FYI!

Subject: Newspaper Article of Interest to Genealogy Researchers

Today's Richmond Times Dispatch contains the following story of interest to 
those researching in Augusta County, Va., and Franklin County, Pa.  I accessed 
the URL at the end of the article and found that it gives a wonderful example of 
the types of information available for research in those counties which I feel 
leads to hints in researching in other counties.  These ideas may not be new for 
seasoned researchers, but "newbies" will find lots of areas to consider looking 
for their ancestors, even if they aren't located in the two counties included in 
the following article:

Christine Jones ([log in to unmask])

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Wednesday, April 30, 1997 

A cybertale joins blue and gray 

BY PETER HARDIN
Times-Dispatch Washington Correspondent
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WASHINGTON — Historians at the University of Virginia are painstakingly 
assembling the Civil War-era tale of two counties, one blue and one gray, on the 
World Wide Web. 

And the daily lives of residents, slaves and soldiers in Augusta County, Va., 
and Franklin County, Pa., on the eve of war have become a cyberspace hit. 

The online archive of diaries, yellowed letters, contemporary newspapers and 
military records was showcased to Congress yesterday as an example of a 
successful National Endowment for the Humanities grant. 

"You give us a glimpse of what can be, and what should be," Sen. James M. 
Jeffords, R-Vt., told sponsors of U.Va.'s "Valley of the Shadow" project and 
three others that got grants. 

Jeffords, chairman of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee that held 
yesterday's hearing, sought to deflect attacks by conservatives on the 
humanities endowment and its more controversial sister agency, the National 
Endowment for the Arts. He pointed to the U.Va.-created archive of 
primary-source materials as the kind of innovative project that combines 
teaching and technology and could be replicated by others. 

"In the perennial debate that occurs on the federal role in supporting the arts 
and humanities . . . the meaningful accomplishments of these agencies are lost 
in the shuffle," Jeffords said. 

U.Va. history Professor Edward L. Ayers, director of the archive project, said 
browsers can make up their own minds on such questions as these: "What caused 
the Civil War? What were Northerners and Southerners fighting for? What 
difference did the war make?" 

His "Valley of the Shadow" project is aimed at "democratizing" American history 
by making raw sources easily available and by including everybody in the 
communities for whom records were kept, he said. 

Since October, the Web site has been tapped for information 276,000 times. It 
currently covers the period from the late 1850s to the beginning of the Civil 
War for the two counties. They are separated by about 200 miles and the 
Mason-Dixon line. 

Researchers are working to compile minibiographies of 17,000 Union and 
Confederate soldiers for the next portion, dealing with the Civil War years. 
That is expected to be online in January. 

Ayers said the project was aimed at making history immediate, accessible and 
lively, especially for students who found it dry. 

"If something as cool as the Web can have history, then maybe history's not as 
dull as they always thought it was," he told senators. 

The U.Va. project was awarded a $215,000 NEH grant last year to help complete 
both the Internet version and a CD-ROM version of the program. 

Critics have described the humanities and arts endowments as "sandboxes for the 
rich." 

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., condemned as "reckless" yesterday the continued 
calls for dismantling the agencies. But Sen. Tim Hutchinson, R-Ark., disagreed. 

"With chronic (budget) deficits and a burgeoning national debt . . . it's very 
difficult for me to justify continuing subsidies for the National Endowment for 
the Arts," Hutchinson said. 

"The debate is not about the performing arts," he added, but about "waste and 
mismanagement" at the agency. He also criticized what he called its meager award 
of grants to applicants in Arkansas. 

Sen. John W. Warner, R-Va. and a member of the labor committee, commended the 
heads of both endowments for their work and said he continued to support the 
agencies. 

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The "Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War" is at 
http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/vshadow2