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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