Genealogy Insider - African-American roots

DNA Tests in Ghana May Shed Light on African-American Origins

Diane — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:33:47 GMT

The Center for African-American Genealogical Research, Inc. (CAAGI), genetic genealogy company FamilyTreeDNA, and the Public Records and Archives Administration Deartment of Ghana (PRAAD) are embarking on a project that may improve the ability of DNA tests to estimate African-Americans’ origins in Africa.

DNA tests designed to analyze origins in Africa often lead to more questions than answers because relatively little is known about the diverse genetics of African tribes. The tested person’s DNA is compared against a database of modern Africans' DNA—but because of historical migration in Africa, the DNA of a given area’s modern residents may not match its original inhabitants.

Ghana (formerly the Gold Coast), located in Western Africa, was the source of an estimated million-plus African slaves. FamilyTreeDNA will test several hundred members of the Nzema, Ga, Fante, Ewe and Asante tribes, all of which were part of the slave trade.

The DNA will be gathered at a workshop CAAGI is conducting this Friday at the PRAAD offices in Accra, Ghana, as part of its Sankofa project to use traditional genealogical sources and DNA to reconnect African families. Attendees will learn about online genealogy databases, preservation of song lyrics and photographs, transcription of family stories, and forensic genealogy.

Ghana was once a UK colony where British, Dutch and Danish merchants traded. PRAAD has a Slave Trade Archives project with microfilm on Danish activities in Ghana from 1658 to 1850; some of the film is digitized online.

Addition: Bennett Greenspan, president of FamilyTreeDNA, provided a bit more information on this project.

Greenspan believes the results, which should be available in three to four months, will “absolutely” help improve analysis of African-Americans’ origins in genetic genealogy tests.

“The results of this outreach will be to both increase the size of the FamilyTreeDNA/AfricanDNA.com comparative databases and the results will also be added to the permanent Hammer collection at the University of Arizona, who will publish on the results of these and other outreach missions to Africa," Greenspan says. "In that way, the data will be published and available to all researchers of Africa.”

The University of Arizona's Hammer Lab is managed by Michael Hammer, FamilyTreeDNA's chief scientist. AfricanDNA.com is the African-American genealogy research firm of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates.

New Digital Library Names Thousands of Slaves

Diane — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:01:51 GMT

Search information from thousands of slavery-related county court and legislative petitions in a new, free resource from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro library.

The Digital Library on American Slavery provides detailed information on more than 150,000 individuals who are named in the petitions, including 80,000 individual slaves and 10,000 free people of color.

The information comes from legal documents, such as wills, estate inventories and civil suits, filed in courts of 15 states and Washington, DC, from 1775 to 1867. Though this database doesn’t contain images of the records, it offers a lot of detail from them.

When you search by name, here's what your results list might look like:

Click the petition number by someone’s name for an abstract that tells you what the petition was about, and the date and place it was filed.

Under “People associated with this petition,” click the links for names of enslaved individuals, defendants, petitioners, etc.

One the resulting page, click a name for information about that person. You might learn the person’s color and sex, slave or free status, occupation, skills, physical attributes, diseases and more. Not every detail is available for each person—it depends what's in the record.

This database lets you connect slaves with owners and others they may have interacted with.

The Digital Library of American Slavery grew out of the Race and Slavery Petitions Project, established in 1991 by Loren Schweninger. The project created a microfilm edition of the petitions and documents called Race, Slavery, and Free Blacks: Petitions to Southern Legislatures and County Courts, 1775-1867. It’s on 151 reels; scroll down on this page for a list of institutions that have some or all of them.

Also see Schweininger’s book, The Southern Debate Over Slavery, Volume 2: Petitions to Southern County Courts, 1775-1867 (University of Illinois Press). The original documents are at state archives and county courthouses.

Michelle Obama's Slave Ancestry Video

Allison — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 15:40:18 GMT

As we reported earlier, our friend and professional genealogist Megan Smolenyak appeared on CBS' Early Show this morning to talk about Michelle Obama's slave ancestry.

