Research At The National Archives And Beyond!

Did you know that the majority of Freedmen's Bureau records are now digitized and available online for free, as well as the records of other institutions that served newly-freed African Americans during Reconstruction? Angela Walton-Raji and Toni Carrier have built a new website called "Mapping the Freedmen's Bureau - An Interactive Research Guide" (www.mappingthefreedmensbureau.com) to assist researchers in locating and accessing records of the Freedmen's Bureau, Freedmen's hospitals, contraband camps and Freedman's Bank branches. Researchers can use the website's interactive map to learn which of these services were located near their area of research interest. If the records are online, the map provides a link to the records that tell the stories of newly-freed former slaves in the American south. The goal of this mapping project is to provide researchers, from the professional to the novice, a useful tool to more effectively tell the family story, the local history and the greater story of the nation duri

The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism Historian Edward E. Baptist reveals in The Half Has Never Been Told, the expansion of slavery in the first eight decades after American independence drove the evolution and modernization of the United States. In the span of a single lifetime, the South grew from a narrow coastal strip of worn-out tobacco plantations to a continental cotton empire, and the United States grew into a modern, industrial, and capitalist economy. Until the Civil War, Baptist explains, the most important American economic innovations were ways to make slavery ever more profitable. Through forced migration and torture, slave owners extracted continual increases in efficiency from enslaved African Americans. Thus the United States seized control of the world market for cotton, the key raw material of the Industrial Revolution, and became a wealthy nation with global influence. Told through intimate slave narratives, plantation records, newspapers, and the wo

GO STAND UPON THE ROCK (2014) is a deeply moving Civil War-era novel based on stories handed down by Sam Lemon's grandmother about the lives of her grandparents who were once runaway slaves from Virginia. It is a tale of unsettling plantation life, courageous women, dramatic Civil War battles, heroes, hoodoo, and the indomitable strength of the human spirit. The book is supported by historical and genealogical research, photographs, and documents from his doctoral dissertation. This is a compelling and emotionally engaging history that comes alive through the lives of real people and events.  Dr. Sam Lemon grew up in Media, Pennsylvania, where his maternal great-great grandparents arrived as runaway slaves during the Civil War. Given refuge and support by local Quakers, his ancestors prospered and became prominent members of the community. He is currently an assistant professor and the director of a graduate program at Neumann University in Pennsylvania, and formerly worked in the fields of social services,

"Whenever Mommy tells stories of the past, she usually begins with Back There, then..." Linda Crichlow White BACK THERE, THEN  was written by Marietta Stevens Crichlow in the 1990s and discovered by her daugther Linda Crichlow White in 1999. Linda will share her story and offer words of wisdom to others considering writing a historical genealogy memoir. A working knowledge of the lives and accomplishments of our ancestors provides us not merely with a look back but a look "in."  Marrietta's Introduction... Linda Crichlow White received her B.S. from West Virginia State College and M.S. in Human Ecology from Howard University. She taught home economics in both Brooklyn and DC Public Schools before attending Catholic University, earning a Masters in Library Science. She also worked as a School Library Media Specialist in Montgomery County, Maryland prior to her retirement in 2013.  

A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life, published by Harvard University Press, examines the phenomenon of racial passing in the United States from the late eighteenth century to the present. Allyson Hobbs is an assistant professor in the history department at Stanford.  She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard and she received a Ph.D. with distinction from the University of Chicago.  She has received fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Clayman Institute for Gender Research, and the Center for the Comparative Study of Race and Ethnicity at Stanford.  Allyson teaches courses on American identity, African American history, African American women’s history, and twentieth century American history. She has won numerous teaching awards including the Phi Beta Kappa Teaching Prize.  She has appeared on C-Span and National Public Radio and her work has been featured on cnn.com and slate.com.    

  Rebecca J. Scott, author of Freedom Papers: An Atlantic Odyssey in the Age of Emancipation, and co-authored with Jean M. Hébrard, will discuss how they traced one family across five generations and three continents, into slavery and then back into freedom. Freedom papers is the 2012 Recipient of the Albert J. Beveridge Award and the James A. Rawley Prize in Atlantic History - American Historical Association. Scott teaches history and law at the University of Michigan. She is also a recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Genealogist Angela Walton-Raji has committed herself to sharing information with the descendants of the Freedmen of Indian Territory--which is now Oklahoma. She is the author of  the book Black Indian Genealogy Research: African American Ancestors Among the Five Civilized Tribes. The book serves as a guide to researching the history and lives of the 20,000 Freedmen of Indian Territory, who have been deleted from American history. She is also the author of the http://african-nativeamerican.blogspot.com. The Dawes Commission, named after Henry C. Dawes who chaired the commission, consisted of a process that would lead to a redistribution of land to those who already owned it among the Five "Civilized" Tribes. Understand that land was held in common by the Five Civilized Tribes. The Dawes Enrollment process was created to determine who would be eligible for allotted parcels of land. Eligibility involved providing "proof" that one had been a part of the tribe for several decades, and especially in those years im

