The Virginia Historical Society has announced the launch of a new Virginia slave name database. Drawing on the millions of documents in their collection, the database provides free online access to sources from the 17th through 19th centuries. You can search for individuals by name, occupation, age or location. Known as “Unknown No Longer”, the database finally gives the dignity of identity to many of the enslaved people in Virginia’s past and will most definitely be a boon to genealogical researchers.
I was lucky enough to see Paul Simon live this week. A highlight of the concert was hearing and watching him play the namesake song of my blog, Hearts and Bones. This is not my video, but it’s the same tour and the best one I could find online. (it also includes their cover of Mystery Train by Chet Atkins)
You take two bodies and you twirl them into one
Their hearts and their bones
And they won’t come undone
Hearts and bones
Hearts and bones
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Who doesn’t? This great shirt might just have to be added to my wardrobe. But how many times would I have to explain it? Would people ask? Would I be stopped in the grocery store and asked to expound? Would people be as horrified as I was to learn that the original data for the 1890 Census, groundbreaking for its use of punch-card technology, was lost to fire? Or would people just think I was some kind of reenactor?
The 1890 Census is for me is the twist in the game, the wrench in the works. If I had access to 1890, I might know how Lewis Hirsch got from rural Pennsylvania to Philadelphia. It would be a small chink in a brick wall, but big enough to peer through and see just a little more.
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