History Websites in NoVa

(Unit 2, Part B)
History sites -
Since I started looking at cemeteries, I learned about this one:

https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/library_cemeteries/Cemetery.aspx?number=FX014
This is a Fairfax County government site about the Thompson Family cemetery. The cemetery is located literally at a shopping center near a townhouse I used to live in. People go to the large shopping center and pass the graves without even knowing it. They are on a small mound. The Thompson family owned much of the land in the area, including the land for the townhouse and the area around Vienna Metro. Armitage Thompson was a Revolutionary War soldier. Thompson descendants still own a few acres and maintain a farm nearby. I visited the farm two years ago as a Friends of Accotink Creek member (a nonprofit environmental group concerned with watershed and environmental issues). There was a large, dead walnut tree near the foundations of a house. We looked at the garden and talked about this rural oasis and ways to sustain it (nothing happened).

 https://www.loc.gov/collections/civil-war-maps/?fa=location%3Avirginia%7Clocation%3Afairfax+county&dates=1860-1869&sb=shelf-id_desc This is  a Library of Congress site that is a good starter point for any student looking at anything related to the Civil War. It should be a must for any historical archaeology classes. Info on the Civil War websites on the course outline gathered much of their primary source info from these.

http://www.sydenstrickerschoolhouse.org/index.html
Local history website like this one  in Springfield connect the past with the present. It's the last 20th-century one-room schoolhouse in Fairfax County. The site helps local community groups connect to the past by holding meetings in the schoolhouse. Outreach like this preserves places by having nearby residents get interested in their own community's past.



http://www.burkehistoricalsociety.org/
This website changes a lot and is fun to watch (if you don't mind some grammatical errors). The site where meetings are held (sometimes) used to be a house that has been preserved, but a residence/facility for older adults has been built around it. Many local historical groups have websites, but this one makes history relevant to today.