Forging Freedom: Black Women and the Pursuit of Liberty in Antebellum Charleston For black women in antebellum Charleston, freedom was not a static legal category but a fragile and contingent experience. A deeply researched social history, Forging Freedom reveals the ways in which black women in Charleston acquired, defined, and defended their own vision of freedom. Drawing on legislative and judicial materials, probate data, tax lists, church records, family papers, and more, Myers creates detailed portraits of individual women while exploring how black female Charlestonians sought to create a fuller freedom by improving their financial, social, and legal standing. Examining both those who were officially manumitted and those who lived as free persons but lacked official documentation, Myers reveals that free black women filed lawsuits and petitions, acquired property (including slaves), entered into contracts, paid taxes, earned wages, attended schools, and formed familial alliances with wealthy and power

Have you ever considered searching records of incarceration to find your ancestors?  Whether researching a notorious family outlaw or a victim of early 20th century justice, there’s a good chance that you have an ancestor who has been incarcerated. Researching records of incarceration at local, state or federal penal institutions can reveal valuable family history information and also document shameful community patterns of social and economic abuse against blacks.  Join Sharon Batiste Gillins for an engaging discussion on the genealogical value of searching records of the incarcerated. Sharon Batiste Gillins is a native of Galveston, Texas with paternal ancestral roots in St. Mary Parish, Louisiana and maternal roots in Fort Bend County, Texas. A life-long interest in her family's history led to an active involvement in researching African American family history over the past 25 years. While researching her own family, she developed an in interest in unique and under-utilized record systems and record gr

  Records of Ante-Bellum Southern Plantations with Jean L. Cooper Welcome, Jean L. Cooper, a Cataloger and Reference Librarian, and Genealogical Resources Specialist at the University of Virginia Library.  Ms. Cooper received the Virginia Genealogical Society’s Virginia Records Award in 2009 for her work in indexing the Records of Ante-Bellum Southern Plantations microfilm collection. She has a B.A. from Alma College (Alma, MI), and an M.L. from the University of South Carolina (Columbia, SC). Records of Ante-Bellum Southern Plantations is a set of microfilms that contains images of manuscript materials from fourteen different libraries and archives across the South.  The entire set includes 1500 reels of microfilm, each with approximately 1000 frames resulting in 1.5 million manuscript images of material written primarily between the American Revolution and the Civil War. The items indexed include deeds, wills, estate papers, genealogies, personal and business correspondence, account books, slave lists,

Bernice Bennett welcomes Judy Riffel, a professional genealogist  for an engaging discussion about what you need to know about records and documents in Louisiana. Judy has authored numerous books and articles on genealogy, and she is an officer in one of the largest genealogical groups in the state, Le Comité des Archives de la Louisiane, and editor of its quarterly journal. She also offers Louisiana Genealogy Research Services: www.judyriffel.com

If you only know the name of a grandparent, then how do you go back three or four generations to find their slave ancestors? Konnetta Alexander shares touching stories of finding her slave ancestors going back three and four generations.  With inspiration from journal entries of an Antebellum, slave account book written by slaveholder Daniel Graham, the lives of unrelated slaves provides documentation of slave life from which Konnetta uses as her guidebook to find and document slaves.  While making national presentations about the life of Matila Graham, house slave, Konnetta tells the story of every house slave!  Calling out the last names of her slave ancestors:  Clark, Miller, Moorman, Peay, Prince, Quinn and Ramsey. Join in as discoveries unfold in Finding Our Slaves. With 20+ years of genealogy digging, Konnetta has three projects: researching family, transcribing and making public excerpts of the slave journal, and performing interpretative presentations about the lives of Free Persons of Color and Sla

  Michael N. Henderson, Author, Lecturer, Family History Researcher will explore the reasons why leaving a legacy of your genealogy research is important. Michael Nolden Henderson, Lieutenant Commander, U.S. Navy retired,  began his genealogy journey almost 30 years ago. Henderson is the author of Got Proof! My Genealogical Journey Through the Use of Documentation, his memoir detailing his discovery of an enslaved ancestor who gained her freedom in Spanish colonial Louisiana in 1779. In 2014, he was awarded finalist in the 50th Georgia Author of the Year Awards from the Georgia Writer’s Association. Henderson is the first and only African American member of the Georgia Society, Sons of the American Revolution. He is also a member of other lineage societies, including the General Society of the War of 1812.  He is a lecturer who speaks frequently to groups nationwide, and is the recipient of the 2013 James Dent Walker Award for Excellence in African American Genealogical Research. He is a native of New Orlea