Though perhaps not unique among slave descendants, the stories Smolenyak uncovered about Obama's ancestors Melvinia and Delphus are certainly interesting. Here's the video of the CBS interview:

Genealogist Finds Michelle Obama's Slave Ancestor

Grace — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:36:44 GMT

Family Tree Magazine contributor Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak and The New York Times have uncovered documents revealing first lady Michelle Obama's great-great-great-grandmother, a slave named Melvinia. Through probate records, photographs and local histories, the sleuths have pieced together a picture of the life of Melvinia, who labored on farms in Georgia and South Carolina, and her first son, Dolphus—Obama's great-great-grandfather—who became a carpenter and owned his own business in Birmingham, Ala.

The story is absolutely fascinating. You can learn more about it in The New York Times, in ABC's news report, and make sure you watch the below video from Roots Television.

First International Black Genealogy Summit Coming this Month

Grace — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:35:08 GMT

October brings an exciting first in African-American genealogical history. The International Black Genealogy Summit (IBGS) Oct. 29-31 at the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Ind., will be the first mass gathering of all black historical and genealogical societies in the US, Canada and the Caribbean.

"Pulling all the black genealogy societies together has never been done," says conference co-chair Algurie Wilson. "We've all met in our own backyards, but not together. But I've got people coming from everywhere."

IBGS kicks off with a free Thursday pre-conference with workshops, a movie, and extended research hours. Friday and Saturday will be packed with lectures, exhibitors, vendors, and social time (download the schedule here).

"In the workshops, we'll be talking about all the genealogical resources we have," says Wilson. "But besides the workshops, there's great camaraderie. I'm especially looking forward to the banquet and luncheon. We're encouraging African attire. There will be so many beautiful colors. The atmosphere in the room will just be bubbling. I'm also getting an African dance troupe—nobody knows about that yet! I can't wait to hear the keynote speakers, too."

Friday evening's speaker will be Dorothy Spruill Redford, author and nationally recognized interpreter of the African family experience in the South. Hana Stith, curator of the African/African-American Historical Museum in Fort Wayne, will speak at a Saturday luncheon.

Wilson has been encouraged by enthusiastic response despite the difficult economy. "When I talk to someone on the phone and hear their excitement, I realize this is why we're doing it. I've got someone coming on the bus for 17 hours. I'm going to buy that person a drink! That tells you how important it is for us to put this event on."

To Wilson, this event is all about people—both past and present. "I tell new researchers, 'You want to talk to the person next to you. You might find someone looking for the same family tree. You never know what you can discover and more importantly, who you can discover.'"

If you're interested in attending IBGS, visit the conference registration page for more information.

—Sunny McClellan Morton
www.sunnymorton.blogspot.com

Genealogy News Corral: September 21-25

Diane — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 18:44:31 GMT

Is it the end of September already?? Here's our last new roundup for the month

Today’s the last day to get the $55 early bird registration special for the Mesa Family History Expo, Jan. 22-23 in Mesa, Ariz. If you miss the deadline, you still can save by preregistering for $65. Admission at the door costs $75. The exhibit hall is free to the public.

Those with African-American roots, mark your calendars for the International Black Genealogy Summit at the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Ind., Oct. 29 to 31. It’s the first gathering of African-American historical and genealogical societies from the United States, Canada and the Caribbean. Watch this blog for more details.

On his Genealogy Blog, Leland Meitzler reported on the SwedGen Tour, in which a team of Swedish genealogy experts is stopping at several research facilities to give presentations on Swedish genealogy resources (including subscription records site Genline and the Släktdata vital records site) and offer one-on-one consultations. See the schedule and preregister at the SwedGen Tour site.

I came across a neat blog today called Dear Annie. A Minnesota woman is posting 700 postcards (images and transcriptions) that her Great-aunt Annie Bartos, who died in 1983, saved during her 90 years.

Ways to Say "Woot!" for Family History Month 2009

Diane — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:17:07 GMT

Question of the day: What do we celebrate in October? Columbus Day, yes. Halloween. The start of the Christmas season, in most shopping malls.

October also is Family History Month. In 2001, Congress first passed a resolution introduced by Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, who wrote, "By searching for our roots, we come closer together as a human family.”

Similar legislation has passed in several years since. I couldn't find an official declaration for 2009 (anyone else?), but family history enthusiasts continue to celebrate Family History Month in October.

