Renate on the Web (and In Person!) - 2023 First-Half

 As in the past couple of years, I have several speaking engagements coming up, as we go into Black History Month and the Spring season. I've been pulling back a bit, though, so this year's list is not as busy as before. As you'll see, we are starting to get back to in person events, so my usual "Renate on Web" title for this post had to be edited! :)

Where's Renate?                                                                                                                Here's what I have going on for the first half of 2023. Where possible, I'll include a link where you can get more information and register for the events, if interested. All times given are in Eastern Time. I will also indicate with ($) at the end of each event that is not free. Here goes!

January 2023

28th - AAHGS-Greater Richmond Chapter, Monthly Meeting (Hybrid): Topic - "Researching Enslaved Ancestors" Click for more info and to register.   https://aahgsrichmondva.com/eventscalendar/

February 2023

4th - Stark Library, Canton, OH (Virtual): Topic - "From Yarborough to Neal: Reconstructing My Enslaved Family Using DNA" https://stark.libnet.info/event/7483558

10th-11th - North Carolina AAHGS Annual Black History Month Banquet and Conference: Opening Conference Speaker  https://tinyurl.com/ncaahgs2023 ($)

18th - Norfolk (VA) Public Library - Jordan-Newby Anchor Branch at Broad Creek, Norfolk, VA: Topic - "Researching Ancestors of Color" https://norfolkpubliclibrary-adultprograms.eventbrite.com

25th - Union County (NC) Library (Virtual): Topic - "Using Funeral Programs to Inform Genealogy Research"   (No registration. Click link at time of event (2/25/23 at 11:00 a.m. Eastern) This is a hybrid event.    https://www.unioncountync.gov/Home/Components/Calendar/Event/1356/1040

March 2023

25th - North Carolina Genealogical Society, Virtual Conference: Topic - Records of the Freedmen's Bureau - There's Something for Everyone" https://www.ncgenealogy.org/event/ncgs-2023-virtual-conference-coming-soon/ ($)

April 2023

7th - (2:00 p.m.) Legacy Family Tree Webinars - "Tick Marks and Number Counts: Understanding and Using the Slave Schedules" - The live presentation is free and the replay is free for one week, but registration is required. Available to subscribing members after the first week. Register here: https://familytreewebinars.com/webinar/tic-marks-and-number-counts-understanding-and-using-the-slave-schedules/                                                              Update: This lecture was recognized as the highest rated on Legacy Family Tree Webinars for the month of April! What an honor! I hope you'll check it out! :)

11th - (1:00 - 2:00) Wake Forest University: "Conducting Research on Enslaved Humans Owned by Wake Forest College" - Z. Reynolds Library, Wake Forest University. This is an in-person event sponsored by the Department of Sociology, RECAAL, and the Provost's Office. (Open to the public.)

13th - Virginia Beach (VA) Genealogy Society: Understanding and Using the Slave Schedules - This is a hybrid meeting. Email meetings@vbgsva.net to request the Zoom link. 

26th-29th - Ohio Genealogical Society 2023 Conference, Kalahari Resort and Conference Center, Sandusky, OH; "What Brought Them Here 1803-2023" - I'll be giving four lectures. Click link for conference and registration information: https://www.ogs.org/2023-conference/ ($)

May 2023

2nd - Genealogy Quick Start, with host Shamele Jordan - "DNA Discovers Granddad's Dalliances" Tune in LIVE! https://www.youtube.com/@GenealogyQuickStart/featured

31st  - National Genealogical Society 2023 Family History Conference, Richmond, VA; "Virginia, the Deep Roots of a Nation" Pre-Conference Day

June 2023

June 1- 3 - National Genealogical Society 2023 Family History Conference, Richmond, VA; "Virginia, the Deep Roots of a Nation" - I'll be giving two lectures: F242- Enslaved Ancestral Research in Virginia and North Carolina and S352- "From This Day Forward" - Documenting Marital Unions of Enslaved and Emancipated Persons." Click link for conference and registration information: https://conference.ngsgenealogy.org/ ($)

4th - Let's Talk North Carolina Genealogy! Season 3, Episode 11: "Researching the Wake Forest 16" - I will be sharing information about the descendant research I'm doing for Wake Forest University, regarding the 1860 sale of 16 enslaved individuals to create an endowment for the school. Register here: https://tinyurl.com/LTNCGS3E11

14th - Lemonade Insurance Employee Group - "Records of the Freedmen's Bureau: There's Something for Everyone!" (Private event)

17th - (1:00 p.m.) Historical Society of Washington County, VA, "Reclaiming Our History" Annual Conference (Virtual) "Researching Ancestors of Color" Register here.

