I agree with Craig, and I would boil down my thinking on this subject to "all history is local." Eventually everything comes down to families and places. (Then comes a war!) When I was researching my book on George Washington and slavery I encountered Anita Wills's genealogical work on the internet. She had traced her family back to mixed-race indentured servants who had belonged to the Washingtons in Westmoreland County. Anita was kind enough to share her research and invite me to her Bowden Family reunion at the GW Birthplace. Her work illuminates a facet of quasi-slavery (indentured servitude imposed by law on mixed-race people) I had never known about before, which I described in a chapter focussing on her family and their connection to the Washingtons. The Bowden experience shows how 18th-century white Virginians were able to manipulate legal categories of race to prevent mixed-race people (what one historian called "New People") from breaking slavery apart. Only a dedicated family historian like Anita (and others like her) could have the patience to pursue these obscure lines of inquiry that lead us to important large truths. Henry Wiencek To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html