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 Wednesday, December 10, 2008
New Site Details Slave Ships' Voyages
Posted by Diane
A new site just launched to preserve the story of the slave trade and the Africans who became part of the largest forced migration in modern history.  Voyages has an African Names database with details on more than 67,000 slaves who were captive on slave vessels during the 19th century. None of those Africans made it to the Americas, though—the ships were captured by naval cruisers after Britain and the US outlawed the slave trade in 1807. (Britain abolished slavery altogether in the British West Indies in 1838; the United States prohibited it in 1865.) For that reason, and because Africans were identified by given names only, it's unlikely you'll find an ancestor here. A Voyages database
details nearly 35,000 journeys of ships (but not the passengers) that did deliver
slaves to the New World—you'll see the name of the ship, captain's
name, year, and where slaves were purchased and sold. Through its essays, maps and charts, the site sheds a fascinating light on the slave trade from 1514 until the last recorded slave voyage to the Americas in 1866. Estimates show 12.5 million African slaves were transported across the Atlantic between 1525 and 1866. As late as 1820, nearly four Africans had crossed the Atlantic for every European. The databases were compiled from data scholars have collected over decades, and published online thanks to several grants. See Voyages' Understanding the Database section for in-depth guidance on using the site.
African-American roots
12/10/2008 2:56:00 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00) 
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Monday, August 11, 2008
Researching African-American Historical Newspapers
Posted by Diane
Tune in to the most recent Genealogy Guys podcast to hear about a new resource for African-American researchers, Finding and Using African American Newspapers by Tim Pinnick (Gregath Publishing). Genealogists often shy away from searching through old newspapers because it requires digging up the names of sometimes-obscure titles, and often traveling to the library and enduring lots of microfilm-scrolling. And most of us seem to assume our ancestors weren’t newsworthy, anyway. In an excerpt on his Web site, Pinnick ticks off the benefits of historical newspapers for African-American researchers in particular: articles that associate an ancestor with a slaveholding family, birth and death dates before vital records were kept, freed slaves’ notices seeking information about loved ones, society pages with family members’ comings and goings. A few additional resources for African-American newspapers (feel free to click comment and add others you know of): - Freedom’s Journal, published in New York City, is digitized at the Wisconsin Historical Society Web site.
African-American roots | Genealogy Web Sites
8/11/2008 5:22:56 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Thursday, April 10, 2008
British Colonial Slave Records Cover 1812 to 1834
Posted by Diane
Those with African ancestors from the Caribbean, Sri Lanka or other former British colonies, take note: Slave registers of former British colonial dependencies, covering 1812 to 1834, are now part of subscription database sites Ancestry.co.uk (which also has a pay-per-view option) and Ancestry.com. The registers name 2.7 million slaves and 280,000 slave owners in 17 former dependencies: Antigua, Bahamas, Barbados, Berbice (part of what's now Guyana), Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Dominica, Grenada, British Honduras (now Belize), Jamaica, St. Christopher, Nevis, the British Virgin Islands, St. Lucia, Trinidad, Tobago, St. Vincent and Mauritius (an island off the coast of Africa). Other information includes parish, age of slave, and sometimes, birthplace. Often, a slave used the surname of his owner, and ages were generally guessed. Hundreds of thousands of African slaves worked on sugar, tea and tobacco plantations in British colonies. Britain made the slave trade illegal in 1807 and outlawed owning slaves in 1834. Starting in 1812, slave owners had to complete slave registers every three years so the government could stem illegal trading. Not all of the paper registers are part of the Ancestry.com or Ancestry.uk collection, including some from Jamaica, St. Christopher, Grenada, Dominica, Nevis, St Lucia, Demerara, Berbice, Montserrat, Bermuda, St. Vincent, Mauritius and the Cape of Good Hope. The originals are at the British national archives. You can find more on researching British Colonial-era slaves at the national archives Web site. FamilyTreeMagazine.com offers tips and resources for finding Caribbean ancestors.
