Research At The National Archives And Beyond!

In 2018, Nichelle Smith started researching 1619 and the story of the first enslaved Africans to land in the Virginia colony. She became fascinated by a woman named Angela, the only African woman listed by name in the colony's 1625 muster.  Four hundred years later, her resilience and survival is so remarkable that Angela was the subject of a recent archaeological dig at Historic Jamestown. Nichelle wanted to walk her path and tell her story. Little did she know that she  would have to go all the way to the interior of Angola to do it. Two months after that reporting trip to Angola, Nichelle traveled to Lagos, Nigeria. Every face she saw mirrored her own. This inspired her to take the DNA tests and uncover her family's ancestors. Through telling Angela's story, she  found 'home' and was forever changed by this journey. Nichelle Smith is the coordinating editor for USA TODAY’s Investigations team and leader of several award-winning race and diversity projects for Gannett and USA TODAY, including Civil Ri

Self Made is Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker. A’Lelia Bundles is the author of On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker, the 2001 New York Times Notable Book about her entrepreneurial great-great-grandmother. Renamed Self Made for the 2020 edition, this biography is the inspiration for the four-part Netflix series starring Oscar winner Octavia Spencer that premiered on March 20.   Ms. Bundles is at work on her fifth book, The Joy Goddess of Harlem: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance, about her great-grandmother whose parties, arts patronage and international travels helped define the era. A former network television news executive and producer at ABC News and NBC News, Ms. Bundles is a vice chairman of Columbia University’s Board of Trustees and chair emerita of the board of the National Archives Foundation. Photograph by Que Duong She is on the advisory boards of the March on Washington Film Festival, the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at Harvar

Join Melissa Barker for a conversation about archiving and preserving records.  Melissa Barker is a Certified Archives Manager and Public Historian currently working at the Houston County, Tennessee Archives. She lectures, teaches and writes about the genealogy research process, researching in archives and records preservation. She conducts virtual webinar presentations across the United States for genealogical and historical societies. She writes a popular blog entitled A Genealogist in the Archives and is a well known Book Reviewer for the FGS Magazine FORUM and Utah Genealogical Association Magazine Crossroads. She writes a bi-weekly advice column entitled The Archive Lady published at Abundant Genealogy. She writes history pieces for her local newspaper The Houston County Herald called From the Archives. Her Professional Genealogy expertise is in Tennessee records and she is currently taking research clients. She has been researching her own family history for the past 30 years.  

  Ric Murphy is an educator, historian, lecturer and award-winning author. He has served as board chair of several organizations and on numerous additional national and local not-for-profit boards. His achievements also includes serving as the National Vice President for the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Association Ric's new publication the Arrival of the First Africans in Virginia is coming out in June (History Press, 2020) and The Legacy of theFirst Africans in Virginia (History Press, 2021). He is a descendant and born to write the true story about the arrival of the first documented Africans to arrive in English North America in 1619.  

A travel video series chronicling Denise’s many adventures around the world. From her 1st international trip to Moscow at 14 to her most recent journey to Ghana, Denise shares her love of international travel with a dose of geography, Black history, travel hacks, and humor. Current episodes include Fiji, Ghana, Cartagena, and Bermuda with many more to come. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiZiRT133Jw

Amateur genealogist Joel Johnson will share his 4x great-grandmother Harriet Rigg’s life story and along the way illustrate how traditional and genetic genealogy leads to a deeper understanding of his enslaved ancestor in Bulloch County, Georgia. His research into county records revealed Harriet and her family had 5 enslavers, all in the same town of Statesboro, GA, and their transition to freedom from clues within two key documents, an estate sale in 1847, and a labor contract with the Freedmen’s Bureau in 1866. Joel Johnson lives in Silver Spring, MD with his family. He has roots in Virginia, Maryland's Eastern Shore, South Carolina, Georgia, and Texas. He is an amateur genealogist and family historian documenting his family's progress through history on his blog Struggle and Progress. He is a 25-year advertising industry veteran and one-time managing director of Spike Lee’s ad agency. Currently, Joel is a founding partner in Admirable Devil, a Washington, DC-based agency. Joel is currently focusing his fa

Turning lemons into lemonade. Anita R. Henderson has found herself sharing with others that this is the start of something new and wonderful, so be alert of how you are in the midst so you can see the beauty and opportunities on the other side. Anita R. Henderson is an instructor who has presented at national, regional, and local events as a keynote speaker, workshop/seminar presenter, panelist, and panel moderator. Her insight into the process of writing, storytelling, marketing, and author publicity invigorates audiences and inspires them to make their dream of becoming a successful author a reality.

