African American Resources for Virginia

United States   Virginia    African Americans

Guide to African American genealogy in Virginia.



Strategies
African American research in Virginia can be divided into two general time periods - before and after the Civil War.

This Wiki page describes research strategies, and major sources of information about African American families from Virginia. As you read this Wiki page, also study the African American Research Wiki pages, which will help you understand more strategies, and the contents and uses of other African American genealogical records.

Societies dedicated to African American genealogy, such as the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society, Inc., include local chapters in Virginia that offer many resources to help people with black ancestry.

Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. examines the Virginia ancestry of several prominent African Americans living today. His television series will provide you with many tips for tracing your own Virginia family tree.

Genetic Testing
Many African Americans alive today are having their DNA tested to learn which tribes in Africa they descend from. To learn more about this procedure, read Hiring a DNA Testing Company.

History
The first slaves were imported into Virginia in 1619. Slaves were emancipated in 1865. The Official Tourism Website of the Commonwealth of Virginia has prepared a nice history of African-Americans in Virginia.

In 1790, counties with more than 10,000 slaves were Amelia and Caroline. Counties with more than 7500 slaves were Culpeper and Hanover. Counties with more than 5000 slaves were: Albemarle, Amherst, Brunswick, Chesterfield, Dinwiddie, Essex, Fauquier, Gloucester, Halifax, Henrico, King and Queen, King William, Norfolk, Southampton, Spotsylvania, and Sussex.

By 1860, when there were nearly twice as many slaves in the state as there had been 70 years earlier, counties with more than 10,000 slaves were Albemarle, Bedford, Campbell, Caroline, Dinwiddie, Fauquier, Halifax, Henrico, Louisa, Mecklenburg, and Pittsylvania. Counties with more than 7500 slaves were: Amelia, Brunswick, Buckingham, Charlotte, Chesterfield, Hanover, Norfolk, and Spotsylvania.

Edmund S. Morgan's American Slavery, American Freedom: The Ordeal of Colonial Virginia (1975) is considered one of the best histories of enslaved blacks in Virginia.

1619-1865: Period of slavery
Information about slaves can be found in slavemasters' deeds (see Virginia Land and Property),slave schedules (see Virginia Census), wills (see Virginia Probate Records), tax lists (see Virginia Taxation), family Bibles and diaries (see Virginia Bible Records), plantation records, interviews with former slaves, and in court order books (see Virginia Court Records). A few parish registers (see Virginia Church Records) list slaves who attended church with their masters. In Virginia the births of slave children should be listed in county birth registers starting in 1853 (see Virginia Vital Records).

Immigration
Most black slaves were imported into Virginia in the 100 year period between 1676 and 1776, though they were present as early as 1619. Slaves began to outnumber the white indentured servant workforce in the late 1600s. The majority were brought into the colony from Africa and the Caribbean. In particular, the African regions of the Bight of Biafra (modern Nigeria), Senegambia (modern Senegal and Gambia), West Central Africa (modern Angola and Congo), and the Gold Coast (modern Ghana) were hotspots for Virginia slave traders. Smaller numbers came from the Windward Coast (modern Ivory Coast), Sierra Leone, Bight of Benin (modern Togo and Benin), and Southeast Africa (modern Madagascar and Mozambique) according to surviving shipping registers.

There was a strong Muslim presence in Senegambia during the period of the slave trade. Many Tidewater Virginia slaves must have been influenced by Islam before their arrival in America. Slaves were usually renamed once they arrived in English-speaking colonies. They were given English Christian names to replace names from their native languages (some of which were Muslim names like Mohammad).

The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database Internet site contains references to 35,000 slave voyages, including over 67,000 Africans aboard slave ships, using first name, age, gender, origin, and place of embarkation. The database documents the slave trade between Africa, Europe, Brazil, the Caribbean, and what is now the United States.

Virginia headright grants identify some slave importations into the colony, see Virginia Immigration for further information about this source.

