The Library of Virginia is pleased to announce the addition of Surry County to the cohabitation register digitization project.  This project, via the Virginia Memory website, aims to index, digitize, transcribe, and provide access to all known Virginia cohabitation registers and the related registers of children whose parents had ceased to cohabit.

The Surry County register contains some of the most delightful names that one may have had the opportunity to run across in a historical document.  Could one of these fine folks be an ancestor of yours? 

• Champion Blizzard
• Mike Blow and his wife Anarchy
• Champion Bird
• Squire Charity
• Nancy Drew
• Cherry Birdsong
• Jim Beets
• Queen Anne Gray
• Sharper Falcon
• Sam Wisdom
• Harry Honeycatt
• Sucky Blue
• Nancy Pooten
• Jupiter Cheeseman
• Indiana Charity
• Robin Wren and his wife Amy Falcon
• Cheeseman Smith
• Moses Twine
• Dolphin Morris
• Harry Falcon and his wife Susan Hasty

Cohabitation registers are among the most important genealogical resources for African-Americans attempting to connect their family lines back through the oftentimes murky past to their enslaved ancestors. The registers date from 1866 and provide a snapshot in time for the individuals recorded therein and a wealth of information that may otherwise be impossible, or at least very difficult, to uncover. Cohabitation registers were the legal vehicles by which former slaves legitimized both their marriages and their children. The information about an … read more »