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John Ferris Bell (1890-1959) was born and educated in Petersburg, Virginia. He graduated from Hampton Institute and later trained as a Funeral Director and Mortician in Chicago, Illinois. Mr. Bell opened the J.F. Bell Funeral Home in 1917. It continues today as the oldest family run funeral home in Central Virginia and the area's oldest existing business owned by people of color.
The African American Genealogy Group of Charlottesville and Albemarle County, co-founded by Julian Burke and Caruso Brown, first met in 1995 and is now the Burke Brown Steppe Chapter of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society.
The group actively researches and displays the heritage of African Americans in the community. The group meets on the third Saturday of the month, 12:00 noon - 2:00pm at The Jefferson School African American Heritage Center.
>» Visit the Burke Brown Steppe Chapter website or the national Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society
The following information about African Americans buried in Albemarle County has been collected from copies of death certificates and from J.F. Bell Funeral Home records. This project involved a collaboration between the J.F. Bell Funeral Home and the African-American Genealogy Group, particularly, Julian Burke.
Out of respect for the dead and living relatives, information on cause of death, the address of the deceased, occupation, and financial information has been omitted. Information was entered verbatim from the documents, even if the transcriber knew the spelling to be incorrect. Often the "place of burial" is vague or even, on occasion, incorrect. Please visit a related site on African American cemeteries to clarify the location of a gravestone.
Sponsored by the African-American Genealogy Group of Charlottesville, Virginia, in collaboration with The Virginia Center for Digital History and the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American and African Studies at the University of Virginia.
The website was
created by Dr Lynn Rainville; requests to add or edit on-line information should be directed to her.