Last weekend, I participated in a transcribe-a-thon to index Free Negro Registers that have recently been digitized by the Library of Virginia.

In 1793, the Virginia General Assembly passed a law requiring that all free Black people “be registered and numbered in a book to be kept by the town clerk, which shall specify age, name, color, status and by whom, and in what court emancipated.” The process was extended to localities in 1803. In 1834, the General Assembly added a requirement that each person be specified by marks or scars and the instrument of emancipation, whether by deed or will, be recorded. Registration language and process varied across the localities, thus the information in each register may differ, but generally speaking these registers document both free born and formerly enslaved people throughout Virginia.

Virginia Untold provides digital access to records that document some of the lived experiences of enslaved and free Black people in the Library of Virginia’s collections. Indexing the records, helps them be found using search terms.

I indexed a few pages from Isle of Wight County. Transcriptions for registers for Isle of Wight County are mostly complete. I looked through the entire set and found the following entries:

No. 236 Georgiana Allmon a Negro boy of light complexion 5 feet high about 15 years old born free in Isle of Wight County. Registered by order of the court of 5th January 1857.

No. 237 William R. Allmon a Negro boy of brown complexion 4 feet 11 inches high, 17 years old. Born free in Isle of Wight County. Registered by order of the court of 7th January 1861.

No. 263 Ruben M. Allmond, a negro man, 22 years old, 5 feet 5 inches high, brown complexion, has a scar on his left arm, born free in Isle of Wight County, Registered by order court made 6 January 1862.

No. 1835 Martha Newby, alias Allmond, a negro woman, four feet Eleven inches high, yellow complexion, Eighteen years old, has a scar on the back of the left hand, and on the right wrist, and was born free in Said County and was registered the 7th day of January 1857 by order of court made the 6th January 1858.

I do not know about any Allmonds that were free before the Civil War but this does give some new avenues to research.

The project does not require transcription as I have done here. Instead, we indexed, recording only the pertinent information for each record.

If you are interested in indexing the records, take a look at Virginia Untold: Free Registers at FromThePage. Other documents are there for transcription or indexing as well.