Reconnecting
Families soon will be able to access freedmen's records
Darrell Walden participates in the announcement of the Virginia Freedmen Project. At right is Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine.
“I have no other one to apply to but you. ...My name is Hawkins Wilson who was sold at Sheriff’s sale and used to belong to Jackson Talley and was bought by Mr. Wright of Boydtown Court House.”
The letter was dated May 11, 1867. In it, Hawkins Wilson of Galveston, Texas, appealed to the Freedmen’s Bureau branch in Richmond to help him find his sisters, mother and uncle, whom he had not seen in 24 years. They were separated when he was sold from the Caroline County home where they were slaves.
It is unlikely that Wilson ever found his relatives, since a letter to his sister Jane is still in the bureau’s records.
Nearly 140 years later, descendents of Wilson and four million other freed slaves will soon be able to reconnect with their ancestors through an ambitious undertaking called the Virginia Freedmen Project, announced by Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine Oct. 26.
Kaine calls the project “the equivalent for African Americans [to] the records of Ellis Island.”
Standing with Kaine at 10th and Capitol Street near the General Assembly Building to make the announcement was Dr. Darrell Walden, associate professor of accounting and information systems in the Robins School of Business. Walden was instrumental in having Virginia selected as the first state to digitize and index the bureau’s microfilmed records so that African Americans will be able to search an online database for information about their ancestors.
Walden’s involvement began as a Black History Month project for his church that grew into research and a presentation, “Whispers from the Dust,” that he and colleague Dr. Roice Luke of VCU developed to educate African Americans about the records.
“Our presentations started in February 2005 and have never stopped as the African-American community and public find out about it,” says Walden. “We have presented it all over Virginia and have been invited as far away as Salt Lake City.” He and Luke are constantly researching and updating the presentation.
During the past year, Walden and Luke have been working closely with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and the Genealogical Society of Utah (GSU) to ensure that Virginia would be the first state to undertake the indexing project.
“Once GSU is successful in Virginia, they plan to roll out the other Southern states,” he says. Virginia alone has 203 rolls of microfilm to be digitized. Each roll contains about 1,500 images. “It is estimated that about 30 percent of these images will have genealogical value, while the other images will be of historical value,” says Walden.
Letter from Hawkins Wilson to the Virginia Freedman’s Bureau, dated May 11, 1867.
Congress established the Freedmen’s Bureau in 1865 to provide relief and help freed slaves become self-sufficient. Bureau officials issued rations and clothing, operated hospitals and refugee camps and supervised labor camps. In addition, the bureau managed apprenticeship disputes, assisted in the establishment of schools, helped freedmen legalize marriages entered into during slavery and provided transportation to freedmen attempting to reunite with their families or relocate to other parts of the country. The main office was in Washington, with branches throughout the South. By 1872, Congress had terminated its services.
NARA has maintained and preserved freedmen records through the years. For the past five years, NARA has been microfilming the records, compiling more than 1,000 rolls of film.
The next step in the project is for GSU to scan and integrate extraction templates and software for the genealogically pertinent information from the microfilmed records. Volunteers will then be able to go to the Web and extract vital information from the records to establish an indexing database.
In Virginia, the Black History Museum and Cultural Center will coordinate volunteers, who will be trained to participate in the extraction project using software developed by GSU.
By focusing exclusively on records generated by the Virginia Freedmen’s Bureau, the Virginia Freedmen Project will serve as a pilot for subsequent freedmen extraction projects throughout the South. Eventually, Howard University will place the digitized, indexed images on the Web for access by the public.
Walden expects to continue his involvement. “This has now become a labor of love over the last several years. I will have a continuing role in presenting and publishing articles about these records and their history.” Earlier this year, Walden wrote an op-ed, published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, about comparisons among freedmen, the 40-acres-and-a-mule program, and the promises made to survivors of Hurricane Katrina.
For more information on the Virginia Freedmen Project, visit www.richmond.edu/~dwalden/vafreedmen/. To volunteer for the extraction project, contact the Black History Museum at (804) 780-9093.