Marvin T. Jones will talk about the old family farm where he is staying and working during the pandemic, its USCT roots and its history of providing benefits to his family from1886 to today. Marvin Tupper Jones is a documentary photographer and the director of Chowan Discovery whose mission is to research, document, preserve and present histories particularly in the Winton Triangle area in northeastern North Carolina.  He is also the producer of five documentaries and eight North Carolina Highway Historical Markers.  His website is www.chowandiscoveryorg.

Leonard Smith III is a renaissance man. Since 1975, he has been involved in every aspect of historical research from genealogy, photography, technology, storytelling, film-making, and music. Leonard's company, LS3 Studios, LLC has produced award-winning documentaries about musicians, institutions, and family histories. His most recent project, " A Place Called Desire" was a finalist for best documentary at the San Diego Black Film Festival. It has won a Gold Ava Award and was a semifinalist in the Rootstech Film Fest. It is a story of the community Leonard grew up in the '60s and 70"s in New Orleans. He has a deep abiding love to "educate, entertain, inspire others to tell their story." https://www.ls3studios.com/

Renate Yarborough Sanders is a retired educator, with over 34 years of experience in early childhood (NK-4) education. Except for two years in a private pre-school setting, her entire career was spent teaching in Title 1 schools, where she was celebrated for her successful classroom management techniques, positive and loving relationships with students, and excellent academic outcomes for all learners. Additionally, Renate served as a member of numerous district-wide curriculum and thought committees and served in grade-level and building-level lead positions. Renate, whose certification as an Early Childhood Educator is still active, continues to engage with her district’s students as a part-time reading teacher, a screener for the Title 1 preschool program, and by offering private tutoring services.  Additionally, since her 2017 retirement, Renate, an experienced genealogist, has increased her availability for speaking engagements and working with clientele in that arena.

In the Lost Family, journalist Libby Copeland investigates what happens when we embark on a vast social experiment with little understanding of the ramifications. Libby Copeland is an award-winning journalist who has written for the Washington Post, New York magazine, the New York Times, the Atlantic, and many other publications. She specializes in the intersection of science and culture. Copeland was a reporter and editor at the Post for eleven years, has been a media fellow and guest lecturer, and has made numerous appearances on television and radio.

Join Sharon M. Weinstein for a discussion about how to manage your stress during this difficult time. Sharon Weinstein is Chief Executive Officer, SMW Group LLC and President/Founder of the Global Education Development Institute. She specializes in workforce-related issues including service excellence, outcomes, and stress management. A native of Philadelphia, Sharon completed her nursing education at Pennsylvania Hospital, followed by undergraduate and graduate degrees in business and healthcare administration in Florida and Texas. She holds the coveted Certified Speaking Professional (CSP) designation, the highest earned international recognition for professional speakers. This makes her one of only 17% of all speakers to hold this designation and one of three Fellows of the Academy of Nursing with this credential.

This project seeks to learn, preserve, and disseminate the story of African Americans who homesteaded in the Great Plains. The project is a collaborative effort with Nicodemus National Historic Site and the Homestead National Monument of America. It is partially funded by the National Park Service and the National Trust for Historic Preservation's African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund. The project is producing a general survey of black homesteaders in eight plains states. The research will create the first extensive database of black homesteaders in these states. The project also focuses on six important black homesteading communities or "colonies": Blackdom, NM; Nicodemus, KS; DeWitty, NE; Empire, WY; Dearfield, CO; and Sully County, SD. They are the largest and longest-lived communities in each state. The project is currently working with local partners to build historic markers near the Empire and Sully County sites.  Jacob K. Friefeld is a Research Fellow at the Center for Great Plains S

This show will focus on the short but extraordinary life of Reconstruction era Senator Lawrence Cain of Edgefield, South Carolina.  He was considered an honorable and virtuous man and helped shape South Carolina politics between 1865 and 1877 as one of the leaders of the Radical Republican movement. He rose above numerous obstacles to go from slave to state senator. Over 150 years ago he was at the epicenter of social injustice and racism in South Carolina and became a major leader who fought for political and civil rights. The facts of his life had been forgotten like much of African American history during Reconstruction.  Now the facts and reality of his life have been rediscovered by Lawrence Cain's great great-grandson in this new book with the help of family, genealogy research, archived papers and genetic DNA results.. Kevin Cherry graduated from James Madison University in Virginia and started on a 30 year career in business development and technical sales including AT&T and 20 years at Micr

