Callie Freed – The UncommonWealth

Archives

Perseverance Pays Off: How One 19th century Individual Restored His Rights

In recent years, readers may have become familiar with the term “conservatorship.” Most prominently, this topic has been connected to one of the most popular…

Callie FreedAugust 12, 2026

Archives

The Legality Around a Remarkably Painful Societal Issue

On November 21, 1910, Roxie Annie Bauers (née Bumgarner) lost her life in a tragic murder-suicide at the Lewis Hotel in Detroit (now known as…

Callie FreedJuly 30, 2025

Archives Digital Projects

Mother Knows Best: A Tale of 2 Brothers

Like Jonathan Ramey of Scott County, Virginia, whose story we previously explored on UncommonWealth, brothers James and William Temple of Bath County joined the trek…

Callie FreedOctober 4, 2024

Archives Digital Projects The Stacks

Time Well Spent: Indexing and reviewing the Free Register Collection from Virginia Untold

For this month’s blog post, I asked Callie Freed, Local Records Archivist, to reflect on her experience indexing and reviewing our “Free Negro Registers” collection…

Callie FreedMarch 29, 2023

Archives

Finding Princess Anne County’s Hidden Treasures

The Princess Anne County chancery causes cover an extensive period (1752-1913) and a wide range of topics. To discover and learn more about these treasures,…

Callie FreedMarch 15, 2023

Archives

Updated Page County Chancery, 1831-1867, Available Now in the Chancery Records Index

This northern Shenandoah Valley county is named for John Page, Governor of Virginia from 1802-1805. Land from Rockingham and Shenandoah counties created the county in…

Callie FreedJanuary 19, 2022

Archives

The Last Vestiges of Hope

Several of my colleagues have shared the personal stories of enslaved individuals over the past nine years as we work our way through processing and…

Callie FreedOctober 4, 2021

Archives

Short Stories from the Updated Hanover County Chancery Causes, 1831-1868.

For Local Records staff at the Library of Virginia, one of the few positive effects of the current COVID-19 pandemic has been the ability to…

Callie FreedJanuary 20, 2021

Archives

The Kindness of Strangers: A Story From the Montgomery County Chancery Causes

The bedrock of the Library of Virginia’s chancery causes collection is the personal story. While most causes share similar documents, topics, and resolutions, each story…

Callie FreedJuly 3, 2019

Archives

What a Difference a Day Makes: Serendipity in the Reading Room

The Library of Virginia employs both reference archivists and processing archivists. Reference archivists work exclusively with the public—the Library’s front line. Processing archivists work behind-the-scenes…

Callie FreedJanuary 24, 2019

Archives

Early 20th Century Entertainment Comes to Virginia in a Most Unusual Way

In the spring of 1905, a half-mile from the Norfolk city limits, the Boer War Spectacle (also called the Transvaal Spectacle or Anglo-Boer War Historical…

Callie FreedOctober 24, 2018

Archives

More Than an Entry in a Register: Local Government Convict Registers

For access purposes, archivists sort local government records held by the Library of Virginia into twenty-three categories, as well as numerous sub-categories encompassing the alphabet…

Callie FreedMay 24, 2018

Archives Digital Projects

"Persecuted By His Race": The Norfolk County Chancery Causes, 1718-1913

The information contained in the Norfolk County Chancery Cause 1893-022, Berkley Hebrew Cemetery Association v. Abraham Liebman, et. al., makes for a highly charged and…

Callie FreedDecember 13, 2017

Archives

It’s A Virginia Thing: Helping One Native Colleague at a Time

Back in 2010 when I was processing the Nelson County chancery suits, I found a remarkable genealogical chart of the prominent Carter family. From that…

Callie FreedFebruary 8, 2017

Archives

York County’s Forgotten Founder

York County, originally named Charles River County for King Charles I, was one of the eight Virginia shires (counties) first enumerated in 1634. A document…

Callie FreedJanuary 25, 2017