Three Small Matches, an AI Assistant, and the Dutch Hudson Valley
Three people share 20 cM with my father — and with each other. The connection sat in all three trees, behind a middle name and a county I recognized.
Two Men, One Day: Finding Jim and Henry in the Virginia Auditor’s Records
On June 1, 1862, two enslaved men named Jim and Henry left Lewis Caperton’s land and reached Union lines. The record that names them wasn’t written until after the war was over.
A New Free Research Tool for Mid-Atlantic and Southern Genealogy
I've built a free research companion called Mid Atlantic and Southern Kin Guide — a custom GPT designed to help genealogists work. It's available to anyone with a ChatGPT account, free to use, and ready now.
Horses, Whiskey, and the Poor List: Free People of Color in Scott County
What tax lists, census records, and court minutes tell us about a community that wasn’t supposed to exist.
The Rescue at Osborne’s Ford
When Isaac Richmond came for Barbara Day, three men stopped him — and two of them were free men of color.
Betsy and Adam: Freedom, Labor, and the Price of Land
A bound-out girl and a self-emancipated man build a life on the Virginia-Tennessee border.
Lisha Grant’s Children: A Free Black Family Between Two States
A mother, a stepfather, and seven children navigating freedom in Virginia and Tennessee.
The Handkerchief, the Sifter, and the Family They Revealed
How a petty lawsuit over a few dollars cracked open the story of a free Black family network in antebellum Virginia.
A New Series “Bound, Free, and In Between: Free People of Color in Scott County, Virginia”
The records are out there. Sometimes you just have to look sideways to find them.