Dublin Core
Title
Register of Colored Persons of Augusta County, State of Virginia, cohabiting together as Husband and Wife on 27th February 1866
Subject
African Americans, slavery, marriage, family
Description
After the Virginia General Assembly passed legislation in 1866 to legalize marriages of formerly enslaved men and women, freed couples registered their unions with the Freedmen's Bureau in large numbers. Agents documented their names, ages, names of their former owners, and the length of time they had cohabitated as husband and wife, sometimes as long as ten or twenty years. Cohabitation registers document the fact that long marriages and two-parent households had been common under slavery. The Freedmen's Bureau also registered any children living with the couples, making the children legally legitimate and eligible to inherit property.
Source
Register of Colored Persons of Augusta County, State of Virginia, cohabiting together as Husband and Wife on 27th February 1866, Augusta County Court Records, Local Government Records Collection, Library of Virginia.
Date
1866
Contributor
Library of Virginia
Rights
CC BY-SA
Relation
Cohabitation Registers: Digital Collection
Format
JPG
Type
Printed form and manuscript
Identifier
08_0613_01 Register Augusta
Coverage
Augusta County, Virginia