Gourdvine Black and White: Slavery and the Kilby Families of the Virginia Piedmont

by Timothy Kilby

Gourdvine Black and White is the history, biography, and genealogy of one family divided into two by race and the time in which they lived. For four generations, European-descent Kilbys enslaved men, women, and children in Culpeper and Rappahannock counties of Virginia. Family history author Timothy Kilby took on the monumental task of researching and piecing together documentary fragments and DNA evidence to find individual identities and hidden realities.
 
Gourdvine is the factual account of three generations of African Americans beginning in the mid-1830s and continuing into the next century. First, there are Sarah and her daughter Juliet Ann, human beings who lived under the cloak of non-personhood, subject to the will of enslavers ready to rob their labor and deny them human identity. And then there are Juliet's children, Simon, John, James, daughter Sarah, and Bettie, the generation that would find freedom after emancipation and survive pervasive racial discrimination as adults.
 
This book's stories reveal the facts, events, and characters of Kilbys, both Black and White, and attempts to return humanity to those altogether forgotten through time and prejudice.
 
Gourdvine Black and White  is the 2022 Phillis Wheatley Book Award Winner for Nonfiction Genealogical Research and the 2021 International AAHGS Book Award Winner for Nonfiction Regional Genealogy.
 
All author proceeds are donated to the Kilby Family Endowed Scholarship Fund to benefit the descendants.

248 pages, Paperback

Published May 25, 2021

Reviews

[Mariah Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tim Kilby manages to succeed where most other White writers fail. He centers Black people: researching a particular woman and her family, and supporting his story through research about her and the era. How would historical circumstances - the Civil War, emancipation, and more -- affect enslaved people? he keeps asking. For instance, when enslavers bequeathed their property -- including people -- to various heirs, he notes that this would result in the likely-permanent separation of Black family members, including mothers and children. While also extending compassion to the main White character, a widow left with nine children when her husband dies young, he does not shy away from the facts of slavery. I was impressed, educated, touched. Finding the brick with the handprint (on the cover) was particularly touching. The only thing missing for me was more about his own and his relatives' ties -- emotionally, in the present day -- to this family history. But I was okay with putting most of that aside to focus on this one enslaved family's story.

[Kathleen Simons · Rating 5 out of 5]

First, I am biased as I relate to some in this book, one which explores some paternal family history. The book is excellently written, researched, and laid out. I wish all similar books were even half as well done. Historical context is provided when needed. Areas where research and available data cannot be found or is in conflict are noted and logical analysis to the extent possible is provided.