Records of Slaves
The 1850 and 1860 slave schedules are available on Ancestry.com ($) and FamilySearch.org (free). They identify genders and ages of slaves owned by each master. Earlier census records statistically identify slaves in their masters' households (and free people of color) by approximate age and gender. For a breakdown of the content of the records, see articles on the 1840, 1830, 1820, 1810, 1800, and 1790 censuses.

Tom Blake's Large Slaveholders of 1860 and African American Surname Matches from 1870 can help researchers theorize the identities of the owners of their slave ancestors. The site includes material for Amelia, Essex, Halifax, Henry, King William, Mecklenburg, Nelson, Nottoway, Powhatan, and Prince George counties in Virginia.

Black slaves are often listed as property in their masters' deeds, wills, and probate inventories. The Virginia Historical Society's Guide to African American Manuscripts identifies many records that document slave's names and owners within their large collection.

White slave masters who belonged to the Quaker and Methodist faiths often set their slaves free in the 1700s and 1800s. Paul Heinegg prepared a detailed list of Virginia slaves manumitted (freed) between 1782 and the 1820s.

Unknown No Longer: A Database of Virginia Slave Names is a free online database created by the Virginia Historical Society. Information on many Virginia slaves is available in this work in progress.

Morales and Valaitis indexed slaves in birth registers across the state for the period 1853 to 1865:


 * Morales, Leslie Anderson and Ada Valaitis. Virginia Slave Births Index, 1853-1865. 5 vols. Westminster, Md.: Heritage Books, 2007..

The Library of Virginia has a collection titled Public claims, slaves and free blacks, 1781-1865. The collection contains tax records for free blacks and slaves, records of condemned blacks who were executed or transported out of state, and records of runaway slaves who were caught and whose owners could not be found. The runaway slaves became the property of the state and were sold to new owners. Copies are available on microfilm at the Family History Library:.

African American Families Database online The Central Virginia History Researchers (CVHR) has now released the African-American Families Database online. The first stage of this website provides a template for researchers trying to locate specific African- Americans who lived between circa 1850 and 1880. This period is particularly challenging for African-American family research because of the difficulty in relating ante-bellum and post-bellum records. The two plantations on which the website currently focuses are Hydraulic Plantation (5 miles north of Charlottesville, Va.), and the Bleak House Plantation (9 miles northwest of Charlottesville Va.).The site contains information on the plantations and information on the enslaved people living on these two plantations. The site also contains a blog focusing on the activities of the CVHR group, and details about the Database project.

Runaway Slaves
Names of hundreds of runaway slaves, their descriptions, owners, and ages appeared in newspapers. They have been published and can be found in:


 * Windley, Lathan A., comp. Runaway Slave Advertisements. 4 vols. (Virginia and North Carolina) Wesport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1983. . For Virginia, see volume one.

Many eighteenth-century runaway slave advertisements were published in the Virginia Gazette. Indexed images of the Virginia Gazette(1736-1780) are available online through the Colonial Williamsburgwebsite. (Browse for terms such as "slaves.") Professor Tom Costa and The Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia have indexed all the runaway advertisements for slaves mentioned in this publication and other Virginia newspapers (1736-1803), see: The Geography of Slavery in Virginia. These newspapers are valuable resources for all Virginia regions.

Plantation Records
Virginia Plantation Records Occasionally, slaves are mentioned in plantation records. The Family History Library has several series of plantation records from the periods before and after the Civil War. These are listed in the Author/Title Search of the Family History Library Catalog under the STAMPP, KENNETH M. or in the Subject Search under PLANTATION LIFE - VIRGINIA or PLANTATION LIFE - SOUTHERN STATES. Records are available at:


 * Library of Congress: inventory, ; original records, films beginning with.
 * University of Virginia Library: inventory, ; original records, films beginning with.
 * Duke University Library: inventory, ; original records, films beginning with.
 * University of North Carolina Library at Chapel Hill: inventory, ; original records, films beginning with.
 * Colonial Williamsburg Foundation Library: inventory, ; original records, films beginning with . These records are from the Shirley plantation of the Carter family.
 * College of William and Mary, Earl Gregg Swem Library: inventory, ; original records, films beginning with.
 * Virginia Historical Society: inventory, ; original records, films beginning with.

