A new project in Loudoun County, Virginia, is honoring the lives of enslaved workers and allowing future generations to trace their ancestors.
"So much of African-American history has been lost. I think we really need to realize it’s really American history that’s been lost," said Carla Davis, who teaches African American history at Stone Bridge High School.
Morven Park in Leesburg was once a plantation, home to 80 enslaved men, women, and children. Now, it's home to the 246 Years Project, which aims to help people trace their ancestry as future generations learn the stories that echo within the walls.
It’s like opening a portal into the past.
"We believe that their names and their life stories need to be known," said Stacey Metcalfe, executive director for the Westmoreland Davis Memorial Foundation. She said they’ve been working with the Loudoun County court system to pull up old property records. The documents paint a chilling picture of how people were treated like property.
"You’re tracing these families and these stories, and where they’re going and how this one’s being sold off and how the family’s left behind," Metcalfe said.
Students from Stone Bridge High School are helping to digitize the records as their final project for their African-American history class.
"It feels great, just helping out the community," student Jordan Nartey said. "It feels like I’m actually engaging in stuff. It’s nice."
Davis, their teacher, shared: "It’s one of the highlights of my career, I must say, to have the opportunity to bring my students to preview and decipher primary documents. It’s very exciting."
Why is it called the 246 Years Project? As the website explains:
In the 246 years between 1619 and 1865, vast numbers of Africans and their descendants were held in bondage and legally considered property. As property, their names are absent from most standard government records such as census, birth, and death registers. These 246 years of omission make it difficult for living descendants of enslaved Africans to trace their ancestry through the many on-line genealogy services available today.
246 Years Project
Until now…
The database is available online. You can type in the name of an enslaved worker and find a timeline of their life.
