Saturday, October 15, 2011

Virginia Historical Society Launches Searchable Online Database of Slave Names

Unknown No Longer: A Database of Virginia Slave Names contains personal information about enslaved Virginians gleaned from some of the more than eight million processed manuscripts in VHS collections.

VHS archivists and historians spent the spring and summer combing through material, such as diaries, letters, insurance papers, wills, freedom papers, receipts, and deeds to extract raw information for the database.

To date, the database includes more than 2,000 names and digital images of hundreds of documents from which the information was extracted.

If you haven't already, I encourage you to visit the VHS website to utilize the free Unknown No Longer database.

Their plan is to continue to review material in the VHS collection and intend to add thousands more names to the database. Please check back frequently to review new information added to the online material.

The nuggets of information found in this database will help us reconstruct the lives of people long gone and will put flesh on those that will be unknown no longer.

No comments: