Whether this is your first time visiting my blog, or you are a longtime reader, Welcome! However you found me, I’m glad you’re here. This is what Reclaiming Kin is all about:

  • –to document family history research in a way that teaches and engages the reader,
  • –to share discoveries, approaches and tools that further research,
  • –to suggest how to make our research exciting for others by adding social history,
  • –to shine a light on resources, repositories, websites and other sources, and
  • –to highlight and discuss the many challenges of slavery and slave research. Occasionally, I do “thought” pieces, which usually stem from dealing the complicated history of slavery in our history.

The two lengthier articles below describe in more detail the two focus areas of this blog. Each article contains links to many of the individual blog posts:

Below, you’ll find links to a representative sample of the posts. If you’d like to read more, you’ll find a separate link to a page above dedicated to Archives that you can explore.

I’d love for you to subscribe to receive my new posts via email, which can easily be done from the Subscribe box in the right-hand sidebar.

If you like what you read, and would like to have some of the content in book form,you will find the link in the right-hand sidebar to purchase the book via Paypal, or you can email me directly if you’d like to send me a check. Some of my folks are old school;)

I hope you’ll enjoy reading and growing your genealogical skills through my posts. My primary focus is that each post will be useful to you as you journey through your own family history research.

I look forward to hearing your comments and your questions!

Skillbuilding and Research Tips

Do You Have An Artificial Brick Wall?
Robyn’s 10 Key Genealogy Principles
Look Out for Multiple Marriages
Phillip Holt is Not Dead After All
Criminals in the Family: Joseph Harbour
I Found You Mary Neal: Analysis Uncovers an Identity
Cluster Research Reunites Sisters
Is the Wife Really the Mother of Those Children?
Collateral Research: Research All Siblings
Sorting Same-Named People
Cluster Research Leads to Likely Father
Untangling Matildas: Brick Wall Crashes Down
One Step Closer in Alabama: the Fendricks Family
Black Newspapers Break a Brick Wall
Are Your Assumptions Leading You Astray?
Follow the Witness: They May Have the Answer
Never Rely on Just the Census
Prove Identity: Don’t Just Match Names
Are You Using Genealogical and Historical Societies in Your Research?
Formulating A Research Question
The 1880 Donut Hole
Beware the Death Certificate
Extracting Every Clue From the Census
Using Charts in Your Genealogy Research
Pauline Waters: Documenting A Life
9 Tips for Family Photographs
Genealogy Resource Recommendations
Clustering at the Cemetery
7 Ways to Jumpstart Your Research
Tips on Using World War Draft Registrations
Searching Ancestry Databases: Things You Should Know
The Application for a Marriage License
Deconflicting “The Same Name”

Slavery/Slave/African-American Research

What You Didn’t Know About Slavery
How Were Slaves Sold?
Slave Surnames: Where Are They From?
Mind of the Slaveowner
Slave Research: Search the Slaveowner’s Wife’s Family Too
Suggestions for the White Descendants of Slaveholders
Freedmens Bureau Labor Contracts
The Complexity of Slave Surnames
Researching Free Blacks
Remembering Jim Crow
Slave Distributions
Slave Research: Four Things You Need to Know
Slave Research in Bibles
A Strategy for Researching Freedmens Bureau Records
A Slave’s Letter to His Former Master
Beyond the Will and Inventory: Tracing Enslaved Ancestors Through Probate
Digital Library on American Slavery
Slaves Search for Their Family Members in Newspapers
Documenting the Slaveowner in Your Genealogy Software
Slaves In Community Papers
Henry’s Slaves: One in a Million
Runaway Slaves
Researching the Slaveowner in Online Books
There Were No Good Slaveowners
Freedmens Bureau Jewels: “They Are a Rather Worthless Couple”

Records and Resource Suggestions

University Theses and Dissertations
Who’s Your Daddy? Bastardy Records
Historic Trust Inventories: Search the Land, Find the People
Voter Registration Records
A Walk Through County Court Minutes
Probate Records: Petition for Letters
Deed Record Bonanza
Ancestor’s College Records
Records of Antebellum Slave Plantations
Extension Service Records
Have You Checked Published Family Histories?
The Joy of Probate
Maps Lead the Way to Better Understanding
Newspaper Research

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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