It's good to see folks and to be seen!                                                                                        One of the best things about returning to in person is thinking about seeing gen-friends, old and new! I am looking forward to seeing and meeting as many of you, as possible, at these upcoming events!

     

Picture 1 - With genfriends, Shelley and Tim in Fluvanna, Virginia (unsure of year)

Picture 2 - With genfriends Amy and Peggy at OGS 2022

Picture 3 - With genfriends Shelly, Judy, Thom, and Gary at NGS 2017

Renate

P.S. This post will be updated as additional events are added. If you are interested in having me as a speaker for your organization, please email me at yarsan@aol.com to request my current list of topics. I'd love to hear from you!

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Amanuensis Monday - Letters from Louisburg - Part 2

Last Monday, I shared the first of a series of letters between William A Eaton, of Franklin County, North Carolina, and officers of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (usually known as the "Freedmens' Bureau").  In his letters, Mr. Eaton is pleading for the support of the bureau in establishing a home, school, and working farm for former slaves after Emancipation.

I read and copied three of the letters in this series during a visit to the National Archives over a year ago.  At that time, I had no idea I'd be sharing them, so I must apologize for not having the exact source information, other than to say that the letters were on a reel of microfilm which held records of the Freedmens' Bureau which related to Franklin County, NC.  My purpose in reading through these records was to seek any mention of my own ancestors, most specifically my formerly-enslaved great-grandfather, Calvin Yarborough, Sr., who, in the 1870 Census was noted to be a "former teacher".

If you missed the first letter I posted, which was from Mr. Eaton to the first commissioner of the Freedmens' Bureau, General Oliver O Howard, you can read it by clicking here.  This second letter, penned by Mr. Eaton on September 2, 1865, is to Colonel Eliphalet Whittlesey, Assistant Commissioner for the North Carolina Freedmen's Bureau, 1865–1866.

Franklin County Sept 2d 1865


Col E Whittlesey

Dr Sir

Your letter 12th *itto reached me this day. I have read its contents carefully, and I am truly thankful that I can indulge a slight hope from your letter, that something may yet be done for the poor destitute colored people of this country, for I do assure you they will soon stand much in need of your assistance. I say of yours Colonel, because they have no one to look to but you, and unless you can enlist the General government, or some of the Philanthropic Societies at the North in their behalf, God only knows, what is to become of them.

The time is drawing near where the greater portion of the negroes will have give up their present homes, and I fear many thousands will be homeless and friendless. As things exist, it will follow as a natural consequence. Very many of our largest land holders are renting their grounds to White laborers, owing to their inability to pay high wages for Colored labour; And this will throw a great many women and children out of imployment. And then there are a great many persons, who would employ the negroes but they are fearfull that the negro, might leave them in working season, and they would loose their crops. And this will throw a good many out of homes: And the fearfull consequence

Pg. 2

must follow.. that a great many negroes will spend the most of their time runing about the country looking for day work: which will nothing like give them a support. And that good old adage will surely be about them, Idleness produces want & want, vice & vice misery.

I had a good deal of conversation with Col Clapp* on the subject of the home for the destitute. I think I can furnish an excellent tract of land for the home, and think with good management it could be made to support a great many indigent negroes. You ask if such a place can be had with suitable buildings. There are already a great many buildings on the place, but not enough to carry out the home according to the scale I would like to start one, say with a school attached, for improving the young, and giving the old proper religious instruction, both of which I consider very important. I should like to have a personal interview with you on the subject. The place I propose to sell for the home, is two plantations that lay together. The two tracks of land contain 2200 acres, if properly laid off into lots, say of from 30 to 60 acres each, with with a good family house on each. And then select some of the best families we can find settle them on these lots. I say best families because I would like to have a good example set at the beginning, it would induce others to do better.

