Virginia, Freedmen's Bureau Field Office Records - FamilySearch Historical Records

Record Description
his collection includes field office reports, letters received and sent, contracts, certificates, registers, censuses, affidavits, and other documents that preserve, directly and vividly, the experiences and circumstances of the individuals involved, such as freedpeople, Bureau officers, landowners and employers, and others. They contain desperate pleas for food, clothing, and medical care from rural communities; freedpeoples' testimonies about delinquent employers, continued use of forced labor and apprenticeship, violence, restrictions due to the new state-legislated and repressive "black codes"; petitions for new schools, legal aid in courts, and protection from violence; applications for land; and marriage certificates. The collection includes records from 1865 to 1872.

Marriage records from this NARA publication have been published in a separate collection: Freedmen's Bureau Virginia Marriages, ca. 1815-1866.

Record History, Content and Use
For details about the contents of these records, their history, and help using them, see the wiki article: United States Freedmen’s Bureau Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)

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Related Websites

 * National Archives Resources for Genealogists
 * Publications of the Freedmen and Southern Society Project
 * The Freedmen's Bureau Online. Records of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands.
 * Publications of the Freedmen and Southern Society Project
 * Suffolk University

Related Wiki Articles

 * African American Freedmen's Bureau Records
 * Quick Guide to African American Records
 * African American Research
 * Kentucky

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Citations for This Collection
Citations for individual image records are available for this collection. Browse through images in this collection and click on the "Show Citation" box: Freedmen's Bureau Letters or Correspondence, 1865-1872

The following citation refers to the original source of the information published in FamilySearch.org Historical Record collections. Sources include the author, custodian, publisher and archive for the original records.