African-American roots | Genealogy Web Sites
4/10/2008 8:26:36 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Free Site Has Lowcountry Slave Records
Posted by Diane
Tidal marshes in the coastal areas of South Carolina, Georgia and extreme northeast Florida lent themselves to rice cultivation. Plantation owners would seek out slaves from Africa’s Windward Coast—Senegal, Gambia, Sierra Leone and Liberia—where rice was indigenous. The traditions of these Africans make up the rich Gullah-Geechee culture, and their lives are the focus of Lowcountry Africana, a free Web site that launched last Saturday with research guidance and records. Its Lowcountry Lives link serves up life stories (hosted on project partner We Relate, a genealogy wiki) of Lowcountry ancestors. Right now, stories cover slaves from Drayton family plantations and their descendants. An online Research Library has a reading room (which links to off-site articles), resources for teachers, and links to free African-American databases on the historical records site Footnote, another Lowcountry Africana partner (most of Footnote’s records are by subscription or pay-per-view). The Search Records link takes you to the Lowcountry Africana Community in the AfriQuest database (also hosted by We Relate, AfriQuest will launch June 19 with a range of user-contributed records). There, you can browse records or search by name, place and/or keyword. Matches link to source information and images or transcriptions. For example, the 1871 Freedman's Savings and Trust Record listing for Ceasar Smith linked to a transcription showing his birthplace, residence, age, occupation, family members’ names and more (naturally, you still want to find the original record). The records also include bounty claims (shown below) and other documents from Freedmen’s Bureau field reports, as well as wills, estate inventories, Southern Claims Commission records and papers from Drayton family records.  You can submit your own records to Lowcountry Africana, too (click Help on the Submit Items page for instructions).
African-American roots | Genealogy Web Sites
4/2/2008 8:15:24 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Thursday, March 27, 2008
Lowcountry Slave Genealogies Released March 29
Posted by Diane
The Lowcountry Africana Web site will launch this Saturday with groundbreaking research on genealogies of slaves on Drayton family plantations in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Texas and Barbados. Researchers from the University of South Florida Africana Heritage Project and descendants of slaves who lived on the plantations collaborated to compile and interpret the records. The Magnolia Plantation Foundation of Charleston, SC, sponsored the project and free genealogy wiki WeRelate.org helped develop the site. Many of the records came from Drayton Hall Plantation (shown below in about 1880), also in Charleston, which holds the family’s papers.  Lowcountry Africana will focus not only on Drayton plantation records, but also on those from throughout the former rice-growing areas of the coastal Southeast, which gave rise to the Gullah-Geechee culture.
African-American roots | Genealogy Web Sites
3/27/2008 9:12:08 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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Monday, February 18, 2008
Cooking up Stories of Presidents' African-American Chefs
Posted by Allison
NPR aired a fascinating Presidents Day segment in the Kitchen Sisters series about George Washington's and Thomas Jefferson's slave chefs—and the little-known culinary contributions they and other African-Americans have made to White House history. You can read a synopsis and listen to the story online. If you aren't familiar with Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva's Kitchen Sisters series, it's dedicated to exploring and preserving social history through food. Browse the archive for other stories of interest to family history and pop culture buffs, including " America Eats: A Hidden Archive of the 1930s" and " The Birth of the Frito."
African-American roots | Social History
2/18/2008 11:30:03 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Thursday, February 07, 2008
Footnote Offers Free Records for African-American History Month
Posted by Diane
The subscription and pay-per-view historical records service Footnote is making some of its collections free during February to commemorate African-American History month. Those include: - records from the Amistad case. The Spanish slave ship was illegally transporting African “cargo” in Cuba in 1839 (Spain had outlawed the slave trade) when the enslaved passengers revolted. The crew members sailed to Long Island Sound and the United States seized the ship. After a long trial, the Africans (whose counsel included former president John Quincy Adams) were declared free.
- Southern Claims Commission records of southerners' petitions for compensation for crops, livestock and other supplies Union troops seized during the Civil War. Testimony of witnesses, both black and white, appears in many claims. More than 20,000 claims were filed.
Most of Footnote’s records are the product of its year-old partnership with the National Archives and Records Administration. Footnote has more than 26 million digitized images and adds 2 million new ones each month. Registered members of the site can upload their own records and narratives. A Footnote subscription costs $59.95 per year; you also can purchase a record image for $1.95.
