2024 CALS Genealogy Workshop

Speaker: Bessida Cauthorne White

This event will be IN PERSON ONLY! This event will NOT be live-streamed! 

SCHEDULE OF SESSIONS

9:00a – 9:15a ~ Welcome & Announcements
9:15a – 10:15a ~ Recognizing and Sharing Family Treasures, Part 1 
10:30a – 11:30a ~ Recognizing and Sharing Family Treasures, Part 2

11:30a – 1:00p ~ LUNCH 

1:00p – 2:00p ~ How to Create a Family Heritage Cookbook, Part 1 
2:15p – 3:15p ~ How to Create a Family Heritage Cookbook, Part 2 
3:15p – 3:30p ~ Closing 

Session Descriptions: 

Recognizing and Sharing Family Treasures 

Family treasures are highly valued possessions that hold special meaning and tell stories about family members and their experiences. They can be almost anything, including jewelry, furniture, housewares, clothing and textiles, photographs, books and documents, tools, musical instruments, artwork, and medals and awards. 

Session topics will include how to identify family treasures, and how to inventory them, document them, and establish their provenance. Examples will be given of the use of oral history to identify treasures, as well how to glean information about items that might have been stored together and/or have a similar source. The discussion will also include the use of family treasures to explore and communicate family history and to shed light on the broader African American story. The speaker will share treasures from her own family history journey and talk about how she uses family treasures to interest and engage others, especially young people, in the pursuit of family history, and to make that history come alive. 

The session handout will include resources for identifying and preserving family treasures. 

How to Create a Family Heritage Cookbook 

Keepsakes of culinary heritage provide important connections between past and future generations. While recipes are the heart of a family cookbook, the memories about them provide much of a cookbook’s soul and place the recipes in the context of their time and usage. A family heritage cookbook provides a vehicle for documenting a significant component of a family’s story and may be a very real way of engaging family members who may not otherwise be interested in family history. Capturing family culinary traditions can provide a substantial compendium of cooking and family rituals and an important heirloom. Imagine the delight in having a great-grandfather’s recipe for stovetop biscuits! 

This session will explore the nuts and bolts of how to create a family heritage cookbook and give step-by-step guidelines from the germination of the idea through promotion of the finished product; suggestions will also be given for recreating family recipes that have been lost. Attendees will leave with the resources and tools needed to successfully create a family heritage cookbook and will hopefully be inspired to preserve their family’s culinary heritage. 

The session handout will include recipe writing guides, cookbook editing and publishing resources, and titles of cookbooks that might provide inspiration. 

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Bessida Cauthorne White is a genealogist, community historian, and retired attorney. An activist for more than fifty years, her focus areas include African American, women’s, and LGBTQ+ rights. She became the first Black woman to sit on the bench in Virginia when appointed a substitute judge of the General District Court of the City of Richmond in 1983. 

White has been a genealogist for more than forty years. She is the family historian for nine families and manages DNA results for thirty-five people. She has presented at numerous state, regional, and national workshops and conferences, and teaches genealogy courses at Rappahannock Community College.  White is co-founder and president of Middle Peninsula African-American Genealogical and Historical Society and is a founder of the Greater Richmond Chapter of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society. White is a founder of Virginia Association of Women Attorneys, Virginia Association of Black Women Attorneys, and Friends of African and African-American Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and is president of the board of the Rappahannock Industrial Academy Alumni Association, an entity that preserves the legacy of one of Virginia’s early twentieth-century Negro academies. In 2020, she was named by the Virginia Museum of History and Culture as one of Today’s Agents of Change. 

She is the co-editor of two family cookbooks and a church cookbook: A Reunion of Recipes: The White Family Cookbook; 1st ed., 1990, 2nd ed., 2007; Help Yourself! There’s A God’s Mighty Plenty: A Treasury of Recipes from the Cauthorne & Brooks Families, 1st ed., 2000, 2nd ed., 2017; and Gather at the Welcome Table: The Angel Visit Baptist Church Sesquicentennial Cookbook, 2016. 

LUNCH

Box lunches will be provided for participants who register before WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2024, and indicate they want a box lunch. Box lunches will include a beverage and a sandwich, chips, and a cookie.

Complimentary coffee and light pastries will be available during the morning sessions, and the CALS Ron Robinson Theater Concession Stand will be open throughout the day for participants to purchase soft drinks and other snacks.

PARKING 

Due to the renovation of CALS Main Library, parking is limited around CALS Ron Robinson Theater. The CALS Surface Parking Lot (with handicap accessible parking spots) is now accessed from 2nd Street and has no parking fee. Additional parking is available in the CALS Parking Deck (turn onto Rock Street from President Clinton Ave.). Parking for the CALS Parking Deck will be free and validated for Genealogy Workshop participants. Look at the CALS Library Square Map for more specifics.