The Family History Library has microfilms of most of the records described in the guide booklets. Virginia plantation records are scattered throughout.

Personal Narratives
Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States, From Interviews with Former Slaves, recorded after the Civil War, recounts memories of life as a slave.

Voices from the Days of Slavery, made possible by the Library of Congress, includes free audio files of interviews with former slaves from Albemarle, Essex, Westmoreland counties and the cities of Norfolk and Petersburg.

Volume 16 of The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography (1941) includes Virginia narratives:.

Revolutionary War, 1776-1783
African Americans from Virginia served on both sides of the Revolutionary War. Many Virginia slaves ran away from their masters and joined British forces after a proclamation issued by Lord Dunmore in 1775. He promised freedom for this act, and 500 slaves promptly joined him, whom he organized into the Ethiopian Regiment. Free people of color commonly served their companies as drummers, fifers, and pioneers. Black "pioneers" would "Assist in Cleaning the Streets &amp; Removing all Nuisances being thrown into the Streets."

An index of slaves and free men of color appears in the Index to Sons of the American Revolution applications. For a discussion, see the Virginia Periodicals article.

Patriots of Color is a free database at Archives.com. Includes details about 700+ black Virginians in the Revolutionary War.

Black Loyalist, created by The University of Sydney, includes biographical information about approximately 1,000 black loyalists from the Norfolk, Virginia area.

Early Migrations Out of Virginia
In the colonial period, slaves were taken by Virginia slave masters into areas where white settlements appeared, such as North Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee.

Black Loyalists during the Revolution resettled in British Canada after the War concluded.

In the early 1800s, approximately 500,000 Virginia slaves were forcibly moved to the Deep South. Dorothy Williams Potter in Passports of Southeastern Pioneers 1770-1823 identifies some white families that took slaves with them from Virginia to the territories that are now Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Missouri.

Legislation
Slavery Legislation. To learn about the laws that affected Virginia slaves, see:


 * Finkelman, Paul. State Slavery Statutes: Guide to the Microfiche Collection. Frederick, Md.: University Publications of America, 1989. . Pages 317-56 pertain to Virginia and cover the years 1789-1865. The advertisements are indexed. The records list the names of many slaves and slave owners.

The Geography of Slavery in Virginia includes a list of Virginia slave laws, references to slaves in the House of Burgesses Journals, and other documents.

Free People of Color
Not all blacks were slaves in Virginia before the Civil War. Virginia had the largest free black population in the United States. Many black families had been free there since the 1600s. For each eight slaves in the state, there was one free person of color. Some of the largest families had the surnames Cumbo, Driggers, and Goins. Many free people of color descended from black slave men who had children by white indentured servant women. Others were manumitted.



Half of the Virginia free black population lived in the Tidewater region during the nineteenth century. In 1860, one-third lived in towns and cities. Counties with the largest populations of free African Americans in 1790 (more than 450) were Accomack, Dinwiddie, Henrico, Nansemond, Northampton, and Southampton. Counties with more than 250 free blacks were Campbell, Charles City, Chesterfield, Goochland, Isle of Wight, Mecklenburg, Norfolk, Prince George, Surry, Sussex, and York.

70 years later, in 1860, many of these people's descendants appear to have continued to live in the same areas. Counties with more than 1500 free colored people were Accomack, Dinwiddie, Henrico, Nansemond, Norfolk, and Southampton. The town of Petersburg in 1830 (Dinwiddie County) had 3440 white inhabitants, 2850 slaves, and 2032 free blacks, making the black population the majority.

Records
Free people of color appear in the same Virginia sources as the white population. They had surnames, interacted with whites, Indians, slaves, and free blacks; bought and sold land, took out marriage licenses, left wills, baptized their children in the Church of England, owned slaves, paid taxes, and sued others in court. Sometimes clerks specified their race, other times, they did not.

