is on reel 72.
3. Online  Searchable Index, 500,000 personal-names, ship-names, repository-names, and document titles.  http://www.lva.virginia.gov
   
4. Online Database linking index entries to digitized images of the Survey Reports.  http://www.lva1.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/

Once you have the entries you want, you can click the links to the Survey Reports.  Index entry for 1624/25 Census of Virginia:

Please note:  to secure copies of documents in the Survey Reports  or permission to reproduce the documents in your family history contact the repository where the documents originate.  The repository is shown in each index entry–in this case, the Public Record Office–and there is a Repository List on the Library of Virginia site.

I also searched for John Thruston and got 5 hits:

It’s that easy!

If you have colonial Virginia ancestors–check this data base out.  And break your losing streak?  Your favorite Virginia genealogist, Arlene Eakle  http://www.arleneeakle.com

PS  Be sure to tune in to my new Kentucky blog–launch posted 19 June 2009.

These are the entries I noted, in the footnotes, that unveil new migration patterns, areas of first settlement, accompanying family members, surprising kinship networks, and location of records I had not yet searched. Where I know the materials are also online, I have added the URL’s.

Don’t worry about people stealing an idea. If it’s original, you will have to ram it down their throats.
- Howard Aiken

New research strategies for Virginia are coming your way on this blog.  Stay tuned.  And Thanks to Dr. Donald Martin for this marvelous quote.
Your favorite Virginia Genealogist, Arlene Eakle http://www.arleneeakle.com

Record loss because of missed entries in sources that were:

1. written on convenient slips of paper torn from edges of record books
2. copied into ledgers provided by government  agencies
3. microfilmed by technicians who often had no idea what they filmed
4. scanned into digital format from microforms 
5. indexed by non-English speakers in foreign lands
6. searched by selected spellings
7. retrieved mechanically by exact spelling as typed by foreign indexers

Read Lynn C. McMillion, “An Index Can Be A Roadblock,” The Virginia Genealogist 21 (July-Sep 1977) 205-06.  Ms McMillion cautions, “Good effective research can begin with a published index, but MUST NOT END THERE.  Search an index for alternate spellings of the name; then locate them in the actual census…When too much reliance is placed on indexes–especially mass-produced ones–they become roadblocks to research.”

You can read the census records online frame by frame without using online indexes.  Just remember that the online version comes from microfilm, not a new scanning of the original handwritten pages.  If the filmer missed a page, you will too.  And page numbers are not a lot of help–because they have been numbered and re-numbered over and over.  

If you sit quietly in the corner of your local genealogy library with a stack of The Virginia Genealogist issues beside you, you can begin to make some progress.  John Frederick Dorman edited the magazine from 1957 to 1996, filling 40 volumes with record extracts.

There is a basic focus in those volumes, if you do sit quietly and examine them all.  Dorman sought to fill in the gaps where the records were missing. He included the 1800 tax lists county-by-county (alphabetically).  He printed the British Mercantile Claims, 1775-1803 serially–providing more specific details than more recent printed versions.  

Genealogists from all over the country submitted names missed in printed census editions.  For example, “Some Corrected Readings to the 1625 Census,” submitted by William Thorndale, Volume 37 (Jan-Mar 1993) 54. And “Virginia 1820 Federal Census:  Names Not On The Microfilm Copy,” submitted by Gerald M. Petty, Volume 18 (Apr-Jun 1974) 136-39.

“Some Delinquent Taxpayers, 1787-1790,” submitted by Robert Y. Clay, Volumes 19-21 (1976-1978).  These census substitutes for the missing 1790 schedules, also give the next place of settlement for those Virginians who left without clearing their tax bills.  A very nice bonus.  These are just examples of the goodies that await you.  

Account books, militia lists, legislative petitions, land office warrants, and special census schedules for the independent city of Alexandria continue the focus on those sections of Virginia where record loss is especially grievous. And each volume is indexed and there are cumulative indexes in the reprint and CD editions

Many genealogy libraries subscribed to The Virginia Genealogist from the beginning.  Libraries established later acquired the reprint edition from Heritage Books of Bowie, Maryland. Or ordered the CD-Rom available in 1994.  If you want your own set, most of the volumes are still available: http://www.heritagebooks.com.  