Don’t hesitate to hold your own party. Give yourself a whole Saturday at the library or Family History Center, ask a relative your burning family history questions, put some photos in an album, jot down a family story, or tell your state representative how much you appreciate your public library's genealogy resources. The New England Historic Genealogical Society has more ideas.

Here’s a sampling of genealogy classes and other special events we’ve heard about. Check program schedules for your local library and genealogy society to see what’s going on near you.

The California Genealogical Society and Library in Oakland will waive its non-member library use fee and host a range of how-to workshops during October.

Saturday, Oct. 3, the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County offers classes, Genealogy and Local History Department tours, and free consultations with Hamilton County Genealogical Society experts. More events happen throughout the month, including a library lock-in Oct. 17. See the Genealogy Section of the library’s October Calendar (a PDF download) for more details.

The Fort Myers-Lee County Library in Florida has a free Family History Month class series on Saturdays in October. For more info, mouse over the listings on the library’s online calendar.

The Indiana State Library in Indianapolis has lots of classes planned, including dating photographs, Indiana marriage laws and getting started.

The Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne, Ind., has something going on every day in October, including sessions on house history, female ancestors and Adobe Photoshop, as well as the first-ever International Black Genealogy Summit (Oct. 29-31).

Online genealogy class Web site GenClass is sponsoring a competition for a free genealogy class—write a 1,200 word essay about a creative way you’ve honored your ancestors and what inspired you. Get the entry instructions here.

Have yourself a happy Family History Month!

Genealogy News Corral: August 24-28

Diane — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 15:20:36 GMT

Hundreds of genealogists—your truly included—are packing their bags for the Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference in Little Rock, Ark., Sept. 2 to 5. I’ll write more about the conference in a separate post next week, but in the mean time, you can check out the conference Web site and blog.

The National Archives’ marriage records (1815 to 1866) from the Virginia Field Office of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands (Freedmen’s Bureau) have been digitized and are now available free at the FamilySearch record search pilot site.

Subscription genealogy Web site Ancestry.com and its related international sites will be down for scheduled maintenance for about three hours starting Tuesday, Sept. 1 at 1 a.m. Mountain Time. Portions of RootsWeb, Genealogy.com, MyFamily.com and FamilyTreeMaker.com—which live on Ancestry.com servers—also will be unavailable.

Mark your calendars for National Museum Day Sept. 26, when hundreds of museums across the country will offer free general admission to you and a guest when you present a Museum Day admission card, downloadable from this site.

A Deerfield, Ill., documentarian has created a show called “The Legend Seekers,” which traces family legends of regular people. You can submit your family story at LegendSeekers.com, see others' stories and get research tips. Chicago-area residents can watch an episode on WTTW Channel 11 Aug. 30 at 12:30 p.m. and 3:30 a.m. Aug. 31. (It’ll also run on WTTW Prime—Comcast Channel 243—at 9:30 p.m. Aug. 31, and 4:30 and 9:30 a.m. Sept. 1.)

Genealogy News Corral: July 27-31

Diane — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:19:19 GMT

These are some of the news bits that wandered across our desks this week:

First, a reminder that if you plan to subscribe to Footnote or renew your subscription, stop procrastinating. The $59.95 annual subscription sale ends at midnight tonight (July 31). Also tomorrow, the membership rate goes from $69.95 to $79.95 per year.

Another reminder for those who’ve been meaning to search the Caribbean slave records on Ancestry.com—the free period ends tonight. More on this collection here.

Speaking of Ancestry.com, the new Member Connect features—which let you comment on and correct records, as well as get in touch with other members—went live this week. Click here for more on Member Connect.

The FGS 09 conference is just a month away, Sept. 2-5 in Little Rock, Ark. Get news updates and registration information from the conference blog, and when you’re there, stop by to see us at the Family Tree Magazine booth (#407).

This from Dick Eastman’s blog: The British national archives and UK-based family history site Findmypast.com are giving seven repositories in England and Wales free online access to the recently completed 1911 census records. See Dick's post for the list of archives.

Burr Oak Cemetery Tombstone Images Posted Online

Diane — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:04:29 GMT

The Cook County (Ill.) sherrif’s office has set up a public database to help families affected by the shocking crimes at Burr Oak Cemetery.

