This is part of an ongoing series of state-specific resources for African-American genealogy research.
The first stop for conducting any research in Virginia is the official state archives, the Library of Virginia, in Richmond, Virginia. Its website, newly designed, contains several research guides to the Library’s collections, relating to African-American research. Included in Using the Collections (Alphabetical List of Research Guides) are the following research guides that will help you research your Virginia ancestors. These research guides describe the Library’s holdings of various record groups important to African-American research:
- African American Church Histories at the Library of Virginia
- African American Genealogical Research
- African-American Newspapers Held at the Library of Virginia
- Brown vs. Board of Education - Fifty Years: Selected Published Materials at the Library of Virginia
- Using Virginia Civil War Records
- Selected Civil War Resources in the Personal Papers and Military Records Collections at the Library of Virginia
- Slavery in Virginia
Also sponsored by the Library of Virginia, and accessible on its website, are several digital collections, under the banner of the Virginia Memory project:- Online Photo Collections: A list of several online collections of photographs, many of which contain portraits of African-American life throughout the twentieth century.
- WPA Life Histories: Created by the Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression era, these life histories contain interviews and oral histories with many African-Americans, including – but not limited to – former slaves.
- World War I History Commission Questionnaires: These questionnaires comprise a wonderful and unique record group for Virginia research. As Virginia soldiers returned from the first World War, they completed these questionnaires, providing biographical (including names of parents!) and military service information, as well as questions designed to determine the mental and physical affects of the war on each soldier. Some photographs are also included. There is another series of records, also held and searchable within this record group, for nurses who served in war zones during the war.
Another great source for information is the Virginia Historical Society. The Society library itself is at 428 North Boulevard, Richmond, Virginia, and contains the following current exhibits:
- Soul Soldiers: African Americans and the Vietnam Era (through August 30, 2009)
- The African American Image in Virginia (through December 30, 2009)
The following onsite exhibit will be opening on October 10, 2009, and also appears to be quite interesting:
In addition to these onsite exhibits, the Society also provides access to several digital exhibits on their website. In particular, the following exhibits are quite interesting:
- The Civil Rights Movement in Virginia: This exhibit is a narrative overview of the issue of civil rights for African-Americans, from the early colonial slavery era through the modern civil rights movements of the late twentieth century.
- The Sneden Civil War Collection: African-Americans are not the specific subject of this exhibit, but it does provide an interesting contemporary perspective on the Civil War in Virginia, featuring the illustrated memoir of a Union soldier, containing artwork and maps.
The African American manuscripts research guide provides a detailed list of manuscripts in the Special Collections of the Virginia Historical Society, including what material relates to the subject matter. For example, the “Neblett family papers, 1819–1891” collection (Mss1N2795a), containing over 600 items, includes a list of slaves purchased by Dr. Sterling Neblett from one Charles J. Meriwether, and an undated list of slaves belonging to Colin, James, and Robert Neblett. The guide is fully indexed and searchable online, or can be downloaded (in an earlier edition) as a series of PDF files.
But by far, there are two incredibly rewarding research guides for African-American and general research within the state of Virginia.
First, the Virginia Heritage Project contains links to special collections and finding aids at all major Virginia repositories, including public and various university libraries.
More important to specialized research, however, the guide, Afro-American Sources in Virginia: A Guide to Manuscripts, contains a complete overview of all manuscript collections related to African-American research at all major Virginia repositories.
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