Research At The National Archives And Beyond!

    With The Lost Empire: Black Freemasonry in the Old West (1867-1906), James R. Morgan III artfully transports readers to the period when western outlaws ruled the territories and brings them face to face with the black men who brought enlightenment, guidance and protection to the formerly enslaved through organization. At the vanguard was Captain William Dominick Matthews--Freemason, Civil War officer and abolitionist--who became one of the most illustrious and controversial figures of his time. This book takes an in-depth look at the role Freemasonry played in shaping African American culture, and examines the lives of the most prominent black Freemasons of the period as well as their internal and external battles. Captain Matthews followed his own rules of masonic leadership, informed by the violent and fast paced time in which he lived. This was the west and this is how it was won for Black Freemasonry! James R. Morgan III is a graduate of the Howard University in Washington, D.C. where he obtained

Keme Nzerem and Sam Rinehart are descendants of slave owner John Rinehart of Edgefield, South Carolina. They are interested in finding descendants of slaves owned by their family. Keme Nzerem is a British Journalist with a Nigerian father and German American mother. He has discovered that his mother's family - the Rineharts of Edgefield owned slaves.

During the closing days of the American Civil War, a little-remembered document, a census of the Federal Military Districts, was created. The document entitled, Census Department of the South – November 1864: For Jacksonville, Fernandina and St. Augustine, Florida – Ordered by the Department of the South, Hilton Head, South Carolina, proved to be an effective tool in augmenting genealogical research. That research led Yvonne Emanuel to the ultimate discovery of some unknown and formerly enslaved family members. This session will briefly review that discovery by showing how an unknown or little used document can aid in your research. Yvonne learned about family history from an aunt who once told her a family secret. As a child she wondered about what she was told, but did not know how to find out information regarding the story. Today she knows how to locate such information and assists others with their research. Yvonne makes presentations throughout Texas as a member of the East Texas Historical Associatio

Join Christopher Smothers for a heart wrenching story about Henry Brookhart, the man who was beaten, lynched and survived during the 1876 election season in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana. Christopher Smothers founded Unearthing Your Roots, Inc. in January of 2018,  to provide professional genealogical services to people in search of their biological families and ancestors abroad. A native of Marietta, Georgia, Christopher is currently an undergraduate student in Interdisciplinary Studies at Chattahoochee Technical College while also planning to be in Boston University's Certificate Program in Genealogical Research in 2019. His ancestral roots are in Southeast Louisiana, Mississippi, Maryland, and Virginia.  https://unearthingyourroots.org/ unearthingyouroots@gmail.com

Rodney Sam will discuss the uniqueness of Louisiana Creole genealogy and a personal journey to learn about his Louisiana Creole heritage. He has conducted extensive research on the following surnames in his family: Sam, Rideau, Edward, Desmerais, Donato, Masse, Senette, Pitre, Charles, Jacques, Young, Fruge, LaChapelle, Tesson, Birotte and Meullion. The geographic locations for his research are in the following Louisiana parishes of St. Landry, Evangeline, St. Martin, Lafayette and  to a lesser extent St. Mary parish. Rodney Sam is an avid genealogist who has pursued a lifelong passion in studying the history, genealogy and culture of his Louisiana Creole ancestors. He currently works as a Library Services Specialist at the Clayton Genealogical Library in Houston.

Panelist will discuss A Mind to Stay - White Plantations - Black Homeland. This story researched and written by Sydney Nathans begins in 1844, when North Carolina planter Paul Cameron bought 1,600 acres near Greensboro, Alabama and sent out 114 enslaved people to cultivate cotton and enlarge his fortune. Syd Nathans is a historian and author of "A Mind to Stay," which tells the story of a white plantation that became a black homeland to formerly enslaved people. Based on decades of oral interviews with descendants, the book illuminates how African Americans got land and why successive generations fought to hold it for 150 years. Angela Peay is a Stagville descendant. Angela’s genealogy quest has traced her direct maternal ancestry to Durham, North Carolina’s State Historic Stagville Plantation Site. Her maternal great grandmother was born in 1863 which was right at the cusp of slavery’s end.  She is pending lineage results from Ancestory.com. She currently works in the Pharma/Biotech field. Michael William

  After Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941, thousands of Japanese and Japanese Americans were incarcerated in “Internment Camps.” German and Italians were also interned, but in smaller numbers. The various sites of confinement and the records created will be examined, covering the period of time immediately preceding World War II through resettlement and redress. Linda Harms Okazaki is a fourth-generation San Franciscan with a background in education. She is a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists and the Genealogical Speakers Guild. Linda currently serves as past president of the California Genealogical Society. Her column, Finding Your Nikkei Roots, is published bi-monthly in the Nichi Bei Weekly. She is a contract researcher at AncestryProgenealogists, and in 2015, she and her husband founded the genealogy research company, Linda’s Orchard. An active member of the genealogical community, she is passionate about teaching people of all ages to research, document, and share their personal

