Jeremy,
I have given unpublished talks about Walter Ashby Plecker, the Registrar of Vital Records and the enforcer of the Racial Integrity Act (for more on the act, see J. Douglas Smith, Managing White Supremacy).
During the 1930s, Plecker obtained funds through the New Deal's WPA to hire researchers to investigate the genealogies of Virginia families. The key consequence for future genealogical research in Virginia was that he obtained the Vital Records, 1853-1896, and had the birth and marriage records indexed. The purpose was to serve his own private racist agenda, but after those records and indexes were transferred to the Library of Virginia, they served (and still serve) genealogists. I understand that the genealogical materials that his WPA researchers and others had compiled were destroyed as unacceptable intrusions into private lives that should not be archived.
Interestingly, although Plecker considered the Vital Records his secret weapon for enforcing racial integrity, on obtaining the Vital Records for his office, his first act was to look for his own birth record, which was not there. Unfortunately, rather than learning from that experience to view the records as potentially fallible, Plecker made the researcher's gravest mistake of falling in love with them.
John
John Kneebone
Dept. of History
Va. Commonwealth University
-----Original Message-----
From: Jeremy Boggs <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Mar 29, 2005 9:40 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Genealogy and the Racial Integrity Act
I'm curious if anyone has information on the way Virginia's Racial
Integrity act of 1924 affected genealogical research. How (if at all)
was interest in genealogy affected as a result of the act? Did
Virginia's Registrar of Vital Statistics (or other government office)
keep genealogical records? Has anyone written any books or articles on
genealogy and the act?
Thanks in advance for your help,
Jeremy Boggs
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