In an earlier entry, this column reported on several resources available for online African-American research in Virginia. Many more resources are now available, some becoming so just in the past three months since that report, necessitating another visit to the subject.
The most exciting of these new resources is a part of the Virginia Memory project of the Library of Virginia. This new project, “Cohabitation Registers,” brings online digital images of cohabitation registers from 1866, by which slave marriages and children were recognized legally after emancipation. This resource will provide direct evidence of family relationships for those born and married under slavery.
The new FamilySearch initiative to bring original records online for free has resulted in the availability of at least one recent record group specific to African-American research in Virginia: “Freedmen’s Bureau Virginia Marriages ca. 1815-1866.” This database provides images and an index of the marriage registers of the Freedmen’s Bureau office, legalizing many slave marriages as well as solemnizing new unions after the War. Currently 
available are the registers for Augusta, Goochland, Louisa, Nelson and Rockbridge counties. Like other Virginia marriages during this time period, the registers also contain the names of the spouses' parents.
available are the registers for Augusta, Goochland, Louisa, Nelson and Rockbridge counties. Like other Virginia marriages during this time period, the registers also contain the names of the spouses' parents.Also available at this site are the “Freedman Bank Records, 1865-1874.” These registers provide much-needed genealogical information, including names of spouses, parents, siblings, and where born. Many African-American inhabitants of Virginia appear within the records available in this collection.
Virginia’s African-American resources are not limited to slaves and former slaves. Descendants of free African-Americans in the antebellum period of Virginia also have many resources at their disposal.
For many years, one of the foremost researchers of free persons of color in the upper South has been Paul Heinegg. His first book, Free African Americans of North Carolina, Virginia, and South Carolina, is currently in its fifth printing, having been awarded the American Society of Genealogists' Donald Lines Jacobus Award for the best work of genealogical scholarship published between 1991 and 1994; and his book Free African Americans of Maryland and Delaware from the Colonial Period to 1810 (2000) follows up on this work. Mr. Heinegg has since put the text of both books online, at his own website, “Free African Americans of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware.” Not only does this site contain the texts of both books, but he has also updated the site’s content with additional information from his ongoing research. This site should indeed be at the top of the list of all African-American researchers, for the quality of its scholarship alone.During the antebellum period, free African-Americans in Virginia were required to register in the county in which they lived. The registers of various counties have been published, as transcriptions, indexes, or images, for various years, including the following:
Another particularly rich resource available for research in Virginia is the website of The Friends of Freedmen’s Cemetery. Freedmen’s Cemetery was a cemetery for former slaves in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, following the Civil War, but was covered by a gas station and office building until 2007, when the modern structures were demolished, and the cemetery was rededicated. The Friends of Freedmen’s Cemetery’s website contains many resources relating to African-Americans of the Alexandria area, from a list of burials at Freedmen’s Cemetery to older tax assessment lists and newspaper abstracts. If your ancestors were from Alexandria County or Alexandria City, this website will be one of your favorite bookmarks.As time goes on, even more resources for African-American research will become readily available online, and this column will be sure to report them.
Comments
Thanks for posting this. I look forward to more counties (Stafford and Spotsylvania, to be specific) being included in the future. This is a great and noble project.
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