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Welcome back to the African Roots Podcast. You can reach me at AfricanRootsPodcast@gmail.com
News Items
Additional images from the Augusta County Chancery Causes are now available on the Chancery Records Index . With this addition, one hundred boxes of Augusta County chancery covering the time period from 1867 to 1879 can be viewed online. More digital images will follow as work on this undertaking continues. This project has been made possible through a partnership between The Library of Virginia’s Circuit Court Records Preservation Program and Augusta County Circuit Court Clerk’s office and with generous support from National Historical Publications and Records Commission.
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LIBRARY OF VIRGINIA
Researching Your African American Ancestors: Genealogy to 1870, on Thursday, September 29, 2011 Time: 10:00 AM–Noon at the Library of Virginia. Registration is required for the workshop. Call 804-692-3592 to register. The presenter is Cara Griggs, reference librarian who will discuss methods and resources for African American genealogy prior to the end of the Civil War. Workshop participants will explore ways of determining whether an individual was enslaved or free and what types of records will be useful for further research based on this information. Library of Virginia collections include cohabitation registers, free Negro lists, wills, deeds, Bible records, and so much more.
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LOTS of events coming up between now and November.
Webinar on African American online resources—through Legacy FamilyTree.com
August 31. I will be giving a presentation on Resource Online for African American genealogists.
September will bring the national AAHGS conference in Little Rock Arkansas, October will bring the National Black Genealogy Summit, in Ft. Wayne, Indiana an and November will feature another Family History Expo, in Duluth GA—outside of Atlanta.
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Some interesting news from North Carolina—there is a wonderful digitization of yearbooks now available online. Many yearbooks, some as far back as 1929, for most black colleges and universities in NC. I looked at one to try it out and was impressed! The North Carolina Digital Heritage Center is working with colleges and universities around the state to digitize student yearbooks and make them available online. Both public and private schools are participating in this project”. Among some of the HBCUs are: Bennet College, St.Augustine’s, Elizabeth City State Teacher’s College, Johnson C. Smith, and more. NCA&T is also there. I took a look and clicked on a random year. St. Augustine’s College senior yearbook for 1934 came up. The images are amazing and one can easily scroll through. I found the images of students to be remarkably clear, and faculty photos were especially wonderful. I am one who also appreciates looking at even advertisements that reflect the businesses that served the African American population.
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Newsletters of interest to Afr Am researchers are now online. This is from the Illinois State Genealogical Society website. Many of these are old newsletters but they contain some remarkable articles. One caught my eye of the efforts of Oberlin College to award bachelor’s degrees posthumously to 11 African American women, who were students in the late 19th century. They were seeking descendants of those women. It might be worthwhile to see if descendants were ever found. Another interesting article provided information about the Afr. American community in Montgomery County, Illinois. This was originally published in 1978.
Well, lots of buzz this week about the book and the movie, The Help. Discussion and controversy are emerging, but I do plan to see the film after reading the book. I also however, recommend that folks take the time to read a work by a fellow genealogist Melvin Coller, 150 Years Later. He takes the reader along the genealogical journey that he made to document his history! It is a poignant story told in poignant times.
I urge you to read both books—-you will become humbled and moved by both, and will emerge with even greater determination to tell the story of the ancestors.
Well thanks for listening. In the meantime, keep researching, keep documenting, and keep sharing what you find.