Laura Kelsey, Historian and Genealogist

Photo by Doug Gehlsen, Middleburg Photo Laura Kelsey

Laura Kelsey

By John Toler

It’s been said that studying the past is often like visiting another country. If so, Warrenton resident Laura Kelsey – president of the Fauquier Historical Society and a director of the Fauquier Heritage and Preservation Foundation – would be a world traveler.

Kelsey has lived in the Virginia Piedmont since her marriage to David Kelsey in 1967, first at Sherwood Farm in Culpeper County before moving to Warrenton in 1975. After college, she taught English in schools in Fluvanna and Madison counties, but was always drawn to history.

“When my daughter Tiffany was putting a presentation together on the history of our farm, I thought we really ought to dig into this and see who lived here before us,” Kelsey recalled. They traced ownership back to a 1724 land grant, and identified the first owners.

Fascinated by the colorful details they discovered, their focus shifted to genealogy, and the history of the Kelsey family, traced to 1632 in Connecticut.

Kelsey later worked in property management in The Plains – where she was introduced to Fauquier historian John K. Gott – and then with the Weissberg Corporation as Director of Construction Management.

In 2011, she volunteered as a docent at the Old Jail Museum in Warrenton, mentored by then-Museum Director Francis Allshouse and docent Leona Keen. “They were a fountain of knowledge about the history of Fauquier County and the Old Jail,” she said.

After retiring in 2013, Kelsey was able to spend more time at the museum, and was elected to the board of directors. This led to her involvement in several important projects for the society, including a booklet describing the historic murals painted in Warrenton by Stuart White; production of Joseph Jeffries’ Warrenton Directory of 1854 and 60 Years Later and an accompanying map and formatting The Civil War Diary of Betty Fanny Gray.

Retirement also provided more time to pursue her interest in genealogy, now evolved into another career as a professional researcher and genealogist. In addition to local clients, others seeking ancestral information have called from Georgia, Colorado and California.

Kelsey’s genealogical research involves trips to libraries, old cemeteries and historic sites. Her primary source of information is from records kept in small towns over many years. They contain a wealth of details that can’t be found online. After volunteering at the Fauquier Heritage and Preservation Foundation and the John K. Gott Library in Marshall for years, Kelsey was elected to the board in 2017. In addition to undertaking the year-long effort to index Gott’s papers and ongoing research on the “Kings of the Free State,” Kelsey completed the organization’s new website. After researching the Klipstein family of Marshall, creators of Carbona cleaning agents, Kelsey presented a talk on the Klipsteins for the group’s lecture series. “I love working with the people at the foundation and doing research in the Gott library, which has been a boon for my genealogy research,” said Kelsey. “More people need to know what we have to offer, and take advantage of it.” The same is true at the museum in Warrenton.

The pandemic has presented new challenges. To augment homeschooling and virtual instruction in the schools, the Old Jail Museum offers safe-distanced inperson tours (10 person maximum), and a 3-D virtual field trip of the Old Jail on the Web site that students can navigate with a mouse. For more information, visit www.fauquierhistory.org.