Digitization of vestry records from colonial Virginia receives funding from Virginia Humanities
The Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia is set to make history with the digitization and public availability of the vestry books of two parishes in Virginia's Tidewater. This project, titled "Laying the Leavy & Keeping the Poor: Lynnhaven & Elizabeth City Parish Records, 1723-1831", will offer a unique lens on early America and a rich source of information not contained in any other historic record.
The vestry books, commissioned by the Diocese in 1906 and held in the Diocesan archives, document people and events in the parishes, as well as the evolution of Lynnhaven and Elizabeth City from colonial Anglican parishes to early U.S. Episcopal parishes following the American Revolution.
The Episcopal Project, a private 501(c)3 charitable organization, will digitize, catalog, and make the vestry books available through its existing Digital Archive. This organization has previously collaborated with the Diocese to digitize the vestry records of four other historic churches, including Sapony (built in 1725-26, Dinwiddie County) and St. Stephen's (the oldest Black church in the Commonwealth, est. 1867, Petersburg).
Church records of this period are often the only place where the full names of women and children are recorded. The records from the Lynnhaven Parish and Elizabeth City parish are a primary source of information on the lives of individuals in the pre-Revolutionary and Early National eras.
The mission of the Episcopal Project is to preserve and protect episcopal church history for future generations. As part of this mission, they will publish digital vignettes that speak to the lives and history captured in the records. Each page of the vestry books, as well as transcriptions of the handwritten text, will be publicly available.
The materials from the Lynnhaven Parish and Elizabeth City parish records are scheduled for publication in the archive in January 2026. The Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia, a diocese of The Episcopal Church in the United States, a province of the Worldwide Anglican Communion, includes approximately twenty thousand Episcopalians in 100 congregations between the Dan River and the Eastern Shore.
Bill Taylor, the diocesan historian of the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia, provides detailed historical accounts and insights about the diocese’s development, key events, and significant figures, highlighting its religious and cultural evolution over time. Digitization of fragile records is the first step in making this history available to researchers and historians in the future, according to the Episcopal Project.
The Episcopal Project has been awarded a Virginia Humanities grant for this project. This grant will further the organization's efforts in preserving and making accessible the rich history contained within these vestry books. The project is set to bring a new level of understanding and appreciation for the early history of the United States, particularly in the Tidewater region of Virginia.
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