An award for a local historian has led to a grant for a project to preserve county records.
Last month, Ann Simmons traveled to New York City to receive the prestigious President’s Award for Excellence from the Colonial Dames of America, the oldest colonial hereditary society in the United States. The award carried with it a $1,000 grant to be used on Simmons’ historical project that she has spent several years on.
Simmons, president of Chapter XV of Jackson of the Colonial Dames of America, entered the project to digitize Marion County’s early records.
“This past year, we formed a working alliance with county officials, the Marion County Museum and Archives, the Mississippi Digital Library and the University of Southern Mississippi,” Simmons said. “After much planning, Dr. Susannah Ural organized a group of graduate students to come to Marion County and digitize selected books. The project is called the Mississippi Digital Courthouse Project and it is a worthy project supported by the Mississippi Historical Society and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.”
Simmons said the project offers the community and local university a chance to work together and realize the value of preserving and disseminating local history.
“As community members become more invested in their own past, they will discover the practices that franchised or disenfranchised key constituencies, how courts and juries protected or failed to protect community members, the challenges of educating generations of citizens and how communities struggled to meet those challenges,” she said. “The MDCP will make readily available 19th century criminal court cases, election records, educable children lists, orphan court records, and 20th century voter registration records.”
Simmons ability to access the historic records is important for researchers.
“Orphan’s court records, for example, are linked to a major policy issue debate in the public today,” she said. “That debate is Mississippi’s under funded and undermanned Department of Child Protective Services that cannot find suitable foster homes for nearly 75 percent of children in need. A close examination of past policies, relating to the care of orphans, can help policy makers and children advocates understand what communities have attempted in the past and successes and failures of past practices.”
The projects has also partnered with the Mississippi Digital Library, which is putting some of the records on a website. Ural initially received a $2,500 grant for the past year, which was used during July 2016 to pay graduate student researchers to scan the books. Volunteers from several genealogical organizations are assisting with the transcribing this summer, according to Simmons.
During her trip to New York, Simmons was presented the award by Colonial Dames of America President Sharon Vaino at an awards dinner held at the Yale Club on Vanderbilt Avenue.
“All of thee events were at private clubs,” she said. “Every meeting was lovely.”
Work is continuing this summer, and on a recent day Simmons was working with Lisa Foster from the University of Southern Mississippi.
“She will be helping us continue with the organization and digitization process,” Simmons said.
The Marion County Museum and Archives is located at 200 Second St.
Pictured Above: Ann Simmons, left and Lisa Foster hold the award presented to Simmons recently. | Photo by Mark Rogers