Or you can access the volumes at your local Family History Center on3 rolls of microfilm, FHL 844855-57.  Your favorite Virginia Genealogist, Arlene Eakle    http://www.arleneeakle.com

PS  I don’t hesitate to read the handwritten records when I work on a tough Virginia ancestor and you shouldn’t hesitate either.

PPS  And watch for my newly remodeled Home Page–easier to navigate and find stuff.

Never be afraid to try something new.

Amateurs built the ark.  Professionals built the Titanic.  (No BS Marketing Letter, May 2009)

If you’ve searched Ancestry.com, both historical records and world tree posts.  If you’ve searched Rootsweb and US Gen Web, including the forums. If you’ve searched World Vital Records. com.  And hunted for your family in all the nooks and crannies of Google.com.  Without finding your answer. Without finding living descendants that match.

Its time to try something NEW.  

Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.  Mark Twain)

The purpose of this “Virginia is for lovers” of genealogy blog is to introduce new search strategies, overlooked sources, records that never get searched but have been in the drawer or on the shelf all the time–

Some years ago, a woman wrote me for suggestions on what she could do to find her ancestor.  She had done the census, searched the cemeteries, read the deeds, and looked for a will or any probate document.  ”Have you checked the tax records?” I asked.  ”No,” she replied.  ”That’s what you need to determine which sons come out of which  households.”  

So she went to the state archives and asked to see the tax rolls.  The man at the reference desk asked,”Why?”  She repeated what I told her.  He then coughed and told her, “You will just waste your time.  No such information is included on the tax lists.  Trust me.”  

She returned home without looking.  Then she called me to ask what else I could suggest.  I commiserated with her briefly.  Then I told her to drive back to the archives and search the tax lists.  To ignore the “trust me” guy and just do it.  It took her three days.  

When she got home, she called me–so excited that she could hardly get the words out.  Her ancestor appeared at age 16 as a member of the household.  He stayed on the list until he was 32, married, and ready to move away.  The tax lists told where he lived–what degree from the courthouse. And where he went when he moved–what degree from the new courthouse.  And as she examined previous lists, she determined what household he came out of.

“Did you tell the “trust me”  guy?” I asked.  ”You bet I did!”  she laughed.  ”He apologized for being uninformed.”

This, read it and almost weep, story is not meant to cast any aspersions on those who advise at archives and libraries.  I want you to assert yourselves in confidence, and get the answers.  Your favorite Virginia genealogist, Arlene Eakle   http://www.arleneeakle.com

PS  I, too, am an amateur.  I, too, am also a professional. And I hope that my courage to try something new never deserts me, so that when I take a risk, I back it up with documents.  And the knowledge that I already tried the traditional record sources first.

