Virginia United Methodist Historical Society and Archives

02/24/2026

‘Rooted Methodism’ launches today to explore faith and culture
New GCAH course traces Methodist engagement from Wesley to the present

Madison, N.J. – Madison, N.J. – “Rooted Methodism: Deeper Dives into our History,” the follow up to the popular “Radicle Methodism” video curriculum , launches today as a seven-part exploration of how Methodism has intersected -- and continues to intersect -- with American culture. Produced by the General Commission on Archives and History, the course explores topics, including race, medicine, education, women, voting, youth and sexuality.
Learn more about “Rooted Methodism” at

Welcome to "Rooted Methodism" where we take a deep dive into the story of Methodism in America, focusing on how various topics and groups, including women, race, medicine, education, youth shaped and reshaped the church's life and witness.

01/06/2026

The remaining print issues of the Virginia United Methodist Advocate for 1987-2010 are now online at Virginia Chronicle, completing the project to get virtually all known print issues of the Virginia Conference newspapers still in existence digitized and online. The majority came from the collection at Randolph-Macon College, supplemented by issues from the Library of Virginia and a small number of early issues from the Huntington Library.

The holdings are under these titles at https://www.virginiachronicle.com/

Virginia Conference Sentinel (1836-1837)
Richmond Christian Advocate (1841-1901; scattered issues prior to 1867, complete from 1867-1901)
Baltimore and Richmond Christian Advocate (1901-1918)
Richmond Christian Advocate (1919-1939)
Virginia Methodist Advocate (1939-1969)
Virginia Advocate (1969-1984)
Virginia United Methodist Advocate (1985-2010)

Virginia Chronicle: historical archive of Virginia newspapers. Free access to full text searching and digitized images of over 3 million newspaper pages.

10/24/2025

The fall meeting of the Virginia Conference Historical Society hosted a talk by Dr. Lacey Warner of Duke Divinity School. Her presentation on October 4 was “An ‘Extraordinary’ Woman: Dorothy Ripley of Mecklenburg County.” Dr. Warner's book "Saving Women: Retrieving Evangelistic Theology and Practice" (Baylor University Press, 2007) is the authoritative study of early American Women in evangelism. Dorothy Ripley was the foremost preacher of that era. View the talk at

Dr Laceye Warner speaking to VCHS on Oct 4 2025 about Dorothea Ripley

10/13/2025

Can you read handwriting and are interested in history? We are looking for volunteers to assist us with transcribing some of the many handwritten documents in RMC’s Special Collections and Archives including the 1800-1840 Minutes of the Virginia Conference! Don’t worry if your transcription skills are not perfect; all help is welcome! We are using a crowdsourcing service called FromThePage to organize our document transcription projects and to house and make available to the world the completed pages. Since this is a crowdsourced site, anyone in the world can contribute to any of the projects on the site. Our projects are at https://fromthepage.com/randolph-macon-college and you can sign up to be a transcriber from there. More projects will be added soon! An informational page is at https://library.rmc.edu/transcribe.

Randolph-Macon College's profile at FromThePage.

08/28/2025

The Southeastern Jurisdiction (SEJ) Historical Society Annual Meeting is being held in Nashville, TN on September 16-18, 2025. The conference theme is "Pioneering Women in Methodism." The deadline for registration is September 9. For more information and to register, go to:

September 16-18, 2025 Nashville, TN

07/31/2025

The Virginia Methodist Advocate, 1939-1968, is now available online at Virginia Chronicle https://virginiachronicle.com. Earlier editions of the Virginia Conference newspaper are available online under the titles Virginia Conference Sentinel (1836-1837), Richmond Christian Advocate (1841-1901 and 1919-1938; with scattered issues from 1841-1867 and complete for 1868-1901 and 1919-1938), and the Baltimore and Richmond Christian Advocate (1901-1918).

The remaining years of the print edition of the paper, the Virginia Advocate (1968-1984) and the Virginia United Methodist Advocate (1985+), are expected to be available in the fall of this year.

Virginia Chronicle: historical archive of Virginia newspapers. Free access to full text searching and digitized images of over 3 million newspaper pages.

06/30/2025

How much do you know about John Wesley? Take this quiz to see if you are smarter than the average United Methodist!

The man credited with creating the Methodist movement was born in June. How much do you know about his life?

05/30/2025

Announcement received via email today concerning access to GCAH collections and services:

GCAH ANNOUNCES CLOSURES FOR COLLECTIONS RECEIPTS AND ON-SITE RESEARCH/TOURS
Inventory, digitization, accessioning and processing set to occur during months-long break
Madison, N.J. – The General Commission on Archives and History’s (GCAH) offices on the campus of Drew University will be closed for accepting and receiving incoming collections, effective June 1. The general agency also is closing its facilities for in-person research and tours as of July 1. The closures will remain in effect through the end of 2025.

Halting receipt of new collections, as well as closing to the public for a prolonged time period, will enable the staff to conduct a thorough inventory and catch up on backlogs and accessioning and processing of collections already in the agency’s possession, explains Dr. Ashley Boggan, GCAH general secretary. Staff also will use the time to implement best practices for digitization, an important step as GCAH moves The UMC’s Ministry of Memory into the future.

During the office closure, GCAH staff will be available to respond on a case-by-case basis to queries via phone and email; GCAH.org remains available for research.

To learn more about GCAH, visit ResourceUMC.org/Archives and History.

Media contact:
Crystal Caviness
[email protected]
615-306-3401

12/10/2024

The Richmond Christian Advocate newspaper is now online at Virginia Chronicle https://virginiachronicle.com. This weekly conference newspaper contains a wealth of historical information on not only our conference, churches, and congregants, but also on local, regional, national, and world events. There are three different title entries where you can find issues, two under Richmond Christian Advocate covering the eras 1841-1902 and then 1919-1939, and one entry under Baltimore and Richmond Christian Advocate, the title from 1903-1918. There are now 55,546 pages in 3,891 issues online and all are fully searchable!

When added to the predecessor paper, the Virginia Conference Sentinel (1836-1837) that was digitized last year, the total is 55,754 pages of content in 3,943 issues.

The issues for 1939-1968 were shipped out last week for digitization and should be online within about 6-8 months.

06/17/2024

Registration is now open for the SEJ Historical Society 2024 Annual Meeting at Lake Junaluska NC to be held September 17-19, 2024. The meeting theme is "Exploring The Past, Charting The Future" and featured speakers include Bishops Ken Carter and Charlene Kammerer. You do not need to belong to the SEJ Historical Society to attend.

05/02/2024

The Virginia Conference Historical Society includes three non-profit foundations dedicated to preserving important sites in Virginia Methodism and the history associated with them: the Old Brunswick Circuit Foundation, the Old Stone Church Foundation, and the William Watters Foundation. Please consider joining one of these foundations and providing support financially or through volunteering your time and expertise. Information on each foundation and its work, as well as membership forms, can be found at https://vaumc.org/historicalsociety/