Your Guide to Finding African American Ancestors

Societies you may want to join

• Michigan
  • The Fred Hart Williams Genealogy Society is dedicated to researching African American families.  It meets at the Detroit Public Library. 
    • Here is their calendar
  • Lansing Area African American Genealogical Society. It usually meets at the State Library in Lansing, but be sure to check the website for any given month.
• National
  • The Afro-American Historical and Genealogical  Society
    • As a member you will receive their semi-annual journal.
      • This index to back issues will give you an idea of what material you will find in this publication.
    • If you can attend an annual conference, you will almost certainly find you can learn a great deal in just two days.
      

Selected Online Sites for More Information.

Guides and Data

Guides to Research

• These Wiki articles will be helpful:
  • The Source: African American Genealogy -- note there are more categories to view in box, upper right.
  • Family Search Research Wiki: African American Research Portal
    • links often don't work to take you directly to a FamilySearch.org page. If you get taken to the main page, search WIKI "African American" to find it.
• Ancestry.com has a portal that specializes in African American Research on Ancestry.com You can view it at
• View these videos
  • Burroughs. Avoid Traps in African American Research
  • Sholes. Making a Breakthrough in your African American Research
  • Finding Records of Your Ancestor Part A: African American 1870 forward.
• Hogan. African American Research.
  • This link will probably just take you to an Ancestry cover page. In the search box, type Hogan and you will find articles by her, including a few on African American Research.
• Because many records on African Americans are kept at the National Archives, you will want to read the NARA Page on African American Heritage.
• See also these articles in Prologue: Quarterly of the National Archives and Reccords Administration "Genealogy Note" articles on African American research using records in the National Archives.
• African American Genealogical Research at the Library of Congress (a video) is spot on if you are planning a trip to DC, but contains helpful information for any researcher.
• Allen County Public Library's African American Genealogy Gateway is a combination listing of links and books to help you with your reseach. Very nicely organized and wide ranging.
• You might find it interesting to browse the pages that are part of the African Genealogy Webring
• Do you like to subscribe to and keep up on blogs? Christine's website provides a list of blogs that focus on African American research and will help you continuously learn.

Data: These sites might include instructive information, but also have data that will help you as you research

• Take time to explore these two major sites; I should have said, "take a lot of time to explore..."
  • AfriGeneas. Use the links on the very top green bar to navigate the site.
    • or work from their site map
    • See especially their online tutorial African American Genealogy: An Online Interactive Guide for Beginners.
  • Christine's Genealogy ; this site is an excellent way to keep up with new developments in the study of African American history and genealogy.
• A few years ago ProQuest partnered with AfriGeneas to offer a new subscription database to libraries called "African American Heritage." Did your library subscribe? Unfortunately the timing coincided with a terrible economy that resulted in sharply pared budgets for libraries, probably resulting fewer libraries than otherwise might have purchasing it
  • Here is a video that describe African American Heritage .
  • Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne Indiana, which has a wonderful genealogy collection, subscribes., but you must use it on-site.
• A historical background is essential --Blackpast.org contains over 10,000 pages "dedicated to providing information to the general public on African American history in the United States and on the history of the more than one billion people of African ancestry around the world." You will want to begin with the Users Guide to the site

Specific Topics of Interest (both pre and post 1865)

Burial / Census / DNA / Church / Migration / Military / Newspaper / Reconstruction /

Burial Records: For general information, see: Guide to Researching Cemetery & Funeral Home Records.

Cemetery: Did the person die at a time and place when he or she would have been buried in a segregated cemetery or a segregated part of a larger cemetery? These were often called "colored" cemeteries or sections

• FamilySearch.org Wiki: African American Cemeteries
• AccessGenealogy has links to pages of links to African American Cemeteries in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia.
• African American Cemeteries Online -- links to online transriptions of African American cemeteries.
• An interesting article about slave cemeteries ; if you google the words SLAVE CEMETERIES you will find many such articles online, as well as some transcriptions and information about specific cemeteries. To see if there is something of interest in an area you research, add a place name. For example, try googling these three words: slave cemeteries mecklenburg
• "History of African American Cemeteries" -- a very interesting overview of practices, mostly relating to slave burials.
• Lay Down Body Living History in the African American Cemetery 1996 (find in a library) (review)

