April 2014 Seton Shields Genealogy Grant Awarded

In 2011, the Historical Society of Kent County, one of Maryland's earliest counties, was delighted to receive the donation of a building that will be the future Bordley History Center. The History Center will have both a research library, with computers and databases accessible to the public, as well as a state of the art archival room that will keep the society's collection of negatives, family Bibles, portraits, oral histories, family photo albums and legal documents preserved. Liberty Bliss, a work-study student at the society, requested a grant, explaining that, "under the current director Karen Emerson, we are working very hard to preserve and document the African-American and Hispanic communities that have been in Kent County forever but underrepresented. We are going to begin an oral history project with members of the Hispanic community in the fall, and I am currently working on a proposal to begin a slave genealogy project. In addition to this much needed research center, we are doing our best to fill this crucial need in the historical and genealogical communities. We have the heart, we have the hands, we just don't have the funds." This month's grant is intended to help with the funds part of the equation.