Rest assured, we are doing our best. This will never be perfect,
but every effort is being made. And again, all input is good input.
The more we can glean, the better it will be.
On Jun 2, 2008, at 10:22 PM, John Philip Adams wrote:
> Make sure that as often as possible, to reference relationships of the
> families, if possible. Who is the cousin, aunt, uncle or outlaw of the
> various families.
> Thanks
> John Philip Adams
> Texas
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Craig Kilby
> Sent: Monday, June 02, 2008 10:34 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Lancaster County Estates 1835-1865
>
> Greetings. For this in this group who did not know, the Mary Ball
> Washington Museum
> and Library in Lancaster County, Virginia is using a matching grant
> from the
> Virginia
> Foundation for the Humanties (http://www.virginia.edu/vfh/) to
> abstract the
> seldom-used
> Estate Books for the period of 1835-1865.
>
> The purpose for this project is multi-fold. The primary objective
> is to
> identify slaves
> within this period of time, most of whom are rarely mentioned in
> the wills
> of the people
> owning them.
>
> But this project goes far beyond that simple objective. It is at
> it's heart
> a complete
> compilation of all people of all races who died during this time
> frame. As
> any student of
> genealogy and history knows, one cannot seperate one group from
> another
> without
> looking at the whole. It has been a fascinating study of social
> conditions
> in this time
> frame, which is not one of the more popular eras of historical
> studies.
>
> From out *best guess*, about 40% of whites died with a will (we
> have no
> evidence of
> Free Blacks leaving a will). That leaves 60% who died without a
> will. On
> top of this must
> be added that even those who died with a will leave no other
> _published_
> record. As
> Churchill said, *The devil is in the details*. And it is in the
> Estate
> Books of Lancaster
> County that we find a lot of explanatory details about nearly every
> aspect
> of daily life,
> albeit taken in snapshots: Black, White, rich, poor or somewhere
> inbetween,
> these
> records breath life into dusty books and old hand-writing. Like
> every day
> life, some of it
> is as boring as dishwater, while yet another record comes very much
> alive in
> vivid
> technicolor.
>
> At present, we have compiled all of the data in field notes, and
> are now
> working on
> inmputting all of this data into a data base to be uploaded to a
> yet-uncreated web site. It
> will not be perfect, but where practicable we are referencing
> marriages,
> chancery suits
> and land causes into this database. One glaring omission will be
> guardianship records
> which often reflect further light into the details.
>
> Rome was not built in a day, and neither will this project. This
> project is
> not a genealogy
> of any family, nor a yellow brick road to tracing African-American
> ancestors. But,thanks
> to the support of the VFH, a good start has been made on paving the
> roads.
>
> To further advance the usefulness of this data base before it is
> launched, I
> welcome any
> queries or comments on this topic. More likely than not, many of
> you have
> much to add
> to what has been collected.
>
> Respectfully Yours,
> Craig M. Kilby
> Research Director, "Expanded View" VFH Project
> Mary Ball Washington Museum and Library
> mbmw.org
>
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