Funeral Home

• FamilySearch Wiki: African American Funeral Homes
• African American Funeral Homes in the USA suggests contacting the National Funerßal Directors & Mortician's Association, which is comrpised of directors and morticians of Black funeral homes.
  • Sometimes a website will tell you how long the funeral home has been in business; here is an example
  • see also their article Home Going Funerals: An African American Tradition
• To Serve the Living: Funeral Directors and the African American Way of Death 2010 (find in a library)

Census: For general information, see Guide to Researching Census Records.

• FamilySearch Wiki: African American Census
• Ancestry Wiki from The Source: African American Census Schedules/African Americans in the Federal Census
• NARA Website: PowerPoint titled: African Americans in the Federal Census 1790-1930 (.pdf)
• Wikipedia: Race and Ethnicity in the Unitd States Census.
• Work all census records, 1940 back
  • 1880-1930 names birthplace of parents, which is especially helpful for those with slave ancestry, although we must worry about accuracy.
    • 1900 and 1930 and 1940instructions were to not designate "mulatto"; 1910, 1920 distinguished between mulatto and Negro or Black.
  • 1870 is the first census to name all persons; officially tried to distinguish black from mulatto.
  • There are separate enumerations for slaves 1860 and 1850 of each slave owned by a specific person, giving age, gender and distinguishing whether black or mulatto. (only for those states in which slavery was legal). Only the owner is named except in rare circumstandes when a slave's name is included.
    • 1850 also asks number of slaves manumitted and number who are fugitives from the state.
  • 1820 , 1830 and 1840 provide age breakdowns for "free colored persons" and "slaves" in a household, but the groupings differ than those for white families. Remember: not all free blacks were in households headed by a person of color.
  • 1790, 1800 and 1810 asks only the total number of slaves in the household and total number of "all other free persons", i.e. non white, excluding Indians. Remember: not all free Blacks were in households headed by a person of color.
    • Free Black Heads of Families 1790 (National Archives Publication Special List #34) An alphabetical index, broken down by state. Nice for an overview, but note it does not break down by county or town.
      
• African American Census Records Online (from Afrigeneas)
• Christine's Genealogy website also includes links to various census transcriptions that are available online

Church: For general information, see Guide to Finding and Using Church Records

• FamilySearch.org Wiki: African American Church Records
• Wikipedia: Black Church
  • African American Episcopal Church, founded 1816, Philadelphia
  • African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, officially formed 1821, New York City, but in operation prior to that.
  • National Baptist Convention, formed 1880
  • Church of God in Christ, formed 1907
  • National Black Catholic Congress
• Directory of African American Religious Bodies (find in a library.)
• Finding the records
  • Archives:
    • Here is an example of Bethel A.M.E. Church (Detroit) records held at the University of Michigan Bentley Library
    • The Richard Allen Museum houses a Bethel A.M.E. Archives Collection. (finding aid)
    • Exmple: Chain Lake Missionary Baptist Church Records
  • Filmed at Family History Library
    • Remember to check both state and county
    • example of WPA Inventory of A.M.E. Church Records: Michigan Conference
  • Examples:
    • Slaves Named in Alabama Episcopal Church Records
    • Slave and Free People of Color Baptimal Records in the Archives [Archdiocese of New Orleans]

DNA (Genetic) For general information, see Guide to DNA & Genealogy (but it is an outdated page, so not really)

• African Ancestry is a commercial servicethat claims to be able to determine the ancestral tribe. I'm afraid I don't have the expertise to recommend it or not recommend it, but here are two cautionary articles:
  • Out of Africa -- But From Which Tribe?
  • Discovering African Ancestry Through DNA Testing.
• Video: Dr. Henry Lewis Gates Genealogy, Genetica and African American History (1 hour, on Youtube; the meat of the talk is in the last half hour)

Migration:

• Visit the website for "In Motion" a site designed to help African Americans understand and trace the migrations of their ancestors. It has a huge database... 17,000 pages of text, 8, 350 photographs and 65 maps. It will take you some time to explore the wealth of information there.