Angela Walton is a descendant of Choctaw Freedmen--former people enslaved in the Choctaw Nation, by Choctaw Indians. Since discovering her family records in 1991 at the National Archives, she has devoted herself over the years to research Freedmen from all of the former slave-holding tribes of Oklahoma. These are Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole Nations. She is the only nationally known genealogist  who has this specialty, and she had developed a unique perspective of telling stories about the former slaves--the Freedmen from these tribes. Her new book is "Freedmen of the Frontier," which grew out of a project in 2017 where she documented 52 Freedmen families, over 52 weeks---the entire year. In 2018, she decided to turn those 52 blog posts into a 2-volume book set reflecting stories of these 52 families she profiled. She is a blogger, and podcaster and she claims both Arkansas and Oklahoma as her home states. She has a degree in Spanish from St. Louis University and a Master of Education fr

  In 2017, an enslaver's descendant found his 1841 will naming eleven enslaved African Americans. She started trying to research them, and quickly found the difficulties confronting those seeking their African-American ancestors' stories. When she realized she had access to information they would have trouble finding, she created a website -- TheyHadNames.net -- to document the many African-American names found in antebellum Liberty County records. More than 5,000 names from wills, estate inventories, bills of sale, deeds of collateral, and church records have so far been added to the site. These names are missing from other published compilations of these records.  The eleven enslaved people who inspired the site have not been forgotten. The search continues but so far five of their descendants now have their family history back to 1793.   Stacy Ashmore Cole retired from the federal civil service in 2014 to Brunswick, Georgia. She began researching her family history, a hobby that quickly turned into an o

Join author Bernice Alexander Bennett and Angela Walton-Raji for a conversation about Tracing Their Steps- A Memoir. Bernice will discuss her journey to verify her grandmother MaBecky’s story about a lot of land her grandfather Peter Clark, owned in Maurepas, La. Using the bits and pieces shared by MaBecky and conducting painstaking research through an array of obstacles, Bennett identified the land her 2x great grandfather acquired under the Homestead Act of 1862. But, he was not alone:  other African American men also acquired land and supported each other in the application process. Tracing Their Steps: A Memoir will take the reader on a journey to learn how the power of oral history can serve as a guide to capturing not only a beautiful family history, but untold African American history as well.    https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1733648402/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=reseatthenati-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1733648402&linkId=a2b8626f0b2604ea0ee256e3dd8

   The Early Federal Census Worksheet is a genealogy spreadsheet application for Microsoft Excel that allows the easy capture of the decennial U.S. federal census data from 1790 to 1860. Lining up data over time, it creates a visual comparison of the changing composition and geographical locations of families, including white, free nonwhite, and enslaved members of any given U.S. household. Donna Cox Baker is editor-in-chief of Alabama Heritage magazine, headquartered at the University of Alabama She has a PhD in history, hosts the Golden Egg Genealogist blog (gegboundcom) and cofounded the Beyond Kin Project (beyondkin.org.) She is author of two books: Views of the Future State: Afterlife Beliefs in the Deep South, 1820–1865 (2018) and Zotero for Genealogists: Harnessing the Power of Your Research (2019).     Music by AK Alexander - composer, musician and producer

  Join Author  Dr. Antoinette Harrell for a discussion of her new publication - Images of America: African Americans in Tangipahoa and St. Helena Parishes. Leonard Smith III, wrote the foreword for this publication. Dr. Harrell will discuss how she encouraged and mobilized the community to donate photos for this first ever publication in Tangipahoa and St. Helena Parishes. The Images in this series celebrates and documents the priceless images of African American people in the two Louisiana Florida Parishes. Each photograph and each title presents the distinctive stories from the past. Images of African American educators, farmers, pioneers, elected officials, business owners, and others are featured in this rich collection. The rich images tell the story and history of the undocumented history of people who called the Florida Parishes home.

The Descendants of the Slave Narratives—are uniquely positioned, if not obligated, to carry forward the largely forgotten work of our ancestors. At this moment in time, in the 400th year of the first ship landing of Africans in British Colonial America, there is no better time to trumpet awareness about this watershed in our history and to encourage the entire nation to, reflect, reclaim and honor, the history of a people who have contributed greatly to the American story. Regina E. Mason, founder of IBC, is a descendant of William Grimes of Virginia who, in 1825, wrote the first fugitive slave narrative in the U.S. The Life of William Grimes, the Runaway Slave predates antislavery propaganda and is a work of literary independence.  Susi Ryan, fiber artist, and quilter is a descendant of Venture Smith aka Broteer, the son of a Prince. In 1798, he chronicled his capture from Africa and life in New England in A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, a Native of Africa. Vera Williams is a descendant