It has been my distinct pleasure to work with both Marie Tyler-McGraw  
and Deborah Lee over the past year on the topic of Virginians and  
Liberia.  We met through the auspices of the Virginia Foundation for  
the Humanities.

The grant project I have been working on for the Mary Ball Washington  
Museum and Library in Lancaster, VA (http://www.mbwm.org/) is  
abstracting the estate records of 472 decedents from the period of  
1835 to 1865 comprising nearly 1,300 documents.  One of the primary  
objectives of this project is to identify all of the slaves in the  
various inventories and to gather as much personal information about  
them as possible.  I was quite excited when I found the sole instance  
in Lancaster County where a slave owners (two bachelor brothers)  
emancipated their 44 slaves living in Northumberland County and sent  
them to Liberia.  This was not a topic which I knew much about until  
then.  By coincidence, both the "Estates" project and the "Liberia  
Database" project were happening at the same time, and David  
Bearinger at the VFH was kind enough to put us in touch before our  
next grant recipients meeting.  It was pure serendipity, and each of  
us were able provide very important to the other regarding this  
particular group of people.

In the course of this, I am publishing an article in the next issue  
of The Bulletin of the Northumberland County Historical Society about  
this event, and both Ms. Tyler-McGraw and Ms. Lee have been extremely  
generous with their limited time to assist me in writing the article  
as it pertains to the American Colonization Society.  I was also very  
fortunate to have access to their pre-launch web site, and have  
watched with interest as it has evolved (and am in fact using it as  
one of a several templates for our own eventual on-line database).

For those interested in this topic, I can highly recommend Tyler- 
McGraw's book "An African Republic" and this on-line database is a  
veritable gold mine of information not easily available to even the  
most relentless researcher.

If your schedule at all permits, I encourage you to attend the launch  
event.  (I assume it is in Charlottesville though this is not  
specifically stated in this announcement).

Congratulations to Marie and Deborah and the launch.  I know it has  
been a labor of love, and it will give all of you yet another great  
tool for your research endeavors.  Warning:  once you start, you'll  
want to learn a whole lot more.

Craig Kilby

P.S.  Ironically, I received this message after returning the last of  
three grueling meetings with the magazine's editor.  I must say, I am  
both surprised and impressed to work with an editor who takes such  
interest in an article as to double-check the accuracy of all of my  
source citations, whether at the Court House, a book, or a web site.   
I am thankful that any mistakes in the article can be fairly shared  
with him.


On Sep 24, 2008, at 2:54 PM, Jurretta J. Heckscher wrote:

> Dear colleagues:
>
> The following announcement has been issued by the Virginia Center for
> Digital History at the University of Virginia.  Although it is  
> unlikely that
> many of us will be able to attend the event announced, many more of  
> us can
> now take advantage of the splendid new Web site that it celebrates.
>
> -- Jurretta Heckscher
>
>
> The Virginia Center for Digital History invites you to attend a
> launch/presentation of the new VCDH website
>
> Virginia Emigrants to Liberia
> http://www.vcdh.virginia.edu/liberia
>
> with historians/project directors Marie Tyler-McGraw and Deborah Lee
>
> Wednesday, Oct. 1
> 4:00 - 5:30
> Byrd/Morris Seminar Rooms (318/318A)
> David and Mary Harrison Institute for American History, Literature,  
> and Culture
>
> Between 1820 and 1865, under the auspices of the American Colonization
> Society, more than 3,700 African-Americans from Virginia emigrated to
> Liberia. Some went eagerly, others left reluctantly in exchange for  
> their
> freedom. Some prospered; many perished. In 1847 they helped  
> establish the
> first African republic.
>
> In this website, Marie Tyler-McGraw and Deborah Lee have shared  
> decades of
> research into the lives of the emigrants and emancipators featuring a
> searchable database, stories of emigrants' experiences, and related  
> primary
> and secondary resources. These  materials illuminate the lives of  
> free and
> enslaved Virginians and facilitate further research.
>
> Marie Tyler-McGraw is the author of An African Republic: Black and  
> White
> Virginians in the Making of Liberia (University of North Carolina  
> Press,
> 2007). Copies of the book will be available for sale and signing,  
> thanks to
> cosponsorship from the University of Virginia Bookstore.
>
> Funding for this project was provided by the Virginia Foundation  
> for the
> Humanities.
>
> ----
> The Virginia Center for Digital History
> University of Virginia
>
> ______________________________________
> To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the  
> instructions at
> http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html

______________________________________
To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at
http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html