Military:

• For a brief summary of African American particpation in military conflicts, see African American Freedom Fighters: Soldiers for Liberty.
• FamilySearch Wiki African American: Military also gives a brief overview of black particpation in military conflicts
• African Americans in Early American Military History
• Black Loyalists
• African American Warriers
• You can search for Civil War regiments (and regimental histories) by ethnicity at the National Park Service's Civil War site.

Names and ages:

Name

• Myth: slaves are likely to have the surname of the last owner. Fact: some do; some don't.
• Myth: slaves had only first names. In fact many slaves took surnames, but they kept the surname a secret from Whites. Some slaves who used surnames secretly kept the name; some did not.
• You might assume all members of the family took the same surname. This was not necessarily the case, especially when there were adult children or families separated while in slavery.
• You might assume that once you learn a name, that will the name taken at emanciation. Some former slaves changed their names one or more times, possibly to make recovery more difficult, should emancipation be rescinded. Possibly to fit into a part of the family that took another surname.
• Because of the heritage of slavery, surnames for African Americans may be connected to other families or simply adopted as a choice upon emancipation. "Large Slaveholders of 1860 and African American surname matches from 1870" :
• In 2001 Tom Black undertook a study to determine the correlation of surnames of slave owners with surnames of freed slaves. He estimates that in 1860, slaveholders of 200 or more slaves, while constituting less than 1 % of the total number of U.S. slaveholders held 20-30% of the total number of slaves in the U.S. His study of these large slaveholders spans 150 southern counties in 10 states and direct descendants of slaveholders can determine if their ancestor was in this category; African American descendants of persons who were enslaved in a particular County in 1860, if they have an idea of the surname of the slaveholder, can check this list for the surname. If the surname is found, they can then view the census image elsewhere for the details listed regarding the sex, age and color of the slaves.
• In his article "What's in a Name" (Family Chronicle Feb. 2007 p. 17) Rick Crume notes that since may African Americans have Welsh names, there is the argument that many slave holders were Welsh and mentions an interesting website that argues against this notion: Why do Welsh names seem to be so common within the African American community ? 
• To find others researching African-Americans, search the Afrigeneas Surname Database and Registry.

Ages

• Slaves ages were often approximations; be careful not to be too exact when using post 1870 census records.

Newspapers: For general information, see Guide to Newspaper Research, this website.

America's first African-American newspaper began in 1827 in New York City.

• Video: African American Newspapers in Genealogy Research (1 hr. 10 minutes, so get your popcorn)
• These three reference volumes will help you identify African American newspapers.
  • Bibliographic Checklist of African American newspapers. 1995. (find in a library)
  • See if your local public library has this book (if not, suggest they purchase it-- it is a classic ) African American Newspapers and Periodicals: a National Bibliography and Union List. 1999. (find in a library)
  • Finding and Using African American Newspapers. 2008 (find in a library)
  • ONLINE: At Chronicling America, you can find a list of African American newspapers that were published in the United States.
    
    • This list is sorted by title; note you can also sort it by state or date

• To locate African American newspapers digitized and available online
  • Freedom's Journal, is available online; this was the first African American newspaper, started 1827.
  • U.S. African American newspapers digitized, searchable and available online at Chronicling America.
  • Afro Archives (Baltimore and DC)
  • Collections listed below are available only through subscribing libraries. Check to see if your library, or a nearby library, subscribes. Don't overlook university and college libraries; often you can use the subscription in the library.
    • Accessible Archives offer a collection of African American newspapers, described here.
    • ProQuest offers a collection Black Newspapers, described here.
    • A sub section of Readex. America's Historical Newspapers. To select only African American, click on the link "more newspaper collections" by the search tag, upper left corner, then select African American. The collection is described here.
  • The subscription service GenealogyBank.com has a searchable collection of African American Newspapers 1827-1999
    • click on a state at the bottom of the page to see what newspapers are available for that state. You can search the whole database(at the very bottom of the page, under the list of states), a specific state or an individual newspaper.

