Dabney Genealogy Collection

Beverly Smith Bragg began compiling materials for the Dabney Genealogy Collection after she was contacted by historian and author Virginius Dabney regarding an out of date book on the Dabney family that Beverly had reproduced for friends and family. According to Virginius, Sketches of the Dabneys of Virginia, originally published in 1888, had since been proven to have many errors and was not an accurate account of the family history for the Dabney family line Beverly was interested in. From there, Beverly began a decades long project of researching and compiling as much information on the Dabney family and associated family branches as possible.

The first twenty volumes of the collection were completed in 1991. It is not clear when this occured, but two copies of the collection were created. One was deposited with an unidentified repository in Richmond, Virginia and the other at the Clarksville-Montgomery County Public Library. Although Beverly was the primary person working on what she dubbed "The Project," she structured it in such as way that other individuals could contribute. In her introduction to the collection she encourages other Dabney descendents to provide more information to create a more full family tree and to help correct any errors. She organized the collection in photograph album binders in order to facilitate easy editing and adding of additional materials. In the introduction she expressed concerns that individuals using the collection might take materials out of the binders and encouraged users to consult staff members at the holding institution for copies rather than removing pages themselves. Her fears appear to be well-founded, as there are several volumes that are missing pages that should be present according to the index. It is unclear if there was an error with the index or if materials were actually removed from the collection.

Beverly made several trips to Clarksville over the years to keep the materials up to date and to refresh copies that yellowed with age. She admittedly was not comfortable working with computers, and enlisted the help of her half aunt Patricia (Dabney) Kosack and later her second husband John Berger Jeans, Jr. to convert many of the essays from type-writer generated to computer generated files for easier updating. The last time any materials were updated was in 2017, at which time the collection had grown to more than 260 volumes.

While a large part of the collection documents the Dabney family of Virginia, there are several ties to Montgomery County, and Tennessee more generally. Some of the family names represented in the collection include Dabney, Pettus, Shelton, and Trice. For a complete listing of the family names included, see the Master Name Index.