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Recognizing and Sharing Family Treasures
Family treasures are highly valued possessions that may have been passed down from generation to generation or may be newly acquired or created. They hold special meaning and tell stories about family members and their experiences. They can be almost anything, including jewelry, furniture, housewares, clothing and textiles, photographs, books and documents, tools, musical instruments, artwork, medals and awards, ephemera, etc.
Session topics will include how to identify family treasures, how to inventory them, document them, and establish their provenance. Each family treasure should be photographed and its story should be documented as fully as possible. Examples will be given of the use of oral history to identify treasures as well how to glean information about items that might have been stored together and/or have a similar source. The session will provide examples of creating a narrative for each treasure, and will include tips for researching treasures about which little is known.
The discussion will include the use of family treasures to explore and communicate family history and to shed light on the broader African-American story. The speaker will share a myriad of treasures from her own family history journey. She will talk about the various ways that she uses family treasures to interest and engage others, especially young persons, in the pursuit of family history, and to make that history come alive.
A handout for the session will include resources for identifying and preserving family treasures.
Biography of Bessida Cauthorne White
Bessida Cauthorne White is a genealogist, community historian, and retired attorney. An activist for more than fifty years, her focus areas include African-American, women’s, and LGBTQ+ rights. She became the first black woman to sit on the bench in Virginia when appointed a substitute judge of the General District Court of the City of Richmond in 1983.
White has been a genealogist for more than forty years. She is the family historian for nine families and manages DNA results for more than forty family members and friends. She has presented at numerous state, regional, and national workshops and conferences, and has taught genealogy courses at Rappahannock Community College. White’s recent genealogy projects include the identification of the enslaved at Menokin and at Stratford Hall (both 18th century homes in Virginia’s Northern Neck), and their present-day descendants. For the past several years she has directed the research and application process for multiple historical markers that reference African American history in Eastern Virginia. White is co-founder and president of Middle Peninsula African-American Genealogical and Historical Society, and is a founder of the Greater Richmond Chapter of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society.
White is a founder of Virginia Association of Women Attorneys, Virginia Association of Black Women Attorneys, and Friends of African and African-American Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. She is president of the board of the Rappahannock Industrial Academy Alumni Association, an entity that preserves the legacy of one of Virginia’s early twentieth century Negro academies. She served on the board of the Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia for more than twenty years and currently serves on the boards of the Middlesex County Museum & Historical Society and the Library of Virginia Foundation. She is the historian for Angel Visit Baptist Church, Dunnsville, Virginia, and chairs the church’s trustee board. The recipient of numerous awards at the local, state, and national level, in 2020 she was named by the Virginia Museum of History and Culture as one of Today’s Agents of Change.”
She is the co-editor of two family cookbooks and a church cookbook: A Reunion of Recipes: The White Family Cookbook; 1st printing, 1990, 2nd printing, 2007; Help Yourself! There’s A God’s Mighty Plenty: A Treasury of Recipes from the Cauthorne & Brooks Families, 1st edition, 2000, 2nd edition, 2017; and Gather at the Welcome Table: The Angel Visit Baptist Church Sesquicentennial Cookbook, 2016.
Register for Discover Your Roots: A Beginner’s Guide To Genealogy
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