There are now on the two places good family residences sufficient to accommodate the teachers to the school, and the manager of the farming opperations, I gave Col Clapp a full description, and particularly of the School house which is onto

Pg. 3

accommodate 500 pupils. I propose to make it a manual school. By settleing 50 or 60 families, which would consume about 1500 acres; and the remainder of the land to be worked by the pupils in the school; The two places can be purchased for Twenty five thousand dollars ($25,000) I have made a calculation what it would cost to erect all the buildings necessary to make the accommodations sufficient for 500 pupils, at my figures: all the necessary buildings will cost Fifty thousand dollars ($50,000) So you will see that land & buildings will cost ($75,000). I propose to put up every thing in neat and comely style: for unless the place was made to look like home; The colored people would not like it. I refer you to Col Clapp, for a full description for the plan. I would like to see you here; that you might see the situation. I think you would like it.

I am quite sure Col, that I could, after the frist year, make it a self supporting Establishment, and if you will have a proper agent, a goodly quantity of supplies may be collected from the farmers, from the growing crop for the indigent, if delivered to them, they will soon be waisted. And by the coming Spring, they will not have one pound of any thing to subsist on. And I fear, unless some eye is kept on the more ignorant persons among the colored people, many of them will be left without any portion, and then, what is to become of the women and children, unless they have some place to go to, and some person to look to for advice. Use your best endeavor to get a home erected for them. God grant us his assistance, in this. I believe a I hope I will meet with his approbation.

p. 4

I before said that provisions could be collected from the farmers. I mean that portion of the crop that belongs to the Orphans. And then we have a good many women who have large families, and no husband, and may as a class may be counted Orpans, for, I assure you these women and children will want as much looking after, as any Colored people in our land. take these two classes together, and they will give a large number of the destitute. I think if you will have a proper agent for the colored people, and establish a home for them, and have their provisions collected to gether, and have some system in the use of them a large sum will be saved to the general government.

For unless you have some place for them to collect they will all be puring into your at Raleigh by the 1st of January, and in a very short time the fuel a lone would cost as much as the home would. And at this home, they can have wood without allowance, and comfortable houses to live in, many of them made to support themselves. By strict vigilance over them, many of them who would always live in idleness if left a lone, would be induced to work where every body was at work around them. But some of them would have to be made to work or they will die in idleness

pg. 5

Let me speak a little more plainly on the subject of an agent for the colored people, and I hope you will pardon my freedom of speech on that subject.

The time will soon be here when the crop is to be gathered in, and then come the division of the crop; A great many of the white people are perfectly willing that the Negroes should have an equitable part. But on the other hand I fear there are a great many who will try to make the negroes part as little as possible. Will it not be important to have an agent for them, who is well acquainted with the customs of the country; and likewise to be able to judge under the present circumstances what part of the crop ought to be paid to the negro for his services. This agent ought to be carefully selected, and ought to be required to give his entire time and personal attention to this business, for I assure you he will find, a full amount of business for any one man to attend to. If one man can do it, after the crops are divided between the whites & Blacks, some attention will have to be bestowed on the 2d division, say among Blacks themselves. For the stronger will be sure to try to get a full share and leave the orphan out and those orphans Col, must have some one to care for them. And you will find a great many in every county. We have in our family some 6 or 8 who will be destitute in deed if you do not have them looked to be some one, and have some place to send them to, some place of safety for them

p. 6

I only cast these hints that you may think of what ought to be done in the premises.

If you can possibly come to Franklin I would be pleased to come out, for I am sure if we could see each other, we could make some arrangements for the home. If you conclude to come, give me a weeks notice. Your letter was 18 days on the road. Let me hear from you at least.