In the nineteenth century, it was not uncommon for free blacks to purchase their enslaved relatives (husbands, wives, children, parents) and maintain their status as slaves in efforts to keep the family intact (newly freed blacks in Virginia faced a discriminatory law (starting in 1806) requiring them to leave the state).

Jackson, Luther Porter, Negro Office Holders in Virginia, 1865-1895. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University Microfilms International, [1980] FHL 1303161 item 5 

Tax assessors often recorded more information about free blacks in Virginia than census enumerators. Pre-1850 censuses list only the head of household by name, whereas tax lists sometimes list all males over the age of 16 by name. In 1813, according to Paul Heinegg, "many counties(or divisions of a county) mistakenly counted free women of color over 16 as taxables." In addition, "some counties had either a separate list of 'Free Persons of Color' or 'Free Negroes and Mulattos' or a notation after the person's name to indicate their race. Generally these tax lists provide a better source of information than either the registers of free Negroes or the census records." Heinegg abstracted free blacks identified in each Virginia county. His abstracts are available online.

Census takers between 1790 and 1860 distinguished between free blacks and black slaves. Heinegg prepared lists of "Other Free" Heads of Household in the 1810 Virginia Census (arranged by county) (arranged by name).

Starting in 1793, each Virginia county court kept a register of free Negroes. Documentation of a black person's freedom status protected them from being forced into slavery. On the other hand, it also restricted their ability to migrate within the state, requiring them to stay in the county where he or she was registered. These registers may give the person's name, age, color, stature, marks and scars, and name the court of emancipation. Several of these registers are found at the Library of Virginia. The Family History Library has copies of some of these registers. They are usually found in the Family History Library Place Search under VIRGINIA, [COUNTY] - COURT RECORDS.

Example of registers that have been published:


 * Boyd-Rush, Dorothy A. Free Negroes Registered in the Clerk's Office, Botetourt County, Virginia, 1802-1836. Athens, Georgia: Iberian Pub. Co., 1993..
 * Ford, Benjamin. Free Black Registers, Albemarle County (1807-1865). Available online.
 * Hudgins, Dennis. Surry County, VirginiaRegister of Free Negroes. Richmond, Va.: Viginia Genealogical Society, 1995..
 * Kegley, Mary B. Free People of Colour: Free Negroes, Indians, Portuguese and Freed Slaves. Wytheville, Virginia: Kegley Books, 2003. ; digital version at Family History Archives. (Augusta, Carroll, Giles, Lee, Montgomery, Pulaski, Russell, Washington, and Wythe counties.)

Black families freed prior to 1820 have been reconstructed in:


 * Paul Heinegg, Free African Americans of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware at http://freeafricanamericans.com/ (accessed 25 May 2012). About 2,000 pages of family histories based on colonial court order and minute books 1790-1810 census records, tax lists, wills, deeds, free Negro registers, marriage bonds, parish registers, and Revolutionary War pension files.

A good history to read on the subject is:


 * Russell, John Henderson. The Free Negro in Virginia, 1619-1865. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1913. Digital version at Internet Archive. 1969 reprint:.

Migrations Out of Virginia
Many free African American families migrated from Virginia to Robeson County, North Carolina in the 1700s. Virginia's free people of color are also now believed to have been the ancestors of Appalachia's Melungeon population. An 1806 law required freed slaves to leave the state within twelve months of gaining their freedom. This stiff law was softened by subsequent laws in the 1820s and 30s. Many free blacks from Virginia had resettled in Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, and Michigan between the 1840s and 1860s.

1865 to the Present
During the period of segregation, African Americans appear in the same sources as white people, such as censuses (beginning in 1870), marriage registers (though there was often a separate register for "colored marriages"), birth certificates, death certificates, deeds, wills, military records, cemeteries and church records (though they were usually segregated churches and cemeteries), tax records, voter registrations, city directories (though they might appear at the back of the book) and newspapers (including ethnic African American newspapers). Unique records relating specifically to black Virginians include cohabitation records, Freedmen's Bank records, and African American biographies.

