Prior to the Civil War, free blacks were required to register at their local courthouses in Virginia. The Rockingham County Clerk of Circuit Court, Chaz Evans-Haywood, said Monday the rebinding of the “Register of Free Negroes, 1807-1859” for Harrisonburg and Rockingham County was completed with a Virginia State Library grant.
Entries in this book include the person’s name, and age, as well as notes on scars and other body markings.
The good news for genealogists is that Evans-Haywood also plans to make the registry for Rockingham County available on the Internet. We’ll watch for it.
For more information, see the article by Jeff Mellott in the January 13, 2009 edition of rocktownweekly.com.