African-American roots | Genealogy Web Sites
2/7/2008 8:58:14 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Wednesday, February 06, 2008
More Resources for Cincinnati Researchers
Posted by Diane
We got a note from our hometown Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, which already has one of the best public library genealogy collections in the country, about its recently expanded Genealogy and Local History Department and its new online goodies. The new department consolidates materials previously spread throughout the library, making room in public areas for 7,000 more books and 8,000 reels of high-demand microfilm. Its Cincinnati Room lets patrons access historical materials such as local newspapers and manuscript collections. Librarians also will schedule one-on-one consultations to help direct patrons’ research. Visit the department’s Web site to take a video tour and link to research databases. Check out the librarians’ list of favorite online resources for Cincinnati-area research, too. Digitized historical materials also have made it onto PLCHC’s Virtual Library. Those include several 19th-cenury Cincinnati city directories and volumes such as the 1868 The Black Brigade of Cincinnati: Being a Report of its Labors and a Muster-Roll of its Members, the 1838 Report of the First Anniversary of the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society, and the 1852 Annual Announcement of Lectures of the Miami Medical College of Cincinnati. Click on a book cover to download the file as a PDF.  One of the John Seegers listed in this 1866 city directory may or may not be my ancestor; I'll have to go home and check. We’re interested in hearing what's new at your favorite genealogy library—click Comment and let us know.
African-American roots | Libraries and Archives
2/6/2008 2:19:43 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Watch African-American Lives 2 Premiere This Week
Posted by Diane
Plan to park yourself in front of your TV tomorrow night to watch " African-American Lives 2," the latest in a succession of Henry Louis Gates-hosted shows that has genealogy experts tracing the roots of well-known African-Americans. The two-part series premieres Feb. 6. Producers added a twist this year: Everyday folks could apply to have their own pasts explored along with those of 11 VIPs, including actor Don Cheadle, comedian Chris Rock and Olympic athlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee. Of the more than 2,000 applicants, producers selected Kathleen Henderson, a college administrator in Dayton, Ohio. A week or so ago, Henderson told me a legend her family proudly exchanges at reunions about the source of their Woodbridge surname. “When slavery ended, our ancestor left the plantation and struck out on his on,” she said, explaining that the story got more elaborate depending whom you asked. “He wanted to shed himself of the remnants of slavery, so he took nothing, especially not the master’s last name. After he left the plantation, the first thing he came across was a wooden bridge, so that’s where the name came from.” You’ll have to wait until the show airs to find out this freedman’s identity and the truth behind the family legend. Henderson also says the show’s researchers dug up some information on her father’s mother that “blew my mind.” On the "African-American Lives 2" Web site, you can meet Henderson, quiz yourself on source documents the researchers used, hear from genetic genealogy experts, and see the show participants’ ancestral events plotted on a historical timeline. Henderson sees what she learned as a springboard for more discoveries. “It’s part of a chapter, or it’s the first edition. It answered a lot, but it set up more questions for us.” Check local air times on the show's Web site.
African-American roots
2/5/2008 2:22:22 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Tuesday, January 29, 2008
New Online Magazine Highlights African-American Genealogy
Posted by Diane
The Washington Post today launched The Root, an online magazine for African-Americans. It covers current events and culture, but its name says genealogy. So does its editor—Henry Louis Gates, the Harvard University history professor who became a household name after helping Mae Jemison, Oprah Winfrey and other well-known African-Americans find their roots in PBS' 2006 series “ African-American Lives.” One of the online magazine's three main sections, Roots features an article on getting started, a video about ethnic DNA testing and several book recommendations. It also has video clips from this season’s " African-American Lives 2," in which Gates works with more famous folks and one applicant from the ranks of everyday citizens. From there, the Mapping and Family Tree links both go to a free family tree builder (you must register to use it). The DNA link, after flashing past a disclosure faster than one could hope to comprehend the first sentence, takes you to Gates’ AfricanDNA testing and research service. I’m hoping to see this site grow—especially considering its name, there’s so much more to African-American genealogy research and resources than it currently covers.
African-American roots | Genealogy Web Sites
1/29/2008 3:58:41 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Tuesday, November 27, 2007
NY Times Asks "How Helpful is Ethnic DNA Testing?"