Join Ada Anagho Brown - President of Roots to Glory Tours for a discussion about reconnecting with your ancestral home on the African continent.  Mrs. Brown and other Root Seekers will share their most recent experiences in Cote D' Ivoire. Ada Anagho Brown is a native of Cameroon whose family moved to the United States in 1975. She is the third child of the current Chief of Ngwo located in the Njikwa subdivision of Cameroon. Over the years, she has dedicated her life to promoting Africa.  For several years she worked with a non-profit American based organization whose mission was to give back to the children of the United States through music and culture. For the past five years, she has organized trips to Cameroon, Benin, and Nigeria with African Americans who traced their DNA to to those countries.  In 2012 she launched Roots to Glory Tours. Roots to Glory Tours is a company dedicated to “Bridging the Gap” between the United States and Africa.     www.rootstoglory.com

  For 21,609 young African American men who called North Carolina home, the First World War meant leaving families and familiar Tar Heel communities. The military service and sacrifice of those tens of thousands of black North Carolinians, however, are not well known among historians or the public. Their contributions, individually and collectively, have been generally ignored, simplistically rendered, represented by only a few, hidden away in disparate and scattered sources, or carried to the grave without articulation or preservation. The war’s centennial offers an opportunity to examine that void and to highlight the collective service black North Carolinians rendered. Janet G. Hudson is a historian, two-time winner of the Stephen L. Dalton Distinguished Teacher Award, and author of the prize-winning book, Entangled by White Supremacy: Reform in World War I-era South Carolina. Her project, Black Soldiers Mattered, is an online digital humanities project that explores African American soldiers from No

In 1838, Georgetown University and the Maryland Jesuits sold nearly 300 enslaved men, women and children to sugar plantations in southern Louisiana in orderto recuse the college from bankruptcy.  Until late 2015, Georgetown University folklore said that all of them quickly succumbed to fever in the malodorous swamp world of Louisiana, leaving no trace and no descendants.   But this wasn’t true. The Georgetown Memory Project was founded in November 2015 to discover what really happened to the Georgetown slaves sold in 1838.  The GMP was founded by Georgetown alumni, and receives no financial assistance whatsoever from Georgetown University or the Maryland Jesuits. To date, the Georgetown Memory Project has discovered that 206 of the Georgetown slaves were transported to Louisiana in 1838, while 91 more were left behind in Maryland.  In addition, the GMP has identified, located and verified more than 6,178 of their direct descendants (living and deceased).  This is their story. Richard J. Cellini, Esq. i

Examine the genealogical resources to trace your Puerto Rican Ancestors. Dr. Ellen Fernandez-Sacco is an independent scholar with over 14 years of experience as a genealogist. An expert in Puerto Rican genealogy, she works to increase access to information on enslaved and Indigenous ancestors. She is past president of the California Genealogical Society and a panelist on Black ProGen Live. Dr. Fernandez-Sacco seeks to expand knowledge of connections to the Caribbean through her blog. Her most recent post on Juan de la Rosa uses various resources to reconstruct context and the families connected to an enslaved ancestor to make their networks more visible. latinogenealogyandbeyond.com

  Lynn Rainville is the Acting Dean of Sweet Briar College, where she also directs the Tusculum Institute for Public History. Although her PhD is in Near Eastern archaeology, she has spent the last two decades studying historic American cemeteries, segregated schools, enslaved communities, poor farms, and World War I. She is the author of several books, includingthe recently released Virginia and the Great War (2018), Hidden History: African American Cemeteries in Central Virginia (2014), and the forthcoming book, Invisible Founders: How Two Centuries of African American Labor Transformed a Plantation into a College (2019). For more information: www.lynnrainville.org.

By Any Other Name: An Exploration of Afro-Amerindian Heritage is a documentary film that discusses the interactions between Africans and American Indians from in the United States, with an emphasis on the state of Georgia in the 18th through the 20th Centuries. Steven D. Gayle is a filmmaker and educator originally from Philadelphia, PA now residing in the Atlanta area.  Steven earned his Bachelor’s in History Education from The University of North Carolina at Pembroke and a Master of Arts in Media and Communications from Norfolk State University. He is currently pursuing his PhD in International Conflict Management at Kennesaw State University. He has worked in the educational and media production fields for nearly a decade and is constantly seeking new ways to incorporate the two disciplines in different formats. In 2011 he co-produced, co-Wrote and directed the feature-length documentary about the musical history of Hampton Roads Virginia entitled, "7 City Legacy,"  which is now in the College of William

The O'Kelleys will discuss building bridges and healing the divide in the racial culture of America. They are an example that the horrible system from the past of slavery doesn’t have to linger into hate or dislike between races today. Many Americans share DNA of mixed ancestry.  We must come together as a nation understanding that we really are all family! Joyce Ann Huston from St. Louis, MO is a vocalist, trumpeter & genealogist enthusiast that began following a presentation on her family tree at the Las Vegas O’Kelley Family Reunion she hosted in 1991 where she resided for 25 years. She always loved hearing family stories from the elders & attending reunions. Ms. Huston was successful in finding one of her white slaveowner descendant lines whom they share DNA & embrace each other as family. In 2017, they appeared on St. Louis’ NBC News, in the Post-Dispatch & have appeared on multiple media outlets. Argie Hoskins-Shumway b. in 1935, resides in Provo, UT. She’s done extensive genealogical

