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 ______________________________________ 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