Reconstruction

The Freedman's Bank AND Freedmen Bureau records (note: these are two separate entities)

• Freedman's Bank and Freedmen Bureau -- a brief summary

Records of the Freedman's Savings and Trust Company, aka Freedman's Bank records(National Archives Record Group

• FamilySearch Wiki:African American Freedman's Savings & Trust Company Records
• Prologue article: Freedman's Savings & Trust Company and African American Genealogical Research
  • Note: Signature records can be found at these websites
    • FamilySearch.org (free)
    • Heritage Quest (free, through your local library)
    • Ancestry.com (at your local library if you don't have a subscription)
  • There were signature recrords for 29 field offices, but not all survive. Here is a chart showing what is available.
    • Here is an example of a record

Records of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. (National Archives Record Group 105); aka Freedmen's Bureau records.

• Freedmen Bureau Family Search Wiki: note there are three types of records, the Field Office records being the most useful for the genealogist.
  • Note especially the chart which shows what records are available from the Family Search Library
• Ancestry Redbook Wiki: Freedman's Bureau
• These records are kept at the National Archives and that is where you will find the most comprehensive descriptions:
  • NARA website page Freedman's Bureau 1865-1872
• NARA website page African American Reference Reports
• Print publication: Preliminary Inventory of the records of the field offices of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands 1973 (purchase on CD ROM) -- I am not sure how necessary this is, given the site above. And I believe records have been filmed since it was published.
• A quick way to find records at the Family History Library is to search by subject RECONSTRUCTION [STATE] -- for example a search for Reconstruction Alabama brings up this list
• Glossary of terms used in the records

Records online--these are incomplete sets of records; the whole is not available online.

• Freedmen Bureau online -- includes some Freedman's Bank records
• Freedmen's Bureau Marriages 1815-1869 (free at FamilySearch.org)
• Available in Ancestry.com's African American Collection (Subscription)

Southern Claims Commission (1871-1873)

• Wikipedia: Southern Claims Commission
• FamilySearch Wiki: Southern Claims Commission
  • This is a very important summary as it tells what has been filmed, what has been digitized and where it can be searched.
  • If a document has not been filmed, you must use it at the National Archives.
• Southern Claims Commission papers are available at the subscription database Fold3. If you don't subscribe, you can access this in a Family History Center and in some public libraries. Dick Eastman describes how to use the SCC database on Fold3. You can also search it for free.
  • Here is what is currently available at Fold3 (subscription database)
• There is a print index: Southern Loyalists in the Civil War (1994, repr. 2004) (find in a library)
  • This can also be searched on Ancestry.com: Southern Claims Commission Master Index
• See also, Consolidated Index of Claims Reported by the Commissioners of Claims to the House of Representatives from 1871-1880 (Google e-book)
  • This index does not include witnesses.
• This article by Reginald Washington is especially useful because it describes the use of these records to the researcher looking for African American ancestors. Most claimants were white, but some blacks did apply and information about slaves and black families is scattered throughout the files.
• This article explains the function and describes the records of the Southern Claims Commissio

Pre Civil War Research

Free / Slave

Free Blacks in colonial and antebellum America:

• Free People of Color (Wikipedia)
• Free Negro/Free Black (Wikipedia)
• Free African Americans in Colonial America-- this is especially interesting because it looks at free blacks in southern states.
• FrenchCreoles.com provides a rather cluttered, but intereting overview of the Free People of Color of New Orleans
• Free Negro in Virginia 1619-1895 -- a book published in 1913 by Johns Hopkins University, available from Google Books
• "black laws" sometimes required the registration of free black populations in a state; sometimes the laws were so suppressive they forced blacks to move to another area or set up obstacles to settlement.
  • Examples:
    • Black Laws of Oregon
    • Black Laws of Ohio
    • Louisiana's Code Noir
    • An introduction to the Black Laws of Virginia
• Registration
  • Many states also passed laws requiring free blacks to register, or some may have registered as a safeguard against being taken into slavery. Here is an example of Albermarle County Virginia registrations.
  • A 1780 law in Pennsylvania required the registration of all slaves in the state, as part of a movement to abolish slavery in the state. This registration, which must be researched county by county, gives us a 1780 census of slaves in Pennsylvania.
    • Here is an example of information recorded.
    • And here is a nice example of combining tax records and the registration census to get a fuller picture.
  • Warning: if you Google the words Slave Register you will come across some offensive sites. Add -TSR (i.e. the minus sign and the word TSR)

