Virginia Family Tree Genealogy: Culpeper

Showing posts with label Culpeper. Show all posts

Friday, April 17, 2009

Lost Records Localities: Counties and Cities with Missing Records

A distant cousin of mine, Gail Vass, pointed out a resource that I had never seen before. It is called the Lost Records Localities Database and it is housed at the Libray of Virginia. Per their description...

"This database consists of entries for a wide variety of court records found as part of chancery and other locality records-processing projects. The entries are for surviving records from localities, most of whose records are no longer extant. The original record is photocopied. The copies are filed together in an artificial collection—the Lost Records Localities Collection—and are readily accessed through the manuscript room at the Library of Virginia. Please check periodically as this is an ongoing project."

In short, any record that they find from a "burned" county gets added to this collection. For example, say someone bought land in Hanover County and later sold it to someone in Mecklenburg County. The purchaser in Mecklenburg may have been involved in a court case where the Hanover deed was presented and copied. That copy still exists and is therefore added to the Lost Records database. It is search-able online but the actual records have to be viewed at the Library.

In case your were wondering, the burned counties in question are:

Albemarle
Appomattox
Buckingham
Caroline
Charles City
Culpeper
Dinwiddie
Elizabeth City
Gloucester
Hanover
Henrico
Henrico / City of Richmond
James City County / Williamsburg
King and Queen
King George
King William
Mathews
Nansemond
New Kent
Nottoway
Prince George
Prince William
Richmond City
Richmond County
Rockingham
Stafford
Warwick

For example, I checked for Brock documents in Hanover County and found the following:

Locality	Names	Record Type	Dates
Hanover County	King, Mary, etc. to John P. Brock	Deed	1799
Hanover County	Priddy, Robert and wife Nancy to John C. Brock	Deed	1823

I am very interested in the King-Brock deed as John P. Brock is my ancestor and his wife was rumored to be a King. This might be the proof that I need to make that connection. I plan on making a trip to the archives tomorrow so I will look up the actual document and let you know what I learn about the collection.

You can check out the online database here: Lost Records Localities Database

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Civil War Museum at the Exchange Hotel of Gordonsville

It has been ten days since I last posted anything. You probably thought that I was dead since I have been really good about posting daily as of late. I am still alive but I have been in New York on business and the Holiday Inn that I stayed in did not have Wi-Fi! I think it was supposed to have it but the darn thing was not working during the entire time. It was a pain in some ways but a nice vacation in others.

Tonight we went to the Civil War Museum at the Exchange Hotel in Gordonsville of Orange County. The hotel was built in 1860 and served both the Virginia Central Railroad and the Alexandria Railroad. The main purpose of the hotel was short-lived as it became the Gordonsville Receiving Hospital during the Civil War, caring for nearly 70,000 soldiers by the end of the war. Amazingly only about one percent of these soldiers died at the hospital, around 700 in all. They were originally buried on the grounds but later moved - Confederate soldiers were moved to Maplewood Cemetery and Union soldiers to the national cemetery in Culpeper.

After the war, the Exchange became a Freedman's Bureau Hospital and later returned to use as a hotel. It has now been restored as a museum and historical society of sorts. I did not get to spend much time looking at their collections but the museum seems to have a large reading room with old maps, newspapers and hospital records pertaining to the hospital, hotel, town and county. I imagine if you visited during normal hours, you would be able to view their holdings. They also had a large collection of Civil War-related books and a gift shop.

The reason we went to the Exchange tonight was for a ghost tour, in honor of Halloween. This was their eighth annual tour, taking place on October 24th and 25th. It cost $12 for myself, my wife and our two young children. They gave us free cider and coco plus cookies for the kids. The tour took us through the top two floors of the building, with reenactors in each room. They tried to reenact the death scenes of people who died in the hotel and supposedly now haunt the grounds.

Overall it was okay. I mean, they only do this two nights per year so you cannot set the bar too high. It is probably a major fundraiser for the museum so I can definitely support that. If you are looking for a haunted house or a true ghost tour, this would not have been for you. I mean, if the place was haunted you would never know it with all of the reenactors stomping around. Again, not that anything was wrong, it just was not a ghost tour as much as a history lesson about hospital life and death during the Civil War.

In looking at the museum's website, I did notice that they have a list of the dead. I do not know how complete it is but you can view it by clicking here.

And, just in case you were wondering, I did not see any ghosts. I even got to spend a little quite time in one of the rooms...alone. I was in there for about ten minutes and even tried to provoke any spirits that might have been there. I watch Ghost Hunters on SciFi...I know the deal. I asked them to please make their presence known, to give me some small sign. Once that did not work, I tried to be a little more aggressive and tick off anything that might be there (but again to no avail). If there are any ghosts at the Exchange Hotel, they must have taken the night off.

Friday, October 10, 2008

New Genealogical and Historical Society Link Section

I have added a new section to the right-hand site of the site, toward the bottom. There is now a list of all the genealogical and historical societies that I know of for Virginia. There is one big catch...their website has to be current and maintained. There are other societies out there that have websites but they have not been updated since like 2001. I am only including sites that are well-maintained by the society or group. What good is a calendar of events from 2005 anyway? If they do not take the time to update, I am not going to take the time to include them here.

Below is the list as it stands today. If you would like to suggest another site for inclusion, please do as I would love to add them. I am sure there are other, great sites out there that I missed but this is a good start.

Monday, April 21, 2008

Mary Louisa Stark of Culpeper County, Virginia d. 1878

Religious Herald, Richmond, Virginia, June 27, 1878:

"An all-wise Providence saw fit to place upon MARY LOUISA STARK burdens which but few are called upon to bear. On Monday, the 10th of June, 1878, her sufferings ceased. She had watched and waited so long and so patiently for the end, that when we stood by her grave and saw the white lily and the beautiful bright flowers placed upon the mound by loving hands, we felt as if tears of sorrow were selfish, for we truly believed our sister had gone to live forever with that Saviour she loved, and in whom she trusted, in a land where all is pure, and where the bright and the beautiful will never fade. Brother. Culpeper county, Va."

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