National Women's History Month

This month is the 25th Anniversary of the first National Women's History Month. I am doing my part this weekend by attending the Virginia Women Through Four Centuries: A Women’s History Symposium sponsored by the Library of Virginia in Richmond.

As some of you know, I have gotten it into my head that I should write a history of my family and Pamunkey Neck, the area of Virginia where they have resided for about 300 years. Among the difficulties I have faced is the relative lack of information about the women in my family, the males so dominating written records. So I am hoping to better learn about not only the lives they must have lived, but also how to include my female ancestors in my history.

I will get a chance to again see Linda Sturtz, history professor at Beloit College. She, and her book Within Her Power – Propertied Women in Colonial Virginia (2002), was most helpful as I began my research. She is on one of the panels.

I also will do some more research in the Library, see some family members and old friends, and do some shopping. We are out of ink in both printers and almost out of toilet paper, again.