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Welcome
Did you Know...? Since 1997, The Colvin Study has amassed the largest cache of known primary source records of its kind in existence?
It’s collection of more than 11,000 records trace the Colvins rooted in 18th century Virginia Piedmont. Today the descendants of that small family group number in the thousands and can be found in every U.S. state. There simply does not exist a better collection anywhere.
In addition to its unique records database, The Colvin Study also consists of a website (you're at the homepage) where the Colvin Study Blog is published. It's the place where its many significant discoveries are discussed, corrections to the published record are made, and in-depth analyses are offered. These unique features not only keep Colvin descendants and researchers informed but aid their research by putting those discoveries into socio-historical context.
The Colvin Study Blog is also where many images of the records are seen for the first time outside their repositories. For example, who knew of the existence of the antebellum-era mixed-race marriage of James and Alethea or what they looked like before their images were shown?
How about the whereabouts of the numerous Colvin cemeteries in Pendleton County, Kentucky? Or the numerous extant ancestral homes in Virginia until they were found, the data analyzed, and the findings presented in a cogent, well-sourced essay? Who knew about Daniel and Mason Colvin on Virginia’s famous, “Ten Thousand Names” petition or that this same father and son fought alongside each other during the Revolutionary War? Or, for that matter, who knew how many Colvin men – all related – were soldiers fighting the British, some of whom became POWs? The Colvin Study knew.
When The Colvin Study began, the foremost, " expert" on this line of Colvins was a woman who made numerous pronouncements online but who relied almost exclusively on secondary sources. She never once cited an original source. She even once claimed these same Colvins never own slaves because they were "too poor."
She apparently never saw the probate records of Richard Colvin, Sr. (1767-1828) who, along with his wife, Lydia, is buried in the Colvin cemetery in Catlett, Fauquier County. He left an estate of over 1,500 acres and nearly twenty slaves. This bottom-barrel level of research was the state of things when research for The Colvin Study began.
Debunked, sloppy research is only one feature of the many attributes and benefits gained from accessing the Colvin Study Blog.
But in-depth and time-consuming research does not fund itself, and the costs are many: database subscriptions, software purchases, publication purchases, software needed to preserve, enhance, and restore damaged images, software needed to geolocate places, hardware costs to protect and preserve the data, internet costs, (we use a 5G ISP). There are costs associated with finding, buying, printing, and storing records. There are also time costs. Costs to find, download, copy, and analyze records; time for research trips, time to write essays; time to produce a website.
By now you’ve probably already benefited from the results of the research, and likely will again.
Doesn't The Colvin Study deserve your support?
(You'll receive your lifetime password when your donation clears.)