Finding Slave Ancestors: 

The importation of slaves into the U.S. was outlawed in 1807 although there may have been illegal transport after that and officially ended with the 13th Amendment in December 1865. Learn more at Wikipedia

• Slavery in the United States of America
• Emancipation Proclamation
• Thirteenth Amendement to the United States Constitution

Slave States

• Slavery and the Making of America
  • Time Line of Slavery in the U.S.
• Map of 1820 showing free and slave states and territories.
• Chart showing number of slaves enumerated, by state, in 1860. Note: number of slaveholders is deceptive; that column is more accurately the number of slave holding households. More than one owner might reside in a household.
• Slave states at the start of the Civil War
• Slavery in the North
• An interesting article on slavery in Detroit, Michigan.
  

Slave Trade :

• What are Slave Trade Registers
• The Transatlantic Slave Trade Database has information on almost 35,000 slaving voyages. Again you will have to take time to explore this extensive resource. A good first step would be to view the demo that gives an overview of the site. (You'll have to give the demo time to download). NOTE: this database includes data on all transatlantic trade, of which voyages to North America comprised only a small protion. It is a fabulous resource, but requires details beyond which you are likely to have, especially as you begin your research.

Slave Narratives

• Wikipedia: Slave Narratives
• Slave Narratives from a WPA project. The American Memory Project also has narratives from this project: Voices from the Days of Slavery
• Born in Slavery --an online version of the 2,300 narratives recorded by the WPA project. These were published in a 17 volume set: Slave Narratives: A Folk History of
• There were also many published slave narratives; some are available on North American Slave Narratives.

Record sources relevant to researching slave ancestors:

Records of slaves will be found in a variety of documents, but research is greatly hampered by the practice of using only given names for slaves. Ideally, the very first thing you want to determine is the name of the last slave holder, but you will need clues in order to that.

• This is an excellent video lesson demonstrating research of a family for which the researcher had clues to the name of the slave holder. It is on Ancestry.com, but you don't need to be a member to view it. Making a Breakthrough in Your African American Research

General

• State Library of North Carolina: Finding Slave Ancestors (a short article outlining resources available)
• A lesson: Finding the Slave Generation
• Genealogy Trails: Slave Related Data
• Kentucky African American Griots: slave database illustrates the kind of records you can find in court records.
• AfriGeneas has a database of slave data on the web that you can search. You can also contribute information
• Unknown No Longer: A Database of Virginia Slave Names
• Some records are online at AfriQuest
• There is an Ancestry.com board covering Slave Information
• This is a very interesting database: Large Slaveholders of 1860 and African American Surname Matches From 1870
• The International Society of Sons and Daughters of Slave Ancestry maintains a slave database.
• You will want to be sure to look at the numerous linked resources on the Cyndi's List page African-American - Slavery

Census Records, Slave Schedules

• What are slave schedules and how can they help?

Court Records: wills, property, manumission, registers etc. You will have to research the specifics of record keeping for the state in which you are searching.

• Digital Library on American Slavery "The Digital Library contains detailed information on about 150,000 individuals, including slaves, free people of color, and whites. These data have been painstakingly extracted from 2,975 legislative petitions and 14,512 county court petitions, and from a wide range of related documents, including wills, inventories, deeds, bills of sale, depositions, court proceedings, amended petitions, among others. Buried in these documents are the names and other data on roughly 80,000 individual slaves, 8,000 free people of color, and 62,000 whites, both slave owners and non-slave owners. "
• American Memory Project: Slaves and the Courts 1740-1860. Digital images of pamphlets and books in the Library of Congress. Whether you find your ancestor or not, you will be immersed in this site for hours.
• The DC Court Slave Records collection is free on Fold3

Use the FHL Catalog to find what court records have been filmed for the state, county or city you are researching. Check at all three: state, county and local level. Here are some subdivisions that might prove useful:

• Court Records
• Minorities
• Slavery and Bondage
  
• Probate
• Land and Property

David Paterson has written an excellent article on finding Georgia's Slave Population in Legal Records; even if you are researching another state, this should serve as a guide as to the types of records you might find and where you might look

Beth Wilson has a video available at FamilySearch.org : Trails Back: Tracing Ancestors in Slavery that is well worth watching.

