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Date: 8/26/2023
Subject: August Historical Society Website Update!
From: Tim Benson



Website Update August 2023
 
News on the latest additions you will find at

We continue to update the content on the Historical Society's website.  A major reorganization of the Research pages has been done. 
  • Three-column layout was changed to two-columns making the pages easier to read. 
  • Subject sections have been reconfigured as separate pages. 
  • The pages are selectable from the top-level RESEARCH as dropdowns.
Here are the latest updates - click on a link to take you to that page.
 
Research
 
  • Ability to search the 8000+ objects in our archives database.  If you need to see an object, contact our Archivist.  
Genealogy - Vital Records
  • Guardian Bonds (1779 - 1826) -  Lists guardians, orphans, and bond amounts
  • Orphan's Court Proceedings - Often lists information found nowhere else including names of children and enslaved persons
  • Links to assessment lists of slaves from 1798, 1804, 1813, 1821, and 1831
  • George Dent's original lists of slaves as of emancipation in 1864.  Link to Agnes Callum's transcription of those pages
  • St. Mary's County Tax Assessment Records (1793-1849) - Amazing book assembled by former society president Charles Fenwick in 1959
Historic Places - New page!
  • New section on Mills in St. Mary's County.
  • New section on cemeteries in St. Mary's County.  Includes SMC Cemetery Project listing all known cemeteries in the county. 
 Historic Maps - New page!
  • Collected all map downloads and links here.
  • New map from an 1859 survey by John Wathen of the Leonardtown area.  Amazingly detailed and accurate.   
  • PDF of a 4-part article in the Enterprise newspaper from 1978 presenting former society president Edwin Beitzel's research on every man from St. Mary's County who served in the Civil War - whites and blacks in the Union Army and whites and blacks in the Confederate Army.  We have also located a manuscript he wrote on this subject, and hope to make it available soon.
  • Links to the Maryland Historical Magazine issues online (1906-2019). Contains a searchable index.
  • Links to the the St. Mary's Library Newspaper Database & Archive - has a searchable database and images of The Enterprise and the Saint Mary's Beacon.  Fun just to browse newspaper images from a hundred years ago!
Video
  • Historically Speaking - Religion in Jurisprudence and History - Talk given by Professor Kenneth Lasson on July 19, 2023 at the Inn in Leonardtown.
 
(c) 2023 St. Mary's County Historical Society