In 1870, five years after slaves were freed, counties with the largest black populations (more than 10,000) were Albemarle, Bedford, Campbell, Dinwiddie, Halifax, Henrico, Louisa, Mecklenburg, Norfolk, and Pittsylvania. Towns with the largest black populations (more than 5000) were Alexandria, Charlottesville, Danville (Dan River), Lynchburg, Norfolk, Petersburg, Portsmouth, and Richmond.

Records
Cohabitation Records are registers created when the former slaves legalized their marriages (they were not allowed to marry until 1866). The tradition during the period of slavery had been to "jump over the broomstick" as as a marriage ceremony. This valuable genealogical data is being made available online through the Library of Virginia's Virginia Memory Collection (scroll to "Cohabitation Registers"). More about this source is also found on the Cohabitation Records Wiki page, and the Virginia Cohabitation Records Wiki page.

Freedman's Savings and Trust Company signature cards or registers may list the slave's former masters, birth date, birthplace, occupation, residences, death information, parents, children, spouse, or siblings. Virginia had three branches of this bank:


 * Lynchburg 1871
 * Norfolk 1871-1874
 * Richmond 1867-1874

The signature registers for these branches are listed in:


 * Freedman's Savings and Trust Company (Washington, DC) 1865-1874. Registers of Signatures of Depositors in Branches of the Freedman's Savings and Trust Company, 1865-1874. Washington, DC: National Archives, 1969. Digital version ; also on film: . In each city, depositors' names are arranged by account number.

Two valuable sources for the period after the Civil War are:


 * 1) United States. Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. Records of the Superintendent of Education for the State of Virginia, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1870. Washington, DC: National Archives, 1977. . Most volumes are indexed.
 * 2) United States. Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. Records of the Assistant Commissioner for the State of Virginia, Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, 1865-1869. Washington, DC: National Archives, 1988. . There are several indexes.

Freedmen's Bureau Virginia Marriages ca. 1815-1866--Names of thousands of former slaves are included in these records. A free index can be viewed at. Records may include the name of the bride and groom, date of marriage registration, residence, previous marriages, names and ages of children.

Virginia, Freedmen's Bureau Letters or Correspondence, 1865-1872. (NARA microfilm publication M752) Field office reports, letters received and sent, contracts, certificates, registers, censuses, affidavits and other documents.

Some additional transcribed records are available at Freedmen's Bureau.com.

Biographies of prominent Virginia African Americans have been published. For example, a list of blacks who held public office during Reconstruction is available in:, by Luther Porter Jackson. The Black History Committee of The Friends of the Thomas Balch Library prepared two volumes titled The Essence of a People: Portraits of African Americans Who Made a Difference in Loudoun County, Virginia (2001-2002). .

Cemeteries
Large African American cemeteries in Virginia have included:


 * The African American Historic Cemeteries of Portsmouth VA on Facebook: A friend's group of descendants and volunteers of the African American Cemeteries of Portsmouth: The Mt. Calvary Cemetery Complex (est 1879), Lincoln Memorial Cemetery (est 1912), Grove Baptist Church cemetery (est 1840), and Olive Branch Baptist Church cemetery.
 * The African American Historic Cemeteries of Portsmouth Virginia (web): A group of concerned citizens, descendants, and volunteers of the African American Cemeteries of Portsmouth:  The Mt. Calvary Cemetery Complex (est. 1879), Lincoln Memorial Cemetery (est 1912), Grove Baptist Church Cemetery (est. 1840), and Olive Branch Baptist Church cemetery.
 * African American Cemeteries of Tidewater Virginia and North Carolina on Facebook. A community forum for the African American cemeteries of Tidewater Virginia and North Carolina.  Included are burial sites located in the counties and independent cities in the Tidewater regions of Virginia and North Carolina. Also includes cemetery news from around the United States, and listings in Maryland, New Jersey, and Georgia.
 * African American Cemeteries of Tidewater Virginia (web): A community forum for the African American and slave cemeteries in the Tidewater Region of Virginia. Counties include: Accomack, Arlington, Caroline, Charles City, Chesterfield, Essex, Fairfax, Gloucester, Hanover, Henrico, Isle of Wight, James City, King George, King and Queen, King William, Lancaster, Mathews, Middlesex, New Kent, Northampton, Northumberland, Prince George, Prince William, Richmond, Spotsylvania, Stafford, Surry, Westmoreland, and York. Cities include: Alexandria, Chesapeake, Colonial Heights, Fairfax, Falls Church, Fredericksburg, Hampton, Hopewell, Newport News, Norfolk, Petersburg, Poquoson, Portsmouth, Richmond, Suffolk, Virginia Beach, and Williamsburg. There are also listings for counties in North Carolina, Georgia, and Maryland.
 * African American Cemeteries Online includes transcribed records from Accomack, Albemarle, Amherst, Dinwiddie, Fairfax, Halifax, Henrico, Page, Prince William, Russell, and Sussex county cemeteries.
 * The Friends of Freedmen's Cemetery includes information about African Americans buried in Freedmen's Cemetery in Alexandria.
 * African-American Cemeteries in Albemarle and Amherst Counties. Project sponsored by the African American Genealogy Group of Charlottesville and Albemarle County.

