Records of Freed Slaves to Go Online

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The Virginia Freedmen Project plans to digitize more than 200,000 images collected by the Richmond bureau, one of dozens of offices established throughout the South to help former slaves adjust to free life.
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"This is the equivalent for African Americans of Ellis Island's records being put up," said Kaine, who was joined by Mayor L. Douglas Wilder, the nation's first elected black governor and a grandson of slaves.
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wenty-four years removed from slavery in rural Virginia, Hawkins Wilson had established himself as a respected Texas minister. But there was something missing from his life as a free man: the mother and sisters he left behind.

In a letter dated May 11, 1867, he offered bureau officials details of his family's old home in Caroline County, and urged them to pass along a note to his sister, Jane.

"Your little brother Hawkins is trying to find out where you are and where his poor old mother is," reads the letter, which will be included in the database. "Your advice to me to meet you in Heaven has never (lapsed) from my mind."

Historians don't know if he ever found his family.
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