Tuesday, September 28, 2004

David Paterson Wins Award for Excellence in Research

On 4 October 2004, the Honorable Cathy Cox, Georgia Secretary of State, on behalf of the Georgia Historical Records Advisory Board (GHRAB), will present to David E. Paterson:

AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN RESEARCH USING THE HOLDINGS OF AN ARCHIVE

"David Paterson, who lives in Norfolk, Virginia, produced Slaves and Slave Masters of Upson County, a digest of data related to between 6,000 and 7,000* slaves who served over 2,000 slave masters in Upson County from 1825 to 1865. His digest enables users to track the slaves through the recorded events of their life in bondage.

While the U.S. Navy veteran lived in Thomaston, he became interested in local history and spent countless hours in the basement of the courthouse, sifting and sorting through local records - deed books, court records, probate records, coroner's inquests, newspapers, church records, and other documents. To the extent that records document these facts, people can track each slave through events such as birth, sale, hiring out, childbirth, church membership, court appearances, appraisal and sale, and sometimes even death. It provides excellent suggestions of primary sources for the sometimes elusive slave/master records. The digest is accessible on CD at the Thomaston-Upson Archives."

* [recount shows closer to 5,000]

David Paterson is manager of the AfriGeneas Slave Research Forum and the author of many articles on slave research and methods, including:

• "Case Study: Determining Maternity by Correlating Records of Alpheus Beall's Slaves." 2004. AfriGeneas Library. <http://www.afrigeneas.com/library/beall.html>.

• "Georgia's Slave Population in Legal Records." 2004. AfriGeneas Library. <http://www.afrigeneas.com/library/slaves_georgia.html>.

• "A Brief History of Jefferson and Amanda Cary." 2004. AfriGeneas Library. <http://www.afrigeneas.com/library/cary_article.html>.

• "A Perspective on Indexing Slaves' Names." American Archivist; 64 (1) Spring/Summer 2001, p.132-42.

He was born in Scotland, UK, grew up in Seattle, WA, and lives in Norfolk, VA. He is married to the former Judy L. Moody of Memphis, TN. David is completing his MA in History from University of West Florida with a concentration on the American Old South and Reconstruction. David's slavery-related work has appeared in American Archivist, and Oxford University Press has commissioned him to write two biographies for the forthcoming African-American National Biography. His long-term research goal is to write a history of Upson County, GA.

Posted by Staff on 9/28/04 at 1:42 pm EST

Friday, September 03, 2004

Donald Scott Joins AfriGeneas as a Contributing Editor

Donald Scott, Sr., a history columnist for the Journal-Register Co. and an assistant professor of English at the Community College of Philadelphia has joined AfriGeneas as a contributing editor specializing in family history research in South Carolina and Pennsylvania. His first article for AfriGeneas entitled "The Montiers: An American Family's Triumphant Odyssey" is available for viewing in the AfriGeneas Library.

A Philadelphia native and graduate of Cheyney and Columbia universities, Donald Scott has written about a variety of African-American history, archaeology and genealogy topics for such national magazines as America’s Civil War, Everton’s Family History and American Visions, as well as regional newspapers, including The Philadelphia Inquirer.

As a history columnist for the Journal-Register Co., Scott has often focused on black genealogy, such as investigating and writing about the ancestry of modern descendants of United States Colored Troops (USCT) soldiers who fought during the Civil War, black families with roots to colonial America and beyond (see his story in this edition about the Montier family), as well as his own family history with Gullah origins on St. Helena Island off the coast of South Carolina and Abbeville County in that state.

The assistant professor of English at the Community College of Philadelphia has also researched and written about the African traits of Pennsylvania’s colonial blacks and lectured widely about the topic for the Pennsylvania Humanities Council and Pennsylvania Historical & Museum Commission. Via his research and writing about various Pennsylvania estates where slave labor was used, Scott has written many articles about that topic and the prevalence of slave-holding Quakers in Pennsylvania, including the commonwealth’s founder William Penn and other notables, such as Benjamin Franklin and George Washington.

A special emphasis of Scott has been researching and writing about black urban archaeology, including the graveyard and church site of the First African Baptist Church (circa 1800), discovered during the early 1980s as workers dug a subway (train) tunnel near the intersection of 8th & Vine streets in Philadelphia.

Proud of being a graduate of Cheyney University where the CBS 60 Minutes correspondent Ed Bradley attended college, Scott marvels at the history of the school, the first institution of higher learning for blacks in America (once known as the Institute of Colored Youth). The school, at which he served as editor-in-chief of the campus newspaper, is where his taste for history and journalism “grew tremendously,” he says, “due to the excellent teaching and emphasis on black contributions in America and during ancient times.”

After working for several newspapers in the Miami and Philadelphia metropolitan areas and graduating from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City in 1990, Scott served as a reporter, columnist and editor for several newspapers in southeastern Pennsylvania, as well as taught at Cheyney and Temple universities, as well as Peirce College.

The son of a retired physician (Henry Scott) and retired social worker (Grace Scott), Professor Scott has an identical twin, Dave (deputy chief of a regional Pennsylvania transportation police department), who is also a history enthusiast and family researcher. Scott also has two slightly younger brothers (Henry and Glenn), attorneys and real estate investors. His son, Donald Jr., is a special education teacher in the Philadelphia School District and wife, Willetta, a human resources executive whose father, Wesley A. Brown, was the first African American to graduate in 1949 from the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md.

Posted by Staff on 9/03/04 at 8:26 pm EST