Black Genealogy

Tracing Black family roots can be complicated for many reasons.

One of the biggest reasons is slavery and its consequences. The first Af rican-Americans were indentured servants in Jamestown, Virginia, in the early 1600s, and slavery boomed in the American South in the years leading up to the Civil War, with forced family separations and other horrors tangling Black families’ roots for generations.

THE CHALLENGE OF RESEARCH

Not only were family lines tangled, but family name changes were common in the years after the Civil War. Furthermore, most family histories were oral as it was forbidden for Black people to read and write in many parts of the country.

HOW TO GET STARTED

Write down everything your family knows about your ancestors, paying special attention to names, dates and places. Find as many records as you can, and don’t limit your search to your immediate family. Scour records f rom aunts, uncles and cousins for clues. Keep an eye out for those changing surnames, particularly in decade right after the Civil War. If you can’t find the same surname, look for first names and ages in a particular place.

TYPES OF RECORDS

Keep in mind that some older records, especially, may use descriptive words that, to modern ears, sound offensive. You may also find that some records may not include your ancestors or may miscategorize them. You may also find that local laws put severe restrictions on Black people and they couldn’t vote or may have run afoul of other laws that don’t exist today. In addition to studying your own family records, examine the history of the area where your family lived.

Look for records from the Census, military records, the Social Security Death Index, cemetery records, church directories, court and land records, and even school records. You may also find government records on voting, birth, marriage and death. Black families may also have success with Underground Railroad and Freedman’s Bureau records.

SLAVERY

Once your lineage goes back to slaves, research gets challenging. First, you need to properly identify a potential owner. One clue may be your ancestor’s last name, but keep in mind that only about 15% of f reed slaves took their last owner’s name. Some chose other surnames, such as people they admired. During the 1930s, the WPA Writers Project compiled more than 3,500 interviews with former slaves. You can read many of these narratives online or in part of other works for an idea of what life would’ve been like for your ancestors.