Generations: The WPA Ex-Slave Narrative Genealogical Resource Database. Volume I: Ex-Slaves with Virginia Origins

Description

Between 1937 and 1938, the Federal Writers’ Project of the Works Project Administration (WPA) conducted thousands of interviews with former African-American slaves. While historians have known about these oral histories for some time, few, if any researchers, have exploited the genealogical potential of these African-American sources–until this DVD! The inaugural volume in this series discusses ex-slaves who were either born in Virginia, or who had parents or grandparents born in Virginia. While a minority of these freedmen continued to reside there, by 1937-38 most of the individuals found on this DVD had migrated to one of the following states: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, or Texas. In each case Dr. Rose and his collaborators trace the former slave to his/her origins in the Cavalier State.