Join genealogist, Sharon Batiste Gillins for a discussion of Record Group 105 of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. She will share her experiences in locating records in this rich genealogical resource available at the National Archives. The Freedmen's Bureau was established in the War Department by an act of Congress on March 3, 1865. The life of the Bureau was extended twice by acts of July 16, 1866 and July 6, 1868. The Bureau was responsible for the supervision and management of all matters relating to refugees and freedmen, and of lands abandoned or seized during the Civil War. Sharon Batiste Gillins is a native of Galveston, Texas with paternal ancestral roots in St. Mary Parish, Louisiana and maternal roots in Fort Bend County, Texas. A life-long interest in her family's history led to an active involvement in researching African American family history over the past 25 years. While researching her own family, she developed an in interest in unique and under-utilized record system

Join author, lecturer, television and radio host Antoinette Harrell for a discussion of her new book The Department of Justice - Slavery, Involuntary Servitude and Peonage. The 13th Amendment to the Constitution outlawed slavery and certain forms of involuntary servitude. The Department of Justice files contain complaints made by persons (victims) who were being held against their will or forced to work off debts through threats and intimidation by employers or others. Most of the victims were negroes who were beaten to return to former employers to work off their debts. These files contain correspondences, memorandums, telegrams, newspapers clippings, transcripts or testimonies, FBI reports of investigation and indictments. Antoinette Harrell, a renowned genealogist whose genealogical research has been featured on Nightline News, People Magazine and many other national and international public media. Harrell is the host and producer of Nurturing Our Roots Television and Nurturing Our Roots Blog Talk Radio.

Join Joseph McGill for a discussion on site in a slave cabin at the Hopsewee Plantation in Georgetown County, South Carolina. Since May 2010, Joseph McGill has spent a night in over 50 extant slave dwellings in the states of Alabama, Connecticut, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia, all in an attempt to bring much needed attention to these often neglected structures.  Known as the Slave Dwelling Project, it has been successful in highlighting the stewards of properties that are doing all that is necessary to preserve, interpret, maintain and sustain these structures.  The project has also identified many structures that are in desperate need of restoration.  What started as a personal quest has now evolved into a not-for-profit organization.  The project’s popularity does not allow McGill to sleep in these places alone anymore.  On Thursday, May 29, 2014, McGill spent the night in a slave cabin at Hopsewee Plantation in Georget

Have you just received your results and have no idea how to analyze them? What do you know about Identical by Descent (IBD) and Identical by State( IBS)?  Have you lowered the threshold on your DNA matches and discovered that you match everyone?  Should you do this and is it a valid indicator for identifying matches?  Shannon Christmas will discuss how DNA analysis, when used in concert with traditional genealogical research methods, can help family historians overcome challenges unique to genealogy research.  He will also answer your burning questions concerning the various DNA test. Shannon Christmas is an experienced genealogist specializing in genetic, colonial American, and African-American genealogy in Virginia and the Carolinas. He serves as a 23andMe Ancestry Ambassador, administrator of The Captain Thomas Graves of Jamestown Autosomal DNA Project, co-administrator of The Hemings-Jefferson-Wayles-Eppes Autosomal DNA Project, and blogger of Through The Trees, “a didactic guide to new tools and techno

The Washingtons of Wessyngton Plantation: Stories of My Family’s Journey to Freedom with John F. Baker Jr. Genealogy expert John F. Baker Jr. was born in 1962, in Springfield, Tennessee and has lived his entire life just a few miles from Wessyngton Plantation, in a town populated by hundreds of descendants of its slaves. His book, The Washingtons of Wessyngton Plantation: Stories of My Family’s Journey to Freedom, was published by Atria, a division of Simon & Schuster.  When Baker was in the seventh grade, he discovered the story of his ancestors when he saw a photograph of four former slaves in his social studies textbook.  Months later he learned that they were his grandmother’s paternal grandparents, Emanuel and Henny Washington, who were once enslaved on Wessyngton Plantation.  The plantation was founded in 1796 by Joseph Washington, a distant cousin of President Washington.  He has interviewed dozens of individuals ranging from 80 to 107 years old to collect their oral histories.  He studied more th

Do you have South Carolina roots?  Are you aware of the history of the large slave owning community of the Old Edgefield District?  What resources are available to assist you with your research? Join the co-authors of Our Ancestors,Ours Stories, Harris Bailey, Jr., Bernice Bennett, Ellen Butler, Ethel Dailey and Vincent Sheppard for a discussion about the resources they used to find information on their ancestors. You will find in Our Ancestors, Our Stories an historical overview of life and events in South Carolina, and particularly Edgefield, and a compilation of four unique stories depicting the discovery of the African American experience.  www.thememorykeepers.net  

Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-first Century Dorothy Roberts, an acclaimed scholar of race, gender and the law, joined the University of Pennsylvania as its 14th Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor with a joint appointment in the Department of Sociology and the Law School where she also holds the inaugural Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mosell Alexander chair. Her pathbreaking work in law and public policy focuses on urgent contemporary issues in health, social justice, and bioethics, especially as they impact the lives of women, children and African-Americans. Her major books include Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-first Century (New Press, 2011); Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare (Basic Books, 2002), and Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty (Pantheon, 1997). She is the author of more than 80 scholarly articles and book chapters, as well as a co-editor of si