In July, authorities announced that about 300 graves in the historically African-American cemetery near Chicago had been dug up, the bodies dumped, and the plots resold. Four cemetery workers are accused of the crime.

Those looking for relatives’ grave sites at the cemetery can search an online database of tombstone images. So far, it has 9,500 names from the roughly 100,000 grave sites.

Searchers can type in a name or browse by year. There’s also a link to view photos of markers with unknown burial years.

Read more about this tragedy in the articles linked here.

Examiner.com's African-American genealogy writer, Michael Hait, takes a close look at the database here.

Genealogy News Corral: July 13-17

Diane — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 16:25:59 GMT

Here are news bits and pieces we turned up this week:

British subscription site FamilyRelatives.com has added the Civil War Roll of Honor listings of more than 276,000 Union soldiers buried in national cemeteries, soldiers' lots and garrison cemeteries.

The East Central Georgia Regional Library's African-American Funeral Program Collection is online (and free) in the Digital Library of Georgia. The 1,000 funeral programs date from 1933 to 2008, with most dating since the 1960s and coming from churches around Augusta, Ga.

The College of Charleston in South Carolina has launched the Lowcountry Digital Library with about 7,500 images (so far) of historical letters, scrapbooks, photos and more.

New social networking site GenealogyWise caught some flak when it announced a contest many members thought encouraged non-genealogical, superficial contributions, then changed the contest but deleted at least one member’s criticisms. See some of the uproar on Twitter here and here. Webmasters are now gathering feedback on a censorship policy. (Update: Here's an apology to the censored member from FamilyLink CEO Paul Allen.)

Online genealogy company (and GenealogyWise owner) FamilyLink has another site coming next week, as hinted on Twitter by CEO Paul Allen: “41% have pictures of ancestors on the walls of their home ... We are launching a new site soon for the other 59%”

Could it be related to this digitization service, announced in 2007 but no longer offered?

Free in July: US Virgin Islands Slave Records

Diane — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 15:52:16 GMT

Ancestry.com has added 200 years of Caribbean slave records with help from the Virgin Islands Social History Associates. You can access the records free through the end of July (you’ll need to register for a free account).

So far, the collection includes St. Croix slave lists from 1772 to 1821 and population censuses (1835 to 1911), which together have information on more than 700,000 slaves, owners and family members.

The slave lists aren’t yet indexed, so you can’t search by name, but you can browse the record images by year. Here's an example:

You can search the census records. Most are in English, but some are in Danish—the islands became a Danish colony in 1754; the United States purchased them in 1917.

New African-American Genealogy Database Coming This Fall

Diane — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:58:59 GMT

If you're researching African-American roots, look for a new database this fall from ProQuest, creator of the HeritageQuest Online genealogy service (available free to patrons of subscribing libraries).

ProQuest African-American Heritage will combine records with research guidance.

Records will include censuses, slave and freedmen records; birth, marriage and death records; church records; court and legal records; genealogies and family histories. Other than the US census and Freedman’s Savings Bank & Trust Co. records (both also are in HeritageQuest Online), ProQuest didn’t name specific records.

Social networking tools come from AfriGeneas, a popular Web site and forum on African-American genealogy; an exclusive version of the classic guide Black Genesis by James M. Rose and Alice Eichholz (Genealogical Publishing Co.); and other reference books.

For more information about ProQuest African-American Heritage, to watch a video and to sign up for a notification e-mail when the service is released, visit ProQuest's Web site.

CNN Site Explores African-American Family Histories

Diane — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 17:22:21 GMT

CNN iReporter Neal Kelley, of Lawrenceville, Ga., has traced his African American family’s roots to his great-grandfather, a slave in Louisiana in 1842, and he’s hoping to discover his ancestors’ African homeland.

The story of Kelley’s genealogical explorations is part of the Journeys section on CNN’s Black in America Web site.

As you listen to Kelley and other iReporters talk about their families, you see their ancestors’ migrations on a map and a slideshow of family documents and photos.

You also can hover over states on the map for statistics on African-American residents now and then.

Click the surnames above the map to see each family’s story. Click Nation for an overview of historical African-American migrations by era. Use the Submit or see all link at the bottom of the page to share your own photos and videos.

