Good Morning,
You can also access for free a lot of the Freedman's Bureau records on Family Search. Look under Records --> US --> Virginia.
United States, Freedman's Bank Records, 1865-1874
United States, Freedmen's Bureau Claim Records,1865-1872
United States, Freedmen's Bureau Labor Contracts, Indenture and Apprenticeship Records, 1865-1872
United States, Freedmen's Bureau Marriages, 1861-1872
United States, Freedmen's Bureau Ration Records,1865-1872
United States, Freedmen's Bureau Records of Persons and Articles Hired, 1865-1872
United States, Freedmen's Bureau, Freedmen's Court Records, 1865-1872
United States, Freedmen's Bureau, Land and Property Records, 1865-1872
United States, Freedmen's Bureau, Records of Freedmen's Complaints, 1865-1872
United States, Freedmen's Bureau, Records of the Superintendent of Education and of the Division of Education, 1865-1872
I should note that a lot of those records are not keyword searchable. You will need to flip through the images like you would if you were sitting at a microfilm reader.
FamilySearch also has a lot of Virginia marriage records online too. Again, those records may not be keyword searchable. You may need to flip through them as well.
Remember when in doubt or if it looks like a page/frame is missing, check the microfilm reels or the originals. These Freedmen's Bureau scans are coming directly from the NARA microfilm reels.
Happy hunting...
Troy Valos
Sargeant Memorial Collection
Norfolk Public Library
-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Gene Betit
Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2017 8:47 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [VA-HIST] Slave marriages and postbellum mixed race marriages
For post-war marriages, check with Freedmen's Bureau records, available through the National Archives. The Bureau made it its business to validate pre-existing unions, and ratified and recorded new marriages as well.
Gene Betit
On Wed, Jun 28, 2017 at 4:29 PM, Valos, Troy <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Good Afternoon Alyson,
>
> I'm thinking these mixed-race marriages are going fall in the category
> of common law marriages. I suspect even after the Civil War, couples
> wanted to keep it relatively under the radar. There seems to be a few
> mixed race "marriages" prior the Civil War. You have the case of
> Robert Lumpkin and a few others. In researching Norfolk's role in the
> domestic slave trade, I have found a slave trader (1840s-1860s) who had an African American "wife"
> and two children. I don't know if this type of marriage/coupling was
> based on genuine feelings of love and commitment or based on darker
> motives. From the research I have done on Norfolk slave traders, there is
> very little to no surviving papers to speak to their business
> activities or much less their personal life. Everything found is either slave manifests,
> slave ads, or bill of sales. I don't have the evidence to speak to the
> type of marriage this trader built his relationship on.
>
> As for resources....
>
> You could consult the counties/cities' 1800s marriage registers that
> genealogists have abstracted and transcribed. Quite a few of the titles
> will have the data arranged in tables and typically shows the race of the
> couple. From Norfolk County, there are a few books like Norfolk County,
> Virginia marriage licenses (1850-1899) by Sharon Rea Gable and Truitt M
> Bonney. http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/86079530
>
> You could also search the newspapers on LVA's Virginia Chronicle site
> to see if there were mixed race marriages were mentioned in the
> articles. You will have to play around with the search terms to see
> what words were used to describe this type of relationship.
> http://virginiachronicle.com/
>
> Lastly, check the Virginia Historical Index or aka "Swem's Index" to see
> if there were any article done on the subject. (Swem, E. G. Virginia
> Historical Index. Gloucester [Mass.]: P. Smith, 1965.
> http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/905288945 ) You will need to look in
> JSTOR or similar database that holds the Virginia Magazine of History
> and William & Mary Quarterly to see if the newer issues have any
> articles about mixed race marriages.
>
> Good luck with your research. It just might show another side of
> Virginia daily life that has been lost to history.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Troy Valos, MA, MSIS
> Special Collections Librarian
> Sargeant Memorial Collection
> Slover Library, Norfolk Public Library
> 235 East Plume Street
> Norfolk, Virginia 23510
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history [mailto:
> [log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Alyson Taylor-White
> Sent: Tuesday, June 27, 2017 11:39 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [VA-HIST] Slave marriages and postbellum mixed race marriages
>
> Hi Listers! My class at University of Richmond yesterday for Osher
> was based on the tours I've given since last fall of Richmond's slave
> trade called Southern Slave Saga, from Prejudice to Progress. The
> adult students had some amazing questions, and the ones that intrigued
> me (that also stumped me) were about slave marriages before freedom
> came and postbellum marriages of mixed race couples like Robert and
> Mary (his former slave and mother of their many children) Lumpkin.
> Prior to 1865 the marriage of slaves seems to have been a
> community-church or extralegal event in Virginia. This reminds me of
> the commitment ceremonies in recent times of same sex couples. Also,
> where would one find a record of marriages from April 1865 on in
> Richmond, Virginia? Was there a rush to the legal altar once the
> impediments had been removed? And was there a window of opportunity
> where couples like Robert and Mary Lumpkin could get married before
> the legal restrictions against mixed race marriages were enacted? If
> anyone knows where to start looking for answers or is doing research
> along these lines, please let me know, off list if you prefer. Thanks!
> Alyson
>
> Sent from my iPhone
> Alyson L. Taylor-White
> (804) 920-2783
>
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