UpFront with NGS: LVA

Showing posts with label LVA. Show all posts

17 March 2017

Virginia's Circuit Court Records Preservation Program -- Making Sure that Valuable Records are Preserved

Virginia's Circuit Court Records Preservation Program -- Making Sure that Valuable Records are Preserved

It is always wonderful to learn about long-standing programs that help preserve records. Did you know that since 1992, the Library of Virginia and Circuit Court Clerks, have had a partnership to preserve circuit court records.

Circuit Court Records Preservation Program

The Circuit Court Records Preservation Program (CCRP) is a part of the Library of Virginia's Local Records Services Branch. Funded through a $1.50 of the clerk’s recordation fee, the CCRP provides resources to help preserve and make accessible permanent circuit court records. The program awards grants to the commonwealth’s circuit court clerks to help them address the needs of the records housed in their localities.

The CCRP also provides resources needed to process and house the circuit court records that are transferred to the State Archives for safekeeping and increased access; as well as track, duplicate and maintain circuit court microfilm stored in the Library’s media vault.

Read more about this program and what is has accomplished here.

Do watch the video (lower right on the previously mentioned page -- it runs about 13 minutes) to learn more about this collaboration.

What records preservation programs are you familiar with?

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NGS does not imply endorsement of any outside advertiser or other vendors appearing in this blog. Any opinions expressed by guest authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of NGS.

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Unless indicated otherwise or clearly an NGS Public Relations piece, Upfront with NGS posts are written by Diane L Richard, editor, Upfront with NGS.

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01 February 2016

Virginia Untold:African American Narrative will be unveiled today

To kick off African American History Month, we’ll first talk about the Library of Virginia (LVA).

TODAY – the initial release of this database is supposed to occur. I am so excited to see this that I am blogging about it in advance! As soon as I have an active link to the database, I will update this post.

In the meantime, this database has been supported by a crowdsourced transcription project called Virginia Untold: African American Narrative (this is the link to the transcription page where you can assist in getting these documents transcribed).

The names of millions of African Americans, slave and free, who lived, worked, worshiped, loved, and died in Virginia, are buried deep in the archival records and manuscript collections housed at the Library of Virginia. Untold Virginia: African American Narrative seeks to find these long silent voices. Whether contained in local court and state government records, private papers and business records, or newspapers and journals from the time, the untold narrative of a people is waiting to be discovered.

In support of this new database, there have been a series of blog posts talking about select types of records that will be included:

There is also a helpful related page where the Library of Virginia staff have compiled the raw date for databases part of the African American Narrative. These indexes are presented as comma separate value (CSV) files (will open in Microsoft Excel or similar programs). These files are a great way to see all of the data for each identified database in one place.

Certificates of Importation (csv)
Coroner's Inquisitions (csv)
Deeds of Emancipation (csv)
Free Negro Registrations (csv)
Free Negro Requisitions for Public Use (csv)
Free Negro Tax Records (csv)
Freedman's Contracts (csv)
Freedom Suits (csv)
Indentures of Apprenticeship (csv)
Petitions for Reenslavement (csv)
Petitions to Remain in the Commonwealth (csv)
Slave Requisitions for Public Use (csv)

Do you know of any planned database releases this month as we celebrate African American History Month?

Did you discover a key find in this new LVA database?

Editor’s Note: Related posts ...

o Rosenwald Schools & post Civil War African Americans -- a disappearing legacy that need your support (2015)

o African-American research doesn't only happen in February -- some new resources to check out! (2014)

o “The First Frontier” for African American Research guest post by Sharon Leslie Morgan (2014)

o What's the truth behind the legend in many African American families about having a Native American ancestor? (2014)

o African American Oral History, guest post by Sharon Leslie Morgan (2013)

o African American Researchers Must Dig Deeper, guest post by Sharon Leslie Morgan (2013)

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NGS does not imply endorsement of any outside advertiser or other vendors appearing in this blog. Any opinions expressed by guest authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of NGS.

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Think your friends, colleagues, or fellow genealogy researchers would find this blog post interesting? If so, please let them know that anyone can read past UpFront with NGS posts or subscribe!

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Suggestions for topics for future UpFront with NGS posts are always welcome. Please send any suggested topics to UpfrontNGS@mosaicrpm.com

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Unless indicated otherwise or clearly an NGS Public Relations piece, Upfront with NGS posts are written by Diane L Richard, editor, Upfront with NGS.

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26 August 2014

Crowdsourcing -- making recently unimaginable amounts of information available to us at our finger tips!

Crowdsourcing has become a very popular way to get large amounts of material indexed and/or transcribed.

It’s neat to see more and more facilities and groups using this means to get more material available to more people more quickly!

The most recent project I read about is “transcribe” from the Library of Virginia ... “Help improve access to historic documents by transcribing handwritten pages and reviewing transcriptions. Browse the items in each collection (“Browse all”) to see which ones need work. Create an account to enjoy additional features.”