I am very Respectfully

Your most abl St

W A Eaton

*Lieutenant Col Clapp – Superintendent of the Central District of the Freedmen’s Bureau

To read the final letter in this series, click here: 

Letters from Louisburg: Part 3

Amanuensis Monday - Letters From Louisburg (Part 1)

During a visit to the National Archives last year, while searching records from the North Carolina division of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned lands for any reference to my great-grandfather, Calvin Yarborough, I ran across a series of letters (on microfilm) between William A Eaton, a respected citizen of Franklin County, NC, and certain officials from the bureau.  Mr. Eaton was concerned about what was going to become of Franklin County's formerly enslaved population, once they were fully and completely on their own, following Emancipation.  Without adding my (perhaps) biased opinions/reactions to this line of correspondence (given my family's roots in this county), I will present the three letters I chose to copy, beginning today, and then on each of the next two Mondays.

In this first letter, Mr. Eaton is writing to General Oliver Otis Howard, the first Commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau. He had previously written a letter to the General, expressing his concerns, and the General had written him back.  What follows is Mr. Eaton's response.

Louisburg

Franklin County N.C. Aug 1865

Genl O O Howard

My Dear Sir

Your very kind letter 22 xxxx, was recd a few days past. And I hope you will pardon me for trespassing again with an other letter. The only excuse I can make General, is thae hope of getting something done for the poor colored widow & Orphans, many of wom must be left to starve unless you can be enlisted in their behalf. General you are the only hope they have on earth. It is generally believed they are committed to your care, and let me entreat you to try and get something done for them. Unfortunately a great many of the colored women have large families of children without a husband and a great many will be totally unable to feed and cloth themselves & children when they are given up by their former owners, which the former owners will be compelled to do, at the end of the present year. Nearly all the men will set up for themselves and leave the women & children to shift for themselves and many of them were formerly owned by widows......

pg. 2
and Orphans, who have no home. The negros are xxx hired, and the 1st day of Jany (January) coming will find them homeless & friendless, unless the government will ___ forward to their relief. You say in your letter General that Franklin County will have to take care of its own paupers. General if every white (probably citizen) in this county, was taxed to his full capacity ___ could not take proper care, of the pauper negros that will be turned on the county the frist (sp) Jany next But General I do not propose to make this altogether a county institution, the reason why I ask to have it under th especial care of the general goverment (sp) is that when ever the agent for freedmen for the state, finds a fit subject for his special patronage he may have a place to send him to where they can have proper care taken of them, and if we can get one such institution started in the South it will beget many others of like character. In the present crippled state of this country I fear it would be a hopeless job to raise money to establish an institution of any kind much less for such a one as I propose. Many persons think it best to keep the colored rase (sp) in

pg. 3
as much ignorance as posible. I beg leave to differ with them. I wold to God that every man woman & child in these United States were well educated, and piously instructed, and properly point the way to the Lamb of God, and how can that be done, unless Gods more enlightened children, will help to lift these poor people from the darkness that now surrounds them; I have written to Col Whittlesey* and invited him to visit me that I may lay my plan before him: I think it the cheapest plan that can be adopted to do any good. The land that I propose to get for the purpose belongs to 5 persons but all lying in one compact body, and if laid off and adjusted with skill, would accommodate a great many negroes, andif provisions are laid in at the begining of winter may be done to advantage If Col Whittlesey allows the negroes to remanin in and about Town the wood for them would cost quite as much as the home for them, here they can furnish their own wood, and by proper encouragement a great many may be enduced to support themselves. With one years start the place

*Col Whittlesey was the Commissioner for the State of North Carolina Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands

pg. 4
can be made to support itself. General would it be asking too much of you, to request you to speak to the highest powers that be, in behalf of this home for Negroes, in the name of God I beg that something be done for them. I hope General you will pardon my earnest entreeties for them, being here among them and knowing thir true situation I can not help being interested in their behalf seeing too as I do every day how unconcious they are of ther true Situation, for unless something is done many must perish the coming winter from cold. “let us not turn them away homelss necked hungry and cold” but do what we can for them. God prosper my petition for them is the earnest prayer of
                                                                                                                       Your Humble Servant

                                                                                                                      W A Eaton


P.S. There is one thing that we must not loose sight of, heretofore the Negro was taxed as property, now that is lost to state county and the general government, and I am sure they will not be able in their present situation to pay even a pole(poll) Tax -

                                                                                                                         ps cte   W.A.E.

To continue to read the next letter in this series, click on the links below:

Letters from Louisburg: Part 2