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]) ======================================================================= Wednesday, April 30, 1997 A cybertale joins blue and gray BY PETER HARDIN Times-Dispatch Washington Correspondent ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 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. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The "Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War" is at http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/vshadow2