After emancipation, former slaves placed thousands of ads in newspapers in search of sold-away spouses and children. These ads are just one more source that document the sale of millions of enslaved people. False Reasons Slaveowners conjured up many reasons to justify the buying and selling of people, especially when breaking up families. One was that […]
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Category: African-American Genealogy
This category applies to research especially relevant to African-American genealogy researchers.
Tips on Using World War Draft Registrati...
World War Draft Registrations (World War I and World War II) are some of the most valuable records in genealogy research. These records are especially helpful for researching men born in the late 1870s or 1880s. The lack of a 1890 census record makes that 20-year-gap hard to cross. Read the Details It’s important to […]
Remembering Jim Crow
I just finished reading the book Remembering Jim Crow, published in 2001. For those researching African-Americans, we spend a lot of time dealing with the complexity of slave research. I think we all need to pay more attention to the era of segregation. Most of us remember this era or have parents alive who do. […]
Freedmans Bank Records, Part 1
The Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company is better known as the Freedman’s Bank. Their records are among the most popular for those researching African-American roots. Background Established by Congress in 1865, the Bank was primarily designed for use by the nation’s recently freed four and a half million formerly enslaved people. It eventually grew to […]
Researching Free Blacks
There is a good probability that many of us researching African-American families will find at least one line that was freed before 1865. A Brief History In 1860, there were over 400,000 free blacks in the U.S. This map (from the Schomburg migrations website) shows the numbers of free blacks in each state: Although Northern […]
The Schomburg and Black Migrations
The Domestic Slave Trade transported over 1 million people to the Deep South and West. This internal trade separated families on an even larger scale than did the African Slave Trade a century earlier. We can learn more about this trade at the Schomburg’s Migrations website. It also includes information about all of the other migrations […]
The Artifacts of Our History: Part 1
Artifacts are those items passed down within our families. Pictures and bibles are artifacts. But military papers, diplomas, letters, awards, and even quilts are also good examples. I wanted to post some of the wonderful artifacts from my family. Each has expanded my understanding of their lives and communities. Maybe this post will inspire you […]
Tracing Enslaved Ancestors Through Proba...
Inventoried Slaves For those of us descended from enslaved ancestors, we are taught to research probate records early in the process. They can be used to verify slaveownership. If the slaveowner died before 1865, we may find our ancestors named in their will or listed in their inventories. As we advance in our skills, however, […]
What You Didn’t Know About Slavery
OK, I confess that blog title is a little sensationalized. Much of this information becomes well-known to researchers of African-American families over the years. Family research turns many of us into walking, talking, beacons of history. It is an endlessly fascinating subject: epic, tragic and but often inspiring. Points to Remember Nevertheless, here are […]
Black Farmers
I was at the Reginald Lewis Museum in Baltimore recently, presenting my first lecture on using land records effectively. The Lewis museum is dedicated to Maryland’s African-American history. So, I wanted to focus not just on genealogical research, but also the unique history between land and African-Americans. That history starts with the failure of Reconstruction to […]