1. Adventurers:  a legal term for stockholders in the joint stock companies that brought the first Virginia settlers to America.  These men (and a woman or two) remained in England and Wales.  They underwrote the expenses and thus, had a vested interest in the success of the enterprises.
2. Planters:  a legal term for the men who planted the settlements in The Plantations as the colony of Virginia was originally called.  These men came to Virginia, at least for a time.  Some were sons of or relatives of the Adventurers.  Those who arrived before 1616, were sometimes called “ancient planters.”  100+ planters are listed in the Introduction to Nell M. Nugent’s Cavaliers and Pioneers, Volume I.  William Thorndale, whom you already know from his careful research with William Dollarhide on Map Guide to the US Federal Censuses, 1790-1920, has created an Early Virginia Database (before 1625). When he completes his research, the original 105 settlers and those who followed them will be documented and connected to their origins in the British Isles.  See also Virginia Immigrants and Adventurers:  A Biographical Dictionary, 1607-1635 by Martha W. McCartney.  Baltimore MD:  Genealogical Publishing Company, 2007.
3. Political Prisoners.  The Virginia plantations and later the Colony of Virginia received thousands of political prisoners from the British Isles.  First, Irish prisoners taken by Cromwell to be sold as slaves. Second, Scottish Covenanters, protestants who had accepted the Presbyterian Church by covenant.  Third, Englishmen who had supported Cromwell were transported to Virginia after the restoration of Charles II.  Then Protestant supporters of the defeated Duke of Monmouth, from Southwestern England.  These political dissidents usually became indentured servants:  serving 4 years if age 20, 5 years from age 12-20, and 7 years if under 12 years of age.  It is estimated that up to 70% of the people of Virginia were at one time indentured servants.
4. Apprentices.  Children were indentured as apprentices to learn a trade, to learn to read, write, and cipher.  Orphans, children kidnapped and sold as indentures, children from correctional homes, and children who ran the streets of London were transported and indentured before colonial courts. Some of these children are identified in Peter Wilson Coldham’s Child Apprentices in America from Christ’s Hospital, London, 1617-1778.
5. Convicts.  Parliament sent more than 4,500 convicts to Virginia between 1655-1699.  And some 138 shiploads arrived between 1748-1775.  English convicts were often given the choice of punishment, which included disfigurement, and being sent to the Americas.  These included men, women, and children.  Peter Wilson Coldham’s The Complete Book of Emigrants, 1607-1776, 4 vols. and The Complete Book of Emigrants in Bondage, 1614-1775, 2 vols. documents these convicts by name from English jails and courts.     
6. Brides.  Women were scarce in Virginia and many of those who came with the original settlers died from disease and Indian attack.  So shiploads of brides were imported to provide wives for the settlers.  Of the 500+ who came before 1624, only 36 survived.  See “Wives for Virginia, 1621,” William and Mary Quarterly (Jan 1991).  [We'll discuss these brides in greater detail in a future blog complete with what records and sources are available to document them.] 
7. Blacks.  In 1625, there were 23 Africans in Virginia.  By 1680, there were some forty slave factories along the coasts of Africa to buy and sell slaves.  The English Royal African Company had a monopoly to supply slaves to begin with, but eventually the trade was opened to all trading companies.  Slavery was recognized as legal in Virginia after 1670.  About 15% died of the Blacks on the voyage.  For “free people of color” and Indians see “Free Persons of Color” and “all other free persons,” Virginia Blog, 1 Dec 2008.

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

PS  Stay tuned for other ethnic and national groups of people who came to Virginia and made it one of the truly cosmopolitan states in America.  Remember, that in the beginning all was Virginia.  And the person who has a full Virginia pedigree (and I have three clients who do), has a varied and truly amazing lineage!

Dumfries VA was an early Scottish trading center, although much of the land today is included within Quantico Marine Base.  See Robert D. Mitchell’s Commercialism and Frontier:  Perspectives on the Early Shenandoah Valley.  (Charlottesville VA:  University of Virginia Press, 1977.)  Mitchell describes the Scottish factory system whereby raw materials were gathered and shipped from the Shenandoah Valley through Dumfries as a port city to Glasgow Scotland.  Here they were manfactured into goods which were sold through the same factory system to the inhabitants.  Maps show where each warehouse and store was located between Dumfries and Staunton. 

Since the Scots-Irish also entered Virginia through the port of Dumfries and went inland to the Shenandoah Valley, you must be careful that you don’t mix the two groups.  The Scots come directly from Scotland–usually those parishes nearby Glasgow, and later Edinburgh. And the Scots-Irish come indirectly from Scotland through Donegal Irelandand other northern counties.   Your favorite Virginia genealogist, Arlene Eakle   http://www.arleneeakle.com

PS  There is also some evidence that Scots came into Virginia from the Cape Fear River area of North Carolina and possibly through northern South Carolina.  Stay tuned!

Because…Virginia landowners held acreage in several counties at the same time, based on the old English pattern of  dividing land holdings into multiple estates so that no one man could amass enough local power to challenge the Crown.  The benefit to the landowner–he could vote in every county where he met the acreage requirement.

Because...Virginia families were large, and extended, and related over county and parish boundaries.

