RICHMOND, Va. — Tracing family history is more popular than ever. But it is not easy for everyone, especially for many of the descendants of enslaved and free Black people in Virginia, according to historians.
Despite the challenge, there are people in Richmond working to make sure the documents that do exist are available to everyone.
Lydia Neuroth spends her days at the Library of Virginia taking the documents that do exist, piecing them together and making that data accessible to help to piece together Virginia history that has been hidden in boxes for decades.
Neuroth is the project manager for Virginia Untold at the Library of Virginia. The initiative provides digital access to records and documents for some of Virginia's enslaved and free Black people.
“Researchers and librarians would say things like, 'That history just doesn’t exist.' Or, 'We just don’t have those records,'" Neuroth explained. "But we are realizing we do. We just haven’t done a good job sharing it.”
As a result, Neuroth is going county by county, collecting records, digitizing them, pulling out key words and then inputting the data into into a digital database that can be accessed on the Library of Virginia's website.
RELATED: Access Virginia Untold on the Library of Virginia's website
"We are recognizing there are a lot of enslaved names and individuals kind of hidden within their collections that needed to be digitized or called out," she said.
While the process is tedious, Neuroth said that being able to use the data as a tool to educate students and for researchers and family members to be able to find someone, makes it all worth it.
“To be able to access something like this online and connect to a digital document that’s essentially been tucked away in boxes for years is a very powerful moment," Neuroth said. "To find the name of your ancestor and recognize that could be your great-great grandfather.”
Neuroth said she gets to see firsthand how people are learning and using the information. For example, seeing a person grappling with discovering an enslaved person in a deed of emancipation.
"It's a powerful connection point to realize that we're actually all questioning and struggling with why this happened and why our history is difficult," Neuroth said.
She plans to continue to go document by document with a team of volunteers with the hope of uncovering and sharing more stories of Virginians' past.
“The power of understanding our own personal history, and then how that connects to a larger story of who we are, I think that gets to why that work is so important,” she said.
