The following announcement was written by the Virginia Genealogical Society:
"Ancestors are watching and they will take you in the right direction--when it is time."
This is a favorite genealogical quote of Char McCargo Bah, this year’s volunteer award recipient.
A native of Alexandria, Char has been doing genealogical research for more than 26 years. Besides being a published author – having been published in the Afro American Historical and Genealogical Society Newsletter, NGS Magazine, Halifax County, Virginia Heritage Book, and the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society Journal – Char gives back to her Alexandria community.
Her work on the Freedmen Cemetery project in Alexandria, Virginia, garnered Char the 2009 Alexandria History Award. She is continuing in the same vein with her lecture series, “Their Voices Can Be Heard” which began with her research into descendants of people buried at Freedmen’s Cemetery. For those of you who do not know about the Freedmen’s Cemetery, it is a historic African-American burial ground reclaimed by the City of Alexandria in 2007. Since 2008 Char has located dozens of descendants of people buried at Freedmen’s Cemetery, most of whom are 5th and 6th generations removed. Many of the descendants who still live in Alexandria or nearby, were not familiar with their Civil War-era ancestors.
Besides all of this she appeared on the PBS show History Detective, has been interviewed by the BBC, was selected for a documentary with the Ellis Island Foundation, is a member of the Virginia Genealogical Society, and was on the Board and served as its Historian for two consecutive terms.
The Virginia Genealogical Society is pleased to honor Char McCargo Bah with this year’s Volunteer Award.
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