And because...Property Records are the single most important source category in Virginia–so the Murdoch McKenzie with land in Montgomery County and Mecklenburg County and Fauquier County and Culpeper County could be the same Murdoch McKenzie.

State-wide  indexes that cover all of these counties and single sources that cover one or more of these counties will identify the entries for all  McKenzie men (including those with other spellings).  And you can determine whether they are related based on these considerations:

1. Search the marriages first.  Get the names of those men who marry girls with your surname of interest.
2. Then search the census records and tax rolls.  Extract all the people who have your surname of interest, including the men who marry the girls.  In fact, you can sort the marriages to match the census dates and watch for those households as you go through the records.  
3. Be sure to include  census records prior to 1850 and the 1880 census where you can pick up children that identify the place of birth for their parents. 
4. Do an interim analysis:  __Compile tentative family units.  __Identify re-marriages.  __Determine which families move away, which ones stay.  __Identify “Gretna Green” marriages and those households that begin in some other place.  __Identify middle names that could be surnames.  __Identify unusual given names–especially valuable if the surname is common in that set of records:  Swinford, Mahlon, Perrable, Permit, etc. 
5. Set aside family units that don’t fit into your family pattern:  birthplaces are different, given names of children don’t match, generations are different, no children of the right sex, etc.
6. Now, outline searches in other records:  __wills, __cemetery stones, __deeds,  __court minutes,  __church records, and so on.
7. Compare what you found in the records with what your family already knew.  What oral traditions can you corroborate, match, support, or document?  

In order to draw valid conclusions, you need access to all of the persons with your surname.  If you have only one Charles, be sure there is only one Charles in that county.  

Those family units where the names and other facts match, will be the family units you zero in on to prove connections to your pedigree.   Your favorite Virginia genealogist, Arlene Eakle  http://www.arleneeakle.com

PS  I discovered a Murdoch McKenzie who died in 1797 on Orkney, Scotland.  Family tradition says that the Murdoch living in Culpeper County Virginia, mentioned above,  was born in Scotland–he was not Scots Irish.  And Mecklenburg County Virginia is on the way inland from North Carolina where a large migration of Scots from the Orkneys settled in the mid-1740’s.  Could he be a namesake?  Stay tuned, I’m searching.

When I first started I knew nothing about the families or name places scattered about the county, let alone the forgotten past of settlements spanning 275 years, more or less!  Of course, I began in the usual way:  searching for my family roots here in the county and looking for their lands, homes, and graves, and any other information about them.  Since both parents are from Madison County, and their lineages were long established in this area, I soon found out that nearly every family here since the early settlements were intermarried, and some families were related before they arrived!  

…I was not exposed to any grandparents on either side, and missed out on the stories and tales they could recant about past history.  I feel certain that this is the reason why I am so interested in history.

So began the search that has led me to today; root ties to nearly every Madison County settler and the fantastic interrelationships that it entails!  Only within the last 50 years has new blood come into this county at any rate to make a difference in the overall population.  It’s as if we are a county to ourselves, the locals call all newcomers “foreigners” and there may be some truth in that!  For the past 275 years the residents of this county married each other, simply a matter of travel and geography.

Some of the special features of this work reflect what is happening in genealogy and family history today.  And you and I can both benefit from these features–we just need to consider them before we search the data.

