Case Study: Historic Christ Church creates a searchable historical database and uncovers new ancestry insights with Knack

Historic Christ Church builds a 4,000-record historical database with Knack

Historic Christ Church, a historical institution in Virginia, faced the challenge of organizing and analyzing thousands of complex historical documents related to slave histories from a local plantation. A researcher, Patrick Heffernan, needed a tool to transform these archives into a searchable database without requiring extensive technical expertise. He turned to Knack to build a custom application for this purpose.

Using Knack, the team built a comprehensive and publicly accessible online database that stores, organizes, and connects historical records. The solution enabled significant historical insights, such as identifying that a surge in references was due to childbirth rather than slave purchases. It also had a profound human impact, successfully connecting descendants with their ancestors' histories. Knack provided the flexible and user-friendly platform that made these results possible.

Historic Christ Church