Manumission Records

• Wikipedia: Manumission
• List of titles held by the Family History Library, searched by using the keyword manumission
• Some manumission records are in Record Group 21 (U.S. District Courts)
• Virginia Manumissions 1782-1818 (search by county)
• In some states manumissions were accomplished by a legislative act at various points
  • Alabama 1805-1834 Georgia 1801-1865 Kentucky 1792-1849 – not sure Louisiana 1805-1846 –not sure Mississippi 1801-1865 North Carolina 1715-1741 and 1777-1831 South Carolina 1722-1800 Virginia 1732-1782
    • Here is an example of a North Carolina petition for manumission
• Some manumissions were accomplished by a deed of manumission; these will be found in property records.
  • Here is an example of a Virginia deed of manumission
• Manumission might also be accomplished, or at least set in motion, in a will; wills will be found in probabte records.
  • Here is an example of a manumission set forth in a will that gives extraordinary information.

Plantation and other Private Records (of the slave owners)

• Bible records of the owners may name slaves; here is an example. If you know the owners surname, you might try to find related bible records.
  • Google slave bible records to find some online.
  • Check bible records in southern archives and libraries; here is an example of some held at the University of Virginia.
  • Another Google strategy is to use the name of the southern state in which your ancestor resided and google that with the words bible records, e.g. virginia bible records
• Find plantation records in southern archives, libraries and historical societies, use the microfilmed set "Records of Ante-ellum Southern Plantations From the Revolution Through the Civil War"
  • Consult A Genealogical Index to the Guides of the Microfilm Edition of Records of Ante-Bellum Southern Plantations from the Revolution Through the Civil War (2003). (find in a library) (Note: for those of us in Michigan, U Mich Library has this book AND the microform set)
    • Use the table in the FamilySearch Wiki section "Finding Plantation Records" to see the portions of the index specific to each series by clicking the .pdf icon in the "user guide" column.
      • Notice the Family History Library also has film copies of the records; the film number is given in the table.
    • Otherswise.-- A librarian can help you find which libraries own the microfilm set and once you find that, ask the librarian to try to order the reel you need on interlibrary loan.
  • example of a plantation record held at University of NC-Chapel Hill
  • Article: Learning from Southern Plantation Records

Slave Insurance Policies -- these are just starting to become available to researchers.

• Slave Insurance in America (Wikipedia)
• Slavery Era Insurance Policy Registers gives a state by state listing of names already compiled.

Runaway Slaves (Fugitive Slaves)

• Wikipedia: Fugitive Slave
• Franklin & Shweninger: Runaway Slaves: Rebels on the Plantation 2000 (find in a library)
• Habeas Corpus for Fugitive Slaves
  • definition of Habeas Corpus
  • Records from U.S. District Courts (Record Group 21) concerning slavery include habeas corpus petitions.
• Advertisements for runaway slaves were prevelant in early newspapers and can be a source of information.
  • The Geography of Slavery in Virginia provides both examples of such ads, as well as a very helpful contextual overview.
  • Here are some from Baltimore, Maryland
  • These didn't appear only in southern newspapers; here are some from a variety of colonial papers in the north.

Underground Railroad -- records rarely exist, but you will want to understand this.

• FamilySearch.org video National Underground Railroad- (click "view this lesson" includes lovely introduction and a very interesting and informative talk. Well worth the time for anyone, whether a descendant of a slave or not.
• National Underground Railroad Freedom Center
• Rootsweb has an Underground Railroad message board.
• Underground Railroad Workshop
  • information on the associated annual conference

More Links...

• Access Genealogy African American Genealogy
• Cyndi's List: African American Genealogy
• Genealinks: African American Genealogy
• African American Genealogy Records on the Internet: A Directory... This is one of Joe Beine's fabulous directories of internet resources, especially useful because he updates his lists periodically.