1. Multiple Indexes.  There is a personal name index.  A General Index.  An Errata Index [misnomer--the entries are not errors and index value is high].  For example, Chain Carriers are listed separately from the personal name index.  CC are usually age 21 or younger, sometimes named on tax rolls, often just an increase in tithables by number on the list.  They also represent a substantial portion of the militia strength of the county.  An separate list of Importees is also included–those who came before the court and declared those they brought into Virginia for whom they claimed their bounty of 50 acres per person.  So watch for more than one index.
2. Adjoining Counties.  The importance of adjoining counties is demonstrated in this volume:  especially those from which the county is formed and those created out of county territory.  MADISON county was created in 1793.  The chain is ESSEX (1692), SPOTSYLVANIA (1721), ORANGE (1734), CULPEPER (1749), MADISON (1793), GREENE ( 1838), and NEW RAPPANNOCK ( 1833).  As Lillard excerpts entries from  previously compiled land summaries in Cavaliers and Pioneers and Northern Neck Land Grants  and Northern Neck Warrants and Surveys,etc., he includes those persons whose claims ended up in Madison county.  He has done much of the leg work for you in searching the surrounding counties for ties to Madison County.  And he has made it easy to determine what happened to settlers in Culpeper or Spotsylvania who suddenly disappear from the records.  This kind of reference book summary is becoming quite common in genealogy–watch for it in the counties of your interest.
3. Name and Migration Patterns.  Two names important to north-western South Carolina popped out to me from the Personal Name Index–Bobo and Buford (cross-referenced to Blewford, Blooford, Bluefourd, etc.).  A careful search of indexes in feeder-states like Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware will often reveal potential migration patterns for less common surnames and for unusual given names like Cyriacus/Seriacus and Seriah.
4. Translations of Surnames.  Where translations of German surnames occur in the records, Lillard includes these variants in the index:  Carpenter and Zimmerman. Care and Kjarr.
5. Name Changes.  Thomas Phillips now Roots, Henry Downs now Roots and son George Roots are three examples.  What is not included is the family tradition behind the name change. 

Virginia counties have suffered enough records loss, that the admonition Search Them All is a recommendation that you will want to consider for each Virginia ancestor.  And volumes and maps like those produced by Dewey Lillard will help you determine what kind of success you can expect to have.   Contact Lillard RR1 Box 82A, Madison VA 22727.  Your  favorite genealogist, Arlene Eakle http://www.arleneeakle.com

PS  Keep watch–I will share an example where the public records may not mention your ancestor at all, even though he resided in the same county for a good portion of his life.  How to Resolve this ancestor problem coming up.

PPS  We are getting ready to roll-out a new Home Page format which we think will be more user friendly and easier to navigate to find all the great stuff and the NEW original content on my website.  So pardon our dust as we make the changes.

Kinship networks are connected across county and state lines.  Genealogy and kinship are the primary networks your ancestors experienced in Virginia.  This makes compiled genealogies very important:

__compiled at different dates from records often missing or lost today

__written by non-scholars who record at random what they have heard, read, seen, know, believe, and hope!

__include details on persons who cannot be found in any other source

__identify migration patterns in birth and death places as no other record can–especially valuable before all the persons in the household are named in the 1850 census

__reprint family Bible data now unavailable

__provide naming patterns, especially first given names for nicknames used in marriage records  and middle  given names for initials stated in the census

__describe kinship networks in your own family background which essential for bridging the ocean with accuracy

__tell you of the women in your background who lived long and productive lives.  Many women in “The South”–especially Virginia–outlived 4-5 husbands.  Marriages were contracted and performed locally in the presence of family and friends.  And while they may be recorded in the family Bible, or the Church register, or even the business account books, they may not be registered officially in the County.

Monitor and Review Who Carries your Surnames

With these considerations in mind, you want to review every person living in the same neighborhoods, same villages and towns, same county who carries the surname of your own ancestors.  Even if the surname is rather common, or you think it is a common surname in that place, you will want to monitor that evidence with these questions in mind–

1. Could your surname come from more than one place of origin?  Ireland, and Italy, and the Palatine (Southern Germany)?
2. Is the handwriting in the Bible legible?  Could the surname be Shaw, Shore, Shearer, Shaver, Shown?
3. Do the families you are looking at in the records match the surnames included in your family traditions?
4. Watch for unusual given names and given name combinations that will set apart the families who have very common surnames.

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

PS  In further episodes of this blog, we’ll look at other evidence in names and surnames.  Stay tuned.

PPS  I will be speaking on New Resources for Early Virginia Research at the Logan UT Family History Expo, 9 May 2009.  The seminar will be held at the Eccles Center on the Utah State University campus–one of my favorite college campuses.  Once your register, you can access the handouts online with live internet links.   Register at http://www.fhexpos.com