African-American Families Database: Community Formation in Albemarle County, Virginia, 1850-1880

FAIN: HD-50979-10

Sweet Briar College (Sweet Briar, VA 24595-5001)
Lynn Rainville (Project Director: October 2009 to April 2014)

A pilot study for a collaborative online African-American Families Database recording and displaying genealogical and geographical data tracking generations of 19th-century descendants of individuals on two antebellum slave lists.

The African-American Families Database project involves a unique partnership between local historians, anthropologists, database designers, and community residents to develop an on-line database for connecting African-American families to their antebellum roots and tracing patterns of community formation in the post-bellum period. Working with historians and researchers we will develop a research methodology for entering information from standard archival records -- such as wills, census tallies, personal property taxes, and birth, marriage, and death certificates. Once entered into Excel spreadsheets we will export the data to a relational database, such as MySQL, and develop algorithms for searching for individual people. In this pilot study, we will test the associations between generations of families by tracking the 19th-century descendants of several dozen enslaved individuals listed on two antebellum "slave lists."

Associated Products

African American Families Database (Web Resource)
Title: African American Families Database
Author: Lynn Rainville
Abstract: An online search engine for tracing enslaved descendants from later, 19th- and 20th- century family members.
Year: 2010
Primary URL: http://centralvirginiahistory.org/database1.shtml

Fletcher family to gather at Sweet Briar to honor slave history, celebrate college's revival (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)
Title: Fletcher family to gather at Sweet Briar to honor slave history, celebrate college's revival
Writer: Ashlie Walter
Abstract: Discussion of one family's reunions as a result of research conducted by Dr Rainville into the enslaved community at Sweet Briar College.
Year: 2015
Primary URL: http://http://www.newsadvance.com/news/local/fletcher-family-to-gather-at-sweet-briar-to-honor-slave/article_1b438e8a-38aa-11e5-99a6-a38f715dd4cb.html
Format: Web

Slaves' descendants feel loss over Sweet Briar closure (Film/TV/Video Broadcast or Recording)
Title: Slaves' descendants feel loss over Sweet Briar closure
Writer: Susan Svrluga
Abstract: Dr Rainville's research into descendants of the enslaved community at Sweet Briar College (research supported by the online database that she created with NEH funds).
Year: 2015
Primary URL: http://http://hamptonroads.com/2015/04/slaves-descendants-feel-loss-over-sweet-briar-closure
Format: Web

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