The Valley of the Shadow -- genealogy at its finest

If you have ever wondered what could be done with family history and just history in general on the Internet, you now have the opportunity to view a premier Website project created by the Virginia Center for Digital History at the University of Virginia. The Website is called "The Valley of the Shadow" and is " a digital archive of primary sources that document the lives of people in Augusta County, Virginia, and Franklin County, Pennsylvania, during the era of the American Civil War. Here you may explore thousands of original documents that allow you to see what life was like during the Civil War for the men and women of Augusta and Franklin." Quoting from the site.

I found this site when I was looking for records from the Freedmen's Bureau. It turns out that this site has the records only for the two counties that are part of the focus of the collection, but in the course of looking at the records I realized that the Website contained a huge collection of original resource documents with clear references to the source citations. Although I did not have any specific research objectives in the two counties, I found the format and content to be a good example of what could be done with other records.

It turns out that the Virginia Center for Digital History contains a number of interesting and source rich projects:

• The Valley of the Shadow
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• Virtual Jamestown
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• Civil Rights Television News Archive, 1950-1970
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• The American Civil War Center and Historic Tredegar: Educational Web Companion
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• The Virginia Emigrants to Liberia Project
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• The History Engine
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• The Countryside Transformed: The Eastern Shore of Virginia and the Railroad
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• Race and Place: An African American Community in the Jim Crow South
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• The Geography of Slavery Project
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• The Dolley Madison Project
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• The Ground Beneath Our Feet
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• One Hundred Years of Life on the Lawn
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• Wednesdays in Mississippi
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There is always something new to look at on the Internet.