A joint effort to catalogue and preserve Virgin Islands historical records is well under way, according to Danish and Virgin Islands members of the Bilateral Archival Commission, who provided a progress report Monday at a press briefing at Government House on St. Thomas.
Members of the group and advisors from Washington, D. C., and Denmark are in the Virgin Islands this week for the second formal meeting of the organization. The effort began in 1999, and the first meeting was in Copenhagen.
Johan Peter Noack, director of the Danish National Archives, explained that the program has three phases: first, to open and review the contents of records and catalog the information; second to make them accessible by microfilming, repairing any damage and preserving them, and finally to transfer the originals to the Virgin Islands.
Regarding the first phase, "the work in Copenhagen has been almost completed," he said. Once all the records have been translated, the information will be available on the Internet.
Records listed in Denmark include 8,066 volumes/packets from the West India Local Archives, 879 volumes/packets of West India & Guinea Company Records, 1,444 volumes from the Central Colonial Office, 510 volumes of West India Trading Company Records, West India Censuses from 1841 to 1911 and 250 volumes from private collections.
Michael J. Kurtz, assistant archivist in Washington, D. C., said another 2,500 cubic feet of records pertaining to the Virgin Islands are housed in the U.S. National Archives. These include records from the Danish colonial days and from the early American period, from 1917 through 1950.
The U.S. National Archives has undertaken to microfilm the entire collection, Kurtz said. The project is expected to take 10 years.
Soren Black, a St. Thomas businessman of Danish descent who serves as Danish Counsel in the Virgin Islands, said he is especially interested in the third phase of the project – bringing Virgin Islands records to the territory.
"My children (and all) the children of the Virgin Islands need to be able to read their own history in their own island," he said.
Gov. Charles Turnbull, a historian, introduced the speakers, noting that Denmark and the Virgin Islands have a "shared history."
The commission is visiting all three of the main islands, taking tours and attending functions. The formal meeting will be Thursday and Friday on St. Croix.