Posted by Diane
Did everyone read the article on ethnic genetic genealogy testing in Sunday’s New York Times? It was somewhat critical of the industry with regard to DNA tests for African origins. Reporter Ron Nixon said test results are often conflicting and confusing, and testing companies focus more on marketing than on communicating the limitations of ethnic DNA testing. Nixon sent his own DNA to five companies for a mitochondrial (mt) DNA test and got strikingly different results: Reports named from two to 12 ethnic groups, for a total of 25 possibilities. Nixon also interviewed representatives of several test companies, as well as Harvard historian and "African-American Lives" host Henry Louis Gates. Gates’ first mtDNA test in 2000 reported Egyptian roots; one from another company in 2005 concluded he had European, not Egyptian, ancestry. One reason for mixed results is testing companies’ proprietary comparison databases of DNA profiles from modern people. Databases may be skewed toward particular ethnic groups and not represent other groups. Furthermore, people have been moving around Africa for eons. Your DNA could match someone who lives in a particular area today, but whose ancestors came from elsewhere. Another issue is that there’s still so much to learn. In our November 2007 Family Tree Magazine African-American research guide, Roots Project director Bruce Jackson, PhD, said “We have a poor understanding of the genetics of African groups ... Identical genetic markers or signatures (called haplotypes) are found among different African ethnic groups for reasons that are not clear.” Jackson went on to note scientists have studied only 1 percent of African ethnic groups, which doesn’t even include all those who were sources of the slave trade to North America. Gates is attempting to address these issues by partnering with FamilyTreeDNA on AfricanDNA, a project offering DNA tests paired with genealogy research services for $888 to $1,077. If that's not in your budget, do this: Research "on paper" as much as you can before turning to DNA. More African-American resources are out there than many people realize. (See our online toolkit and updates on this blog for tips.) Then decide what you want DNA testing to tell you and carefully research your options to pick the best test. Make sure you understand the limitations of DNA testing: As you see here, results can be inconclusive, and you don’t learn where specific ancestors came from. If you don’t understand your results, ask your testing company for help and consult sources such as Trace Your Roots with DNA by Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak and Ann Turner (Rodale, $16.95). Share your thoughts on the Times' article in the FamilyTreeMagazine.com Hot Topics Forum.
African-American roots | Genetic Genealogy
11/27/2007 12:16:37 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Friday, November 16, 2007
AfricanDNA Testing and Research Service Launches
Posted by Diane
Henry Louis Gates Jr., the Harvard professor who hosted PBS’ “African-American Lives” series, is partnering with genetic genealogy company FamilyTreeDNA to launch AfricanDNA. The new service will provide provide African Americans with family tree research in addition to DNA testing. The genealogy part is important, says Gates, because of the limits of genetic testing. “The available DNA data are not by any means complete, and these tests will not yield the names of any of the individuals on our distant family trees—just the general geographic areas in which our ancestors lived. Sometimes the tests yield multiple exact tribal matches, making it necessary for historians to interpret the most plausible result.” AfricanDNA offers mitochondrial DNA and Y-DNA tests for $189 each ($378 for both). Results are compared to FamilyTreeDNA’s database of DNA profiles from around the world. A board of scholars from institutions such as Emory University and Boston University will help interpret customers’ results. Test takers can opt for the Genealogy Package ($888 for one test or $1,077 for both), which includes a documented lineage as far back as records permit.
African-American roots | Genetic Genealogy
11/16/2007 4:13:00 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
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Wednesday, November 14, 2007 Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Project to Bring SC Slave Lineages Online
Posted by Diane
For African-American genealogists, breaking through the brick wall of slavery can require thorough, painstaking research into the records of the slaveowning families—with no guarantee of success. You can’t simply log on to a Web site and expect to find meticulously researched and reconstructed lineages of slave families that connect all the dots for you. But that’s exactly what three organizations plan to create for descendants of the slaves of Charleston, SC’s Magnolia Plantation and others operated by the Drayton family. In a project funded by the plantation’s foundation, the University of South Florida’s all-volunteer Africana Heritage Project will pore over the Draytons' plantation journals to re-create the family trees of its slaves. Those family files will be posted on genealogy wiki WeRelate, where family history researchers will be able to access them for free. Africana Heritage Project founding director Toni Carrier says the files—in GEDCOM format—will appear gradually as the research progresses. "We aim to have the first batch up by mid-July," she says. Magnolia Plantation is also collaborating with the Africana Heritage Project on a new Web site to be launched in March 2008: Lowcountry Africana will document African-American heritage in South Carolina, Georgia and northeastern Florida’s historic rice-growing region—in particular, its unique Gullah/Geechee culture. The site will feature slaveholding families’ plantation records, a searchable database of primary historical documents, name indexes to Lowcountry history and genealogy books, historical photographs and more. Carrier encourages genealogists and families with ties (or suspected ties) to Drayton family plantations to contact her organization. "We would love to invite them to join this exciting journey of discovery," she says.
African-American roots
6/26/2007 1:28:31 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
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