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Everyone knows court records are my favorite genealogical record, but a close second are civil war pensions. The depositions from former slaves are one of the few places you’ll find first person accounts of their lives. Applicants had to prove their marriages, children, birthdates, and service. For many former slaves, this was a difficult task. […]
I recently got a chance to view some pretty cool records. Claire Prechtel-Kluskens gave a lecture on Agriculture Extension Service Reports last year at the NARA Fair. After her lecture, I knew I needed to look at them. Extension Service Records Starting around the turn of the century, the Dept. of Agriculture decided to provide […]
One of the best sources on enslaved families are in the records from antebellum plantations. Often stored in research libraries, historical societies, and state archives, they can be difficult to access. Slaveholding families donated personal papers, letters, account books, and many other records and ephemera. Historians have long relied on these sources to understand “the […]
Recently, an interesting set of records appeared on Ancestry: “Alabama Convict Records, 1886-1952.” I lecture on court records, so these types of records always get my attention. If you watched “Slavery By Another Name” which aired on PBS in February, these records will be familiar. You can watch the whole episode online. I highly also […]
Recently, Ancestry somewhat quietly rolled out the Ex-Slave Pension database which contains Correspondence and Case Files from the National Archives. I always wanted to take a look at these records but hadn’t gotten around to it yet. I first heard about these records when Mary Frances Berry wrote “My Face is Black Is True: Callie House […]
Freedmen’s Bureau records are a good example of “needle in a haystack” records for those doing African-American genealogical research. They are voluminous and rich. But they are also notoriously difficult to approach. Most aren’t indexed; heck, most aren’t even paginated. That they were governed by the military, and arranged as such— is itself another obstacle. […]
My goal in this post is to outline general types of deeds, show examples, and point you to some other resources for further study. There are lots of other sites and other blogs that cover deeds more extensively. As with anything in genealogy, there are differences that will exist with regard to the records depending […]
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 […]
Have you been sure to check for social security applications for all the women in your family? I’m surprised at the number of women I have been able to find who had SSNs. They sometimes provided wonderful little tidbits of information. Although this blog title is Working Women, I found plenty of applications from women […]
I’ve always known that maps are an underused but vital part of genealogy research. I think the difficulty in finding them contributes to this for most people. Recently, maps helped me to better understand connections between my enslaved ancestors. I thought I’d share it with you in the hopes that it will inspire you to […]
