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calsfoundation@cals.org
Genealogy Workshop: Family Treasures and Heritage Cookbooks
The Central Arkansas Library System hosted another successful genealogy workshop on October 5, 2024, in the CALS Ron Robinson Theater. This year, it was in-person only, so participants got to meet each other, enjoy a free lunch, and spend the day immersed in all things genealogy. The sessions were recorded, though, for others to enjoy and learn from, and the videos are included below.
The 2024 speaker was Bessida Cauthorne White, who is a genealogist, community historian, and retired attorney. An activist for more than fifty years, she focuses on African American, women’s, and LGBTQ+ rights. She became the first Black woman to sit on the bench in Virginia when she was 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.
White 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.
Session 1: 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 included how to identify family treasures, and how to inventory them, document them, and establish their provenance. Examples were 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 included the use of family treasures to explore and communicate family history and to shed light on the broader African American story. The speaker shared treasures from her own family history journey and talked about how she used family treasures to interest and engage others, especially young people, in the pursuit of family history, and to make that history come alive.
Session 2: 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 explored the nuts and bolts of how to create a family heritage cookbook and gave step-by-step guidelines from the germination of the idea through promotion of the finished product; suggestions were also given for recreating family recipes that have been lost. Attendees left with the resources and tools needed to successfully create a family heritage cookbook and were hopefully inspired to preserve their family’s culinary heritage.
Rhonda Stewart, the genealogy and local history specialist at the CALS Butler Center for Arkansas Studies/Roberts Library, summed up the importance and lasting impact of workshops like this: “Leaving someone with the motivation to do something is a repetitive gift. I remember Dr. Jajuan Johnson (previous oral history employee with the Butler Center) speaking about someone in Virginia whose workshop had impressed him. I’d heard a community historian, Tamela Tenpenny-Lewis, president of the Arkansas African-American Historical & Genealogical Society, relay this year’s speaker’s name. Most people have a tangible item associated with their family history. A photo, a Bible, or a quilt holds a piece of the family history. Many people share their family history through recipes that trace through generations sharing a meal. Bessida Cauthorne White showed how to acknowledge this part of family history while expanding methods of gathering information when sharing the stories of family.”
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Discover more genealogy resources at the CALS Roberts Library here. And come visit us in the Research Room so we can help you get started!
