On Wednesday, November 29, at 7 P.M., The Mariners’ Museum’s Friends of the Library will host a presentation in the Museum’s Huntington Room featuring two representatives from the Virginia Council on Indians and three internationally renowned scholars who will discuss different aspects of Theodor de Bry’s “A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia.” Published in 1590, this book is the earliest illustrated history of Virginia. The Mariners’ Museum Library holds an original, hand-colored copy of De Bry’s rare book that was recently preserved by the Northeast Document Conservation Center. A facsimile edition of this work will be co-published by the Museum and the University of Virginia Press in the Spring of 2007. The presentation is free for Friends of the Library, $10 for Museum members and $20 for non-members. Visit the site for more information.

Posted by river queen at 3:34 AM PST

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Richmond, Virginia, also known as The River City, is an independent city located in what is known as Central Virginia Piedmont region. It straddles the fall line of the James River, which marks the meeting lines for the eastern border of Virginia’s Piedmont and western border of its Coastal region. Downtown Richmond is considered the heart of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA), and it spreads along the northern side of a bend in the James River. Greater Richmond has always been one of Virginia’s commercial hubs. Instead of using the river for transportation, however, the interstate and federal highways systems provide transportation throughout the city.

Interstate I-64 connects Virginia’s capital with the Blue Ridge, Charlottesville, and the coast, while I-95 slices the city from north to south as it travels from Washington, DC to North Carolina. I-85 is an alternate routh south, and I-295 encircles Richmond and reaches down to Petersburg. Beyond the interstates, federal highways such as U.S. highways 15, 60, and 522 often offer more direct and scenic drives between major Piedmont cities. U.S. 29 is the quickest route between Charlottesville and Washington, DC via I-66. Smaller state roads like Rt. 20, Rt. 231, and Rt. 40 meander accross the piedmont and up into the Blue Ridge foothills to the west. Richmond is also the terminus for U.S. highways 250 and 33. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by river queen at 3:16 PM PST

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Cemeteries and graveyards can speak volumes about the history and traditions contained within a community. Memorials and gravestones can reveal much about a single person and his family as well. But, some markers and memorials simply represent stunning artworks to the objective observer. I’m often distracted by these sculptures as I wander through cemeteries in search for unrelated individuals. Some memorials, such as the Weeping Angel, can take my breath away.

The Weeping Angel, also known as the Angel of Grief, is an elusive and rare sculptural specimen. Tradition states that sculptor and poet William Wetmore Story created the first Angel seen above, which serves as the gravestone for the artist and his wife at the Protestant Cemetery in Rome. The Stanford Mausoleum at Stanford University contains a replica created in 1906. This copy supposedly replaces another replica created in 1901 that was destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by river queen at 12:58 AM PST

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Land has been donated, an architect’s drawing is on hand and a new building for the Surry County Historical Society will be constructed soon. Generous donations are making this huge asset for Surry County come together. The 2.7-acre building site was donated by the late B.S. Seward Jr. and his widow, Barbour. The Historical Society had to move from the old jail behind the courthouse because of planned remodeling of that building. All papers, books and technological equipment are in secure storage, awaiting access by researchers in a spacious, new center. The material includes extensive donated manuscripts and published volumes of indexed wills, deeds, marriages, death records, military logs and genealogies extracted through decades of research.

To learn more about this move, visit the Surry Historical Society’s Website.

Posted by river queen at 12:58 AM PST

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Hi folks - When I reviewed my statistics for this site today, I was amazed to find so many people who not only visited the site but who bookmarked it as well. This site, after all, is just getting up off the ground. You haven’t seen the real meat yet!

I’m almost through adding all the county pages to the site, a project that will be finalized this week but that will be ongoing as well. Today I added a new page to the left entitled, “Maps.” this page gives links to the full information about the county map pages, and it also shows how these counties fall in along the James River in relationship to each other. This information is important to those of you who might want to know how your ancestors migrated west along the banks of this river over the past few centuries.

I hope to also add maps about the roads within this area, as some of these roads were previous Indian trails and trading routes. And, once the county pages are done I’ll also add some photographs and information about county parishes. At that time, I’ll also add a way for you to subscribe to James River Genealogy so that you won’t miss any of the research that I’ll add to the site in the near future.

Thanks for joining in!

Posted by river queen at 1:57 AM PST

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