Virginia Colonial Records Project

The Virginia Colonial Records Project aimed at reconstituting on microfilm the documentary record of Virginia's colonial history that had been decimated by war, fire, and accident during three centuries. Supported until 1964 by the state and federal anniversary celebrations, by the University of Virginia Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Virginia Historical Society, and Virginia State Library, or by other grants, the Virginia Colonial Records Project was coordinated by scholars from the four participating institutions. In 1982 the General Assembly formally transferred the project to the State Library and in September 1985 the Publications Branch (now Division) took administrative and editorial responsibility for computerization and completion of the project. From 1955 to the mid-1980s, full- and part-time agents in England examined, or surveyed, public and private manuscript collections for documents about Virginia between its founding in 1607 and the Treaty of Paris that brought the American Revolution to its formal conclusion in 1783. The agents also sampled Welsh, Scottish, Irish, and French collections, reporting any relevant manuscripts on typewritten Survey Reports.

From the description of Survey reports of the Virginia Colonial Records Project. (University of Virginia). WorldCat record id: 703877485

The Virginia Colonial Records Project aimed at reconstituting on microfilm the documentary record of Virginia's colonial history that had been decimated by war, fire, and accident during three centuries. As early as 1939 State Archivist William J. Van Schreeven had begun mentioning in his annual reports the possibility of duplicating lost Virginia documents from copies in British archives. Microfilm technology made the dream possible, and the destructive experience of World War II made it urgent to scholars. Supported by a Fulbright grant in 1952 and 1953, Francis L. Berkeley, Jr., curator of manuscripts at the Alderman Library of the University of Virginia, spent ten months surveying manuscript collections in London, Oxford, and Cambridge as well as private libraries and county record offices.

The 350th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown gave this scholars' dream of copying the documents a wide public appeal as Virginia's celebrants, led by Lewis A. McMurran, Jr., invited Van Schreeven and Berkeley to review earlier copying projects that had found Virginia materials, draft operating principles and a budget for the proposed project, and identify the right scholar to direct the enterprise from London. Within a month of receiving its initial appropriation, the Virginia Colonial Records Project was launched. On April 25, 1955 in the reading room of the British Library in London, George H. Reese examined manuscript records of a 1771 suit brought in the General Court of Virginia between John Hite and Thomas Fairfax, rival claimants to lands in Virginia.

Supported until 1964 by the state and federal anniversary celebrations, by the University of Virginia Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Virginia Historical Society, and Virginia State Library, or by other grants, the Virginia Colonial Records Project was coordinated by scholars from the four participating institutions. Following a brief hiatus in the mid-1960s, state support for the project resumed from 1968 to 1982 through the Virginia Independence Bicentennial Commission (antecedents of today's Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation). General policy was set by representatives of the participating institutions, and project employees were supervised by the State Archivist from the early 1970s through 1985.

In 1982 the General Assembly formally transferred the project to the State Library and in September 1985 the Publications Branch took administrative and editorial responsibility for computerization and completion of the project.

From 1955 to the mid-1980s, full- and part-time agents in England examined, or surveyed, public and private manuscript collections for documents about Virginia between its founding in 1607 and the Treaty of Paris that brought the American Revolution to its formal conclusion in 1783. The agents also sampled Welsh, Scottish, Irish, and French collections, reporting any relevant manuscripts on typewritten Survey Reports.

From the description of Survey reports, 1955-1986 [microform]. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 122653982