The Price for Their Pound of Flesh includes photographs, illustrations, newspaper clippings, advertisements, extensive lists of appraisal and sale values, quotes, poems, letters, and songs from the time period. Additionally, Berry’s focus on sharing a diversity of stories of and from enslaved people illuminates their experiences and feelings in direct response to their understanding of their monetary values and position as property. “Despite being traded as commodities from the womb to the grave,” Berry writes, “enslaved peoples understanding of their soul values transcended the external values placed upon their bodies. And with this realization, their souls were at peace.” This is the first book to explore an enslaved person's ascribed value throughout their lifespan, including before birth and after death. The book represents more than a decade of Berry's original research and insight into the history of the slave trade in American. Daina Ramey Berry is an associate professor of history and African and Af

 Professional Genealogist. Kenyatta D. Berry will discuss her Slave Ancestral Research on Universities Studying Slavery. Kenyatta D. Berry,  Professional Genealogist, Entrepreneur and Attorney with over 20 years of experience in genealogical research and writing. She began her genealogical journey whilst in law school studying at the State Library of Michigan in Lansing. A native of Detroit, Berry graduated from Bates Academy, Cass Technical High School, Michigan State University and Thomas M. Cooley Law School. She has deep roots in Detroit, the city her ancestors have lived since the 1920’s.   Berry, Host on Genealogy Roadshow (PBS), has been featured on several morning news shows in various markets and made a splash with her appearance on The Real (FOX), where she revealed the DNA results of the Hosts. Her most recent appearance on For Peete's Sake (OWN) is generating a buzz surrounding her expertise in the field of Genealogy.    A frequent lecturer, writer and television personality, Berry focuses on

  This discussion is on documenting ourselves and leaving a blue print for future genealogist.  We are the era of baby boomers; we have seen and participated in a lot of history in our life time. It will take 72-years or more after our death for our family to research us and, we can leave them a blue print so that they do not have to wait to find out about us. Char McCargo Bah is the CEO/Owner of FindingThingsforU, LLC.  She has been a genealogist since 1981 and has appeared in television interviews with CBS, FOX-5, Comcast, PBS -  just to name a few and documentaries. Char has received numerous awards for her work in genealogy.  She was the City of Alexandria’s genealogist on the Alexandria Freedmen and Contraband Cemetery and became a Living Legend of Alexandria in 2014. She is co-author of “African Americans of Alexandria, VA: Beacons of Light in the Twentieth Century.” Char has over 41 articles with the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society (AAHGS) in a column called Char’s Corner”  She is t

Antoinette Harrell a Peonage Detective has spent countless hours in the National Archives in Washington, D.C., conducting peonage research in Class 50 (Peonage) Litigation Case Files, 1907 – 1973.  The Class 50 litigation case files were created or accumulated by the Civil Rights Division in carrying out the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) responsibilities in matters arising under statutes implementing the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Many African Americans were physically forced or sometimes beaten to return to former employers to work off their debts. The files contain correspondence, memorandums, telegrams, newspaper clippings, transcripts of testimonies, FBI reports of investigations, and indictments.   Antoinette has spent the last five years interviewing and documenting the history of Donald Jeffery who lived his entire life on Ballground Plantation.  VICE Documentary is producing a 30-minute documentary on her research. Her peonage and involuntary servitude research has been featured in P

The GLEAMNS Dr. Benjamin E. Mays Historical Preservation Site has been established on the campus of GLEAMNS Human Resources Commission  is located in the old African-American Brewer Hospital, the site and source of African-American healthcare in Greenwood County before desegregation.  The site, adjacent to and part of the old Brewer School has its origins back to 1872, was chosen because of its historical significance to black life in Greenwood County.  The birth home of Dr. Mays, previously listed as one of South Carolina’s Eleven Most Endangered Properties, was originally located in a pasture in SE Greenwood County in the community of Epworth.   The site includes the original Burns Spring School from the Epworth area that is identical to the Brickhouse School that Dr. Mays attended as a child. The Barn that serves as modern museum. The museum captures Dr. Mays’ life in over 100 professionally framed photos and contains many of his personal items. The museum contains a theatre that seats fifty-five and is e

Andre Kearns's research comes from the perspective of an African American genealogy hobbyist. Advances in DNA testing offer African Americans the possibility of leapfrogging brick walls created by slavery to connect to ancestral roots by analyzing family history documented within DNA.  Andre will share strategies he’s used to advance his research as a hobbyist and highlight how he’s leveraged DNA testing to reveal white slave owning ancestors, uncover free people of color ancestors and re-connect family branches.  Andre Kearns has deep roots in the American south and a passion for discovering new ancestors and learning their stories. An African American, he knew he descended from enslaved persons and likely slave owners which DNA analysis has helped confirm. Through his research he also discovered ancestors that were free people of color long before the civil war, Native American, and multi-racial persons. Discovering this ancestry has unlocked previously unknown rich aspects of American history. Andre is a