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Archiver > NCGUILFO > 2006-10 > 1162180395


From: Debra Rookard <>
Subject: [NCGUILFO] Records of Freed Slaves to Go Online
Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2006 19:53:15 -0800 (PST)


Anderson Independent-Mail
Anderson, SC

Oct 27, 4:16 AM EDT

Records of Freed Slaves to Go Online

By DIONNE WALKER
Associated Press Writer

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- Records the Freedmen's Bureau used to reconnect families - from
battered work contracts to bank forms - will be placed online in part of a new project
linking modern-day blacks with their ancestors.

The Virginia Freedmen Project plans to digitize more than 200,000 images collected by
the Richmond bureau, one of dozens of offices established throughout the South to help
former slaves adjust to free life.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine on Thursday unveiled the project and a state marker near the site
where the bureau once stood in downtown Richmond.

"This is the equivalent for African Americans of Ellis Island's records being put up,"
said Kaine, who was joined by Mayor L. Douglas Wilder, the nation's first elected black
governor and a grandson of slaves.


Researchers will eventually transfer data from all of the southern states to an online
database, said Wayne Metcalfe, vice president of the Genealogical Society of Utah, a
partner in the project.

Records from Virginia should be ready to go online by the middle of next year, Metcalfe
said.

"It was one of the larger states and one of the most complete collections available,"
he said. "It's a gold mine, as far as a genealogist is concerned."

About a half-million slaves were left to establish a new life following emancipation,
Metcalfe said.

Established in 1865, the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands - also called
the Freedmen's Bureau - helped former slaves find clothes, food and jobs.

Bureaus kept meticulous records, documenting marriages and work histories. Those
records will be scanned from microfilm and compiled into an electronic index families
will eventually be able to access, Metcalfe said.

Twenty-four years removed from slavery in rural Virginia, Hawkins Wilson had
established himself as a respected Texas minister. But there was something missing from
his life as a free man: the mother and sisters he left behind.

In a letter dated May 11, 1867, he offered bureau officials details of his family's old
home in Caroline County, and urged them to pass along a note to his sister, Jane.

"Your little brother Hawkins is trying to find out where you are and where his poor old
mother is," reads the letter, which will be included in the database. "Your advice to
me to meet you in Heaven has never (lapsed) from my mind."

Historians don't know if he ever found his family.


Debra


Great things have been affected by a few men well conducted.
George Rogers Clark to Patrick Henry, Gov. of VA 1779




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