Hi Michele,

Before you go into slave period research make sure you have all available records (birth, death, marriage, freedman's etc) from the period after 1865.

Do not make assumptions that people were married during slavery - some were, others weren't - it depended on their slaveholders. Many marriages were formalized after slavery ended.

Slave period research differs from research after 1865 in one major respect. You have to focus on researching the family of the slave owners- since they are the ones who would have documents (hopefully) mentioning your family.

Many slaves took the names of slaveholding families - other's didn't.
In your case - it is clear that there were major slaveholding families in Powhatan surnamed Mosby but in checking slave schedules of 1850 and 60 the surname Lynch does not appear in Powhatan - it does show up in neighboring Goochland and Chesterfield counties.

Read through the how-to- posts and suggestions on the slave research forum - and also check the states forum here for links to a variety of VA research sites.

Most importantly - use the GenWeb county sites and rootsweb.

For example - there are bible records for the Mosby family at rootsweb - which may be useful for making a tree for the slaveholding family:

http://ftp.rootsweb.com/pub/usgenweb/va/powhatan/bibles/mosby1.txt

The VA historical society has many useful documents - as does the Library of Virginia (LVA)

Good luck and happy hunting,

Denise