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Handprints are visible in some of the University of Virginia’s oldest bricks. Underneath attic stairs, chalk letters are found, faint traces of an illicit education. Bones in small cemeteries have been found in several locations.

For six years, the University of Virginia has made a sustained effort to learn more about the enslaved people who lived and worked at the university during its building and founding. But until this month, it had not made a large-scale attempt to identify living relatives of those people.

“Especially the people that only had a little bit of oral history about their ancestors, they might know their ancestors were enslaved but nothing else,” said Shelley Murphy, a genealogist hired by UVa to identify and contact descendants. “But it’s important to know your ancestors and be able to tell their stories, especially now. This country has still not reckoned with its history of slavery.”

In 2013, UVa began a comprehensive research project that examined letters, documents and records of the early university. Eventually, researchers determined that an estimated 4,000 enslaved people lived and worked at the university from 1817 through 1865.