Friday, March 8, 7pm – Saturday, March 9, 2024, 2:45pm EST
Join us at the Headquarters Library for a special two-day genealogy workshop featuring keynote speaker, Judy Russell, The Legal Genealogist® and guest speaker, Whitney Day, from the International African American Museum in Charleston. A free event, registration is required.
March 8-9, 2024Headquarters Library—Barrett RoomFriday, March 8 @ 7:00 pmBreaker Boys and Spinner Girls: Child Labor Laws and their Records presented by Judy Russell, The Legal Genealogist®Understanding the labor laws lets us trace the lives and the records of lives of child laborers in mills, mines, farms and more.
Saturday, March 9
9:15-9:45— Doors open. Coffee and light refreshments provided.
9:45-10:00 – Welcome
10:00-11:00 –Dowered or Bound Out: Records of Widows and Orphans presented by Judy Russell, The Legal Genealogist®Widows and orphans have always had a special place in the law. But it’s not always the place that 21st century researchers might expect. An orphan in the early days wasn’t a child whose parents had died, but rather a child whose father had died. The law didn’t care much about the mother. She was just the widow, entitled to her dower rights and generally not much more. Learn more of the way the law treated widows and orphans, and what the records may tell us about them.
11:00-11:15—Break
11:15-12:15—Learn about the International African American Museum in Charleston with Whitney Day
12:15-1:45—Lunch on your own.
1:45-2:45—Property Rights and Wrongs: African-Americans at the Courthouse presented by Judy Russell, The Legal Genealogist®From being treated as property to having their children and their property stolen by those who used the law against the freedmen, African Americans’ experience at the courthouse had only one bright spot: it created records for the genealogist-descendants of enslaved and enslavers alike.