Part 3: Free Union

If you are looking for Africans, start with this Website:
https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Virginia_African_Americans#1619-1865:_Period_of_slavery

My Father's Mother's (Susie Williams) family may have Africans (Benin) in it but that is from my older brother's DNA test. We will get to my father's family later in this series.

This area was first settled in the mid-18th century and became a part of Albemarle County in 1761. The village was originally referred to as Nicksville after a free slave blacksmith named Nick, who opened a blacksmith's shop there in the early 19th century. When a post office was established in 1847, it was given the name of Free Union to avoid confusion with Nixville, another post office in the county. The name was taken from that of the Free Union Church, which had been built in 1837 and is still operating as the Free Union Baptist Church. The church was "free" in that all races were welcome to worship there, and it was a "union" of four denominations of Christianity, none of which could have afforded a church of their own at that time. Free Union continued to be known as Nixville until the early 20th century, when the post office's name caught on. But my family called it Free Union as far back as I remember. 

Nick Brown was my Great Grandfather. But the Nick that is talked about here may have been a earlier ancestor. In our family until 1923 renamed our children with a common family name to identify who we are in our family.  On my family my grandmother was one of the last people named after an ancestor. Her is why Amanda Ann Williams III received a name that linked her back to people before slavery.

Not all blacks were slaves in Virginia before the Civil War. Virginia had the largest free black population in the United States. Many black families had been free there since the 1600s. For each eight slaves in the state, there was one free person of color. Some of the largest families had the surnames Cumbo, Driggers, and Goins. Many free people of color descended from black slave men who had children by white indentured servant women. Others were manumitted. This also can explain the first Lacey Brown's behavior. Free Union was a Free Black Reservation. 

Free Union is a census-designated place (CDP) in Albemarle County, Virginia, United States, ten miles north-northwest of Charlottesville. The population as of the 2010 Census was 193. It is a very small hamlet consisting of a private school (Free Union Country School), a doctor's office, a post office, a country store, a homebuilder, and several dozen homes. Otherwise it is entirely rural in character. A few miles north of this hamlet is a winery.



How did I know when to turn onto Uncle Joe's dirt road? I remembered this store but when I saw it, it was closed and looked like no one used it in years.


Here we are looking at the local families of Stoney Point and how they moved from this section of Virginia to other parts of the world.  If you want to learn more about the African world magration, look at this link: http://www.inmotionaame.org/home.cfm