I’ve been neck deep in Freedmens Bureau research the last few months! Most genealogists know about this extraordinary collection of records, and their importance to all researchers and not just African-Americans. I’ve blogged about them many times before, for example here and here. However, I’d like to illustrate how to utilize these records to uncover […]
You are browsing archives for
Category: African-American Genealogy
This category applies to research especially relevant to African-American genealogy researchers.
The Value of Court Records
Court records can expand our family research in unexpected ways. We often spend decades of our lives researching our roots and only pension records come close to the amazing finds I’ve had in the many records of the court. Here’s a great example of how doing reasonably exhaustive research (which includes relevant court records at […]
The Tough Stuff of History for Genealogi...
The 13 volumes of the Ku-Klux Congressional Testimony (part of the Serial Set) illustrate well the continuing divide in our country. I blogged about these records in 2016. These records are an incredible source of information for all genealogists trying to understand the issues at stake during Reconstruction, issues that extend into today. Hundreds of […]
Don’t Go Looking for Slave Records
If a beginning researcher walks into a library or archives and asks to see the slave records for a community, the archivist will likely be confused. Most of the records used to study enslaved persons aren’t called that. They are Probate Records. Land Records. Court Records. Tax Records. Even Vital Records. If they were simply […]
A Valuable Strategy for Civil War Pensio...
Cluster research works. You will find more information about your ancestors if you study the lives of those in the community where they lived. I swear by this and I’ve discussed it here over and over again. One source that illustrates this clearly is Civil War Pension Records. Don’t just check research your ancestors and […]
Slave Surnames “To Save Their Lives”
Recently I came across a poignant quote relating to slave surnames I just had to share. Slave surnames are a topic I have discussed here at Reclaiming Kin several times and one that has no easy or simple formula that applies to every situation. Because of this, I save original sources where the formerly enslaved […]
Free Blacks and Re-Enslavement
Free blacks, those freed before 1865 in the United States, lived under great suspicion and often under onerous state restrictions. Especially in the places where their numbers were relatively large (i.e., Upper South states of Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, and North Carolina), slaveholders properly viewed them as a threat to the ideology of white supremacy. A […]
Do You Know How to Use Indirect Evidence...
Much of the hype of genealogical research often surrounds the different kinds of sources. Yes, new sources are always exciting. However, I believe that it is developing and growing research skills that will take your research to higher heights. A Field With Standards That’s one reason I recommend that everyone researching their roots have the […]
Slave Mortgages
Human collateral provided much of the capital for slaveholders to purchase more land and more slaves. This, in addition to enslaved people’s free labor, created much of the 18th century wealth that US growth and development depended upon. Edward Baptist elucidates how slavery drove capitalism in his book, The Half has Never Been Told: Slavery […]
About That Mulatto…
We cannot assume that anyone marked “mulatto” in a census record had one white parent and one black parent. I have previously discussed that genealogists should know some of the instructions provided to enumerators, and that the changing definitions of race, since it is a social and not a biological construct, should tell us something. […]