Free African-American Genealogy Records Site Launches

Diane — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 20:17:25 GMT

AfriQuest, the free African-American genealogy records-sharing site that’s been in the works for a year, launched over the weekend.

Use the search box on the home page to search or browse records (stored on the wiki WeRelate.com) including Freedman’s Bank and Freedmen’s Bureau documents, estate inventories, wills and more.

AfriQuest webmasters hope you’ll submit your digitized genealogical records. Register with the site and submit a document here.

You also can submit your family stories.

Look for guide to tracing slave ancestors in the July 2009 Family Tree Magazine (on newsstands May 5).

South Carolina Slave Records to Go Online

Diane — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 19:08:00 GMT

More genealogy records are coming to Lowcountry Africana, a Web site and research project to study the Gullah/Geechee cultural heritage of those with African-American roots in South Carolina, Georgia, and northeastern Florida.

Working with the South Carolina Department of Archives and History, Lowcountry Africana will digitize more than 25,000 documents from Charleston estate inventories dated 1732 to 1867. They include the names of more than 30,000 slaves.

More than 14,000 South Carolina bills of sale (1773 to 1872), most for transactions involving slaves, also will be digitized. They’re already indexed along with other resources on the South Carolina Archives Web site (click Series Descriptions to see what all else is there).

The index and digital images will be free on both Lowcountry Africana and the South Carolina archives’ site. You can volunteer to index the records at AfriQuest, another Lowcountry Africana site.

Slave Spies Helped Win Civil War

Diane — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 14:41:20 GMT

Interesting article on CNN today about African-American slaves who helped the Union effort in the Civil War by spying on their Southern owners.

After Confederate president Jefferson Davis’ slave William Jackson escaped in 1861, he provided the Union with valuable information he’d overheard about supply routes and strategy. Harriet Tubman, Robert Smalls and countless others also delivered secret intelligence. Union soldiers called their reports “black dispatches.”

Ken Dagler, author of a book titled Black Dispatches (who’s also “written extensively on the issue for the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence”) tells CNN that slaves’ reliance on oral tradition gave them practice memorizing details.

For the life of me, I couldn’t find Dagler’s book online to link to. But I did find this article on the CIA Web site by a P.K. Rose of the CIA Directorate of Operations, and a Library of Congress listing for a book Black Dispatches also by P.K. Rose.

Waaaaaaait a minute. Dagler works for the CIA ... so does P.K. Rose ... are you catching my drift?

More Civil War Records on Ancestry.com

Diane — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:07:35 GMT

Subscription site Ancestry.com has joined the records-posting party on this occasion of Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday. Here's what's new in the site's Civil War collection:

The Abraham Lincoln Papers includes more than 20,000 letters written to and from the president, as well as drafts of his speeches. (This collection is free.)

New Orleans Slave Manifests, 1807 to 1860, has ship manifests (from National Archives microfilm) documenting more than 30,000 slaves en route to New Orleans from the upper Southern states.

You can browse the record images, but you can't search them yet. World Archives Project volunteers are indexing them as you read this. See some transcribed information free on Afrigeneas.

Confederate Pension Applications from Georgia includes more than 60,000 records documenting pension applications Confederate soldiers and their widows filed in Georgia. (Search some of these free on the Georgia State Archives Web site.)

Confederate Applications for Presidential Pardons contains records of former Confederates who requested pardons.

Lincoln successor Andrew Johnson issued a proclamation of general amnesty for Confederates, but it didn't cover certain groups such as government officials, higher ranking military officers and those with property valued at more than $20,000. Those people had to apply for pardons.

Civil War Soldier Records and Profiles has information on nearly every officer and soldier who fought in the Civil War (compiled from sources such as state rosters and regimental histories).

101 Best Web Sites: African-American Roots

Diane — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 18:55:06 GMT

In observance of Black History month, this week we’ll highlight Web sites from our “Best for African-American Researchers” category:

Lowcountry Africana: This free site focuses on records that document the heritage of African-Americans in the historic rice-growing areas of South Carolina, Georgia and northeastern Florida, home to the distinctive Gullah/Geechee culture. Records include those of the wealthy Drayton family, which owned several plantations, plus Freedmen's Bureau and Freedman's Bank papers.

Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy 1719-1820: Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Ph.D. compiled the data on this gorgeous free site. Its powerful search tools comb through information on 100,000 Louisiana slaves.

See the rest of the 101 Best Web sites on FamilyTreeMagazine.com, or go right to the African-American roots sites.

See our African-American genealogy research toolkit here.

More African-American Records Coming to Footnote

Diane — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 21:05:46 GMT

The subscription records site Footnote announced the launch of its Black History collection this week.

Records currently in the collection have been on Footnote for some time, but expect to see more soon as webmasters add new digitized records from the National Archives and Records Administration. The new records will be free during February, spokesperson Justin Schroepfer tells me.

Here’s what you can look forward to:

Records of the US District Court for the District of Columbia Relating to Slaves, 1851-1863: These include slave schedules, manumission papers and case papers relating to fugitive slaves.

Records for the Emancipation of Slaves in the District of Columbia, 1862-63: These meeting minutes, docket books and petitions pertain to slaves’ emancipation.
Registro Central de Esclavos 1872 (Slave Schedules): These registers of slaves in Puerto Rico list the enslaved person’s name, country of origin, name of parents, physical description and owner’s name.
Records Relating to the Suppression of the African Slave Trade and Negro Colonization, 1854-1872: These are letters, accounts and other documents.

Correspondence of the Military Intelligence Division (MID) Relation to "Negro Subversion," 1917-1941: These document the MID's monitoring of African-Americans involved in labor and other social movements.

The new records will join the Colored Troops service files, Amistad case files, Southern Claims Commission petitions and others already in the Black History collection. Some of these records (such as the Amistad case files) are free; others are available with a $69.95-per-year Footnote subscription.

New Site Details Slave Ships' Voyages

Diane — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 19:56:00 GMT

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.

Researching African-American Historical Newspapers

Diane — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 21:22:56 GMT

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):

ProQuest Black Newspapers, a database available free through many public libraries—see a description here

Chronicling America, a Library of Congress site with digitized newspapers including Washington, DC’s The Colored American

Freedom’s Journal, published in New York City, is digitized at the Wisconsin Historical Society Web site.

African-American Newspapers (1829-present), information from Princeton University on 200 papers published in 31 cities.

Local and state historical societies are good sources of microfilmed African-American newspapers published in the area (for example, here is a list of 80 titles available at the Kansas Historical Society). You might be able borrow papers on microfilm through interlibrary loan.

British Colonial Slave Records Cover 1812 to 1834

Diane — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 12:26:36 GMT

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.

Free Site Has Lowcountry Slave Records

Diane — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 12:15:24 GMT

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).

Lowcountry Slave Genealogies Released March 29

Diane — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 13:12:08 GMT

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.

Cooking up Stories of Presidents' African-American Chefs

Allison — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 16:30:03 GMT

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."

Footnote Offers Free Records for African-American History Month

Diane — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 13:58:14 GMT

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.

the program from the Aug. 28, 1963, March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, during which Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech. Take a look, especially if your relative was one of the approximately 250,000 who marched.

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.

More Resources for Cincinnati Researchers

Diane — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 19:19:43 GMT

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.

Watch African-American Lives 2 Premiere This Week

Diane — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 19:22:22 GMT

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.

New Online Magazine Highlights African-American Genealogy

Diane — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 20:58:41 GMT

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.

NY Times Asks "How Helpful is Ethnic DNA Testing?"

Diane — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 17:16:37 GMT

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.

AfricanDNA Testing and Research Service Launches

Diane — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 21:13:00 GMT

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.

Just-Discovered Slave Records Go To Pennsylvania Museum

Diane — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 14:10:40 GMT

A county recorder of deeds discovered historical slavery-era papers in old Allegheny County, Pa., deed books. (Allegheny County is home to Pittsburgh.)

Read in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette how a county employee found the papers.

The office transferred handwritten documents recording the legal status of 56 African-American slaves to the Senator John Heinz History Center. The oldest papers date to 1792, the year Peter Cosco purchased his freedom from John McKee for 100 pounds.

The history center will make the papers available to researchers in its library and online.

You can find tips and resources for researching African-American ancestors in FamilyTreeMagazine.com's online toolkit.

Project to Bring SC Slave Lineages Online

Diane — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 17:28:31 GMT

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.