The J.F. Bell Funeral Home in Charlottesville, Virginia maintained records of African American funerals, which are available online for the years 1917-1989.

History of African Methodism in Virginia (1908) is available online through the Library of Congress's The Church in the Southern Black Community, 1780-1925 collection.

The Library of Virginia has prepared a list of African-American Newspapers, such as the Afro-American and the Richmond Planet, which they hold.

PBS's interactive Reconstruction: The Second Civil War discusses what life was like for freed slaves and their descendants in the nineteenth century.

Later Migrations Out of Virginia
There were several large migrations of Virginia African Americans into other parts of the country in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In 1900, most Southern born blacks living in the North had been born in Virginia or Kentucky. Around the time of World War I, many rural Virginians moved to urban Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, Newark, New Jersey, New York City, and Boston. In the World War II era, many moved to Chicago and Detroit.

Societies

 * African American Genealogy Group of Charlottesville and Albemarle County. Website includes register of free negroes, local African American cemeteries.
 * Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society (AAHGS), Chapter of Central Virginia
 * AAHGS, Chapter of Greater Richmond, P.O. Box 27833, Richmond, VA 23261
 * AAHGS, Chapter of Hampton Roads
 * AAHGS, Chapter of Burke Brown Steppe
 * Afro-American Historical Association of Fauquier County
 * The Alexandria Society for the Preservation of Black Heritage, Inc.
 * Middle Peninsula African-American Genealogical &amp; Historical Society of Virginia serves the counties of Essex, Middlesex, King and Queen, King William, Gloucester, Mathews and the Northern Neck (King George, Lancaster, Northumberland, Richmond and Westmoreland counties).

Archives and Libraries

 * Virginia Historical Society - Guide to African-American Manuscripts
 * The Library of Virginia - Resources for African American Genealogical Research
 * African American Church Histories at the Library of Virginia
 * African Americans in the Civil War
 * African American Newspapers Held in the Library of Virginia
 * University of Virginia - Afro American Sources in Virginia: A Guide to Manuscripts
 * Virginia Commonwealth University - Virginia Black History Archives Collections

For a list of Virginia plantation records held at various archives, see the Period of slavery section.

Websites

 * African Ancestry in Virginia at Afrigeneas includes a concise history of black people in the state. The site includes links to databases for several Virginia record sets such as African American Census Schedules Online and Slave Data Collection.
 * History of the American Negro, Virginia editionSee page 728.
 * World War I History Commission Questionnaires.Read more about the questionnaires.
 * State online resources for African-American genealogy: Virginia
 * More state online resources for African-American genealogy: Virginia
 * Access Genealogy: Virginia African American Genealogy. Includes a large list of online resources.
 * African American History of Accomac County, Virginia at Accomac Roots. Includes genealogy, census data, tax lists, indentures, cemeteries, maps, pictures, documents, and sources.