This just shortly after reading The Smithsonian Wants You! (To Help Transcribe Its Collections) “Many myths surround the Smithsonian Institution’s archives—from legends of underground facilities hidden beneath the National Mall to rumors of secret archaeological excavations. One underlying truth persists amid these fallacies: the Institution’s archives are indeed massive. Preserving these collections in a digital age is a gargantuan task, especially when it comes to handwritten documents. Ink fades with time, and individual scrawls sometimes resemble hieroglyphics. It could literally take decades.”

Of course, once I read a new-to-me project I then seek out other projects that are either new to me or that I’ve been reminded of.

Some other current crowdsource projects with a genealogical connection are:

+ North Carolina Family Records Online (a project of the State Library and state Archives of North Carolina) – Genealogy Vertical File Transcription Project

+ Crowdsourcing at University [of Alabama] Libraries

+ [article] Readers Save Legacy Library Content by Crowdsourcing Metadata Games

Do you know of other crowdsourcing projects of direct interest to the genealogical and family history community?

Editor’s Note: Previous Upfront with NGS posts on this topic ...

+ Overlaying historic maps on modern maps is always neat! There is now a tool that makes it easy peasy! (2014)

+ FamilySearch Announces International Indexing Challenge -- a crowdsourcing effort of benefit to all genealogists and family historians (2014)

+ Smithsonian + Crowdsourcing Digitization = Lots of really neat stuff available to us! (2013)

+ Bay Area history exhibit aided by crowdsourcing (2013)

+ NARA Citizen Archivist Dashboard Live! (includes transcription, tagging and other crowdsource options) (2012)

+ Digitalkoot: Digitizing records through video games (2011)

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NGS does not imply endorsement of any outside advertiser or other vendors appearing in this blog. Any opinions expressed by guest authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of NGS.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Think your friends, colleagues, or fellow genealogy researchers would find this blog post interesting? If so, please let them know that anyone can read past UpFront with NGS posts or subscribe!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Suggestions for topics for future UpFront with NGS posts are always welcome. Please send any suggested topics to UpfrontNGS@mosaicrpm.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Unless indicated otherwise or clearly an NGS Public Relations piece, Upfront with NGS posts are written by Diane L Richard, editor, Upfront with NGS.

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Want to learn more about interacting with the blog, please read Hyperlinks, Subscribing and Comments -- How to Interact with Upfront with NGS Blog posts!

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14 May 2014

NGS 2014 Family History Conference -- Session W145 -- Using Civil War Maps in Genealogical Research

Whether you attended the recent NGS conference in person or virtually, I hope you had a great and productive time. If you were not able to attend the conference, audio tapes of many sessions will become available in the future. Watch here for an announcement.

In the meantime, I’ve planned a series of quick posts about some of the sessions I attended. Since it’s impossible to walk away from any NGS conference talk without learning about something or being reminded of a resource or tactic, I will be sharing a few tidbits that caught my attention.

For each talk I will provide title, presenter, session ID and page in syllabus. This way, those who attended the conference can check out the syllabus for more information and all, in the future, can access the recorded version (as available (R)). I will also share some of my experience with whatever the topic or additional research into the topic that I did. All of the images used in these posts WERE NOT part of the discussed presentation though they may result from a mentioned resource.

W145 (R) Using Civil War Maps in Genealogical Research, Cassandra Britt Farrell (Map Specialist and Senior Reference Archivist, Library of Virginia), Syllabus page 51

This was a fascinating talk that focused on Virginia maps. I do love maps and I have found that Civil War era maps can be particularly detailed and often include excellent detail on geographic features as well as information on those living in the area.

Particularly helpful was the understanding I gained about how maps were created and published and the issues that plagued the Confederate Army in terms of publishing maps. Her discussion on how maps were quickly produced in the field was fascinating. The idea of sun prints caught my attention. If you search the Library of Congress Civil War Map Collection for sun prints, 59 are found for VA, TN and other southern states.

I hadn’t thought about northern newspapers printing maps! Basically, northerners wanted to see where battles were occurring and learn where there family members were fighting. These were published in the newspapers of the time. They may not be the most detailed maps created at the time and yet they can provide context.

New-York daily tribune. (New-York [N.Y.]), 30 May 1864. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. <http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030213/1864-05-30/ed-1/seq-1/>

Though the focus of the talk was VA maps, I feel confident that I can use what she discussed to look more deeply into NC maps. I am familiar with many of them and the NC Archives and its partners have done a wonderful job of creating the North Carolina Maps digitized collection which includes published, manuscript and other types of maps. I know wonder if there are other hidden civil war era map gems to be found!

The associated syllabus pages provide a great overview of the talk (which covers so much more than my brief summary) and also include a bibliography.

Editor’s Note: This series is not presented in any particular order.

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Want to learn more about interacting with the blog, please read Hyperlinks, Subscribing and Comments -- How to Interact with Upfront with NGS Blog posts!

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NGS does not imply endorsement of any outside advertiser or other vendors appearing in this blog. Any opinions expressed by guest authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of NGS.

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Follow NGS via Facebook, YouTube, Google+, Twitter

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Think your friends, colleagues, or fellow genealogy researchers would find this blog post interesting? If so, please let them know that anyone can read past UpFront with NGS posts or subscribe!

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Suggestions for topics for future UpFront with NGS posts are always welcome. Please send any suggested topics to UpfrontNGS@mosaicrpm.com