Research at the National Archives and Beyond: Recent Episodes
BerniceBennett
Welcome to Research at the National Archives and Beyond. This show will provide individuals interested in genealogy and history an opportunity to listen, learn and take action.
I offer a wonderful line up of experts who will share resources, stories and answer your burning genealogy questions. All of my guests share a deep passion and knowledge of genealogy and history.
My goal is to reach individuals who are thinking about tracing their family roots; beginners who have already started and others who believe that continuous learning is the key to finding answers.
"Remember, your ancestors left footprints".
Join Janice Gilyard and Cherekana Feliciano for a conversation with Charles Holman regarding the parents of his great-great grandmother who escaped slavery. Charles is the great-grandson of an enslaved person who in freedom became a civil rights leader and one of the first lawyers of color in his state. Since that time nearly 150 years ago, civil rights has been a dedicated mission in Charles’ family as well as Charles’ personal calling
Join Janice Gilyard and Cherekana Feliciano for a conversation with Ethan West as he shares his research regarding his West ancestors (Dolph and Millie West), various research trips through Tennessee, and the powerful connections and relationships that evolved from his journey. It is empowering to know your lineage and it is essential to understanding what needs to be done now and in the future. Everyone has a story!
Join Janice Gilyard and Cherekana Feliciano for a conversation with Akosua Moore and Kimberly Morgan.
Akosua Moore and Kimberly Morgan were two strangers brought together through genealogical and historical research. At the center of their connection is a man named Stephen Binyard, who is Moore's ancestor and is buried in Edgerly Cemetery in Beaufort, South Carolina. The two women met in person for the first time in 2014 and during this first encounter, they discovered that not only were they researching the same person but they also shared the same dream - to do genealogical research with Dr. Henry Louis Gates for "Finding Your Roots". Since then, not only has their research into Stephen Binyard uncovered a larger history about the lives of the formerly enslaved people buried in Edgerly Cemetery and who were once enslaved on Edgerly Plantation, but the two women have also realized their dream of working for "Finding Your Roots"!
Join Janice & Cherekana for a discussion with Command Master Chief (CMC), United States Navy, Larae Frazier Baker.
CMC Baker was selected for the Command Senior Chief program and then selected for CMC in 2016. Several months later, she was chosen for CMC reporting onboard the USS Gravely (DDG 107), Norfolk, VA from 2016-2019. While assigned, she was deployed to the SIXTH Fleet AOR as the Standing NATO Maritime Group ONE (SNMG-1) Flag Ship in support of NATO partnerships. CMC Baker is currently serving onboard USS Arlington (LPD 24), Jacksonville, FL. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree with a major in Work Force Education from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Her decorations include the Meritorious Service Medal, Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal (4 awards), Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal (4 awards), and various unit and campaign awards.
Join Hosts Janice and Cherekana of Speak On It ! with Leslie Anderson for a conversation about Stories from the 1st U.S. Colored Cavalry.
The 1st U.S. Colored Cavalry included free men, freedmen, freedom-seekers, and white officers from the United States and around the world. Who were they? Where did they come from? Where did they go? And what of those who didn’t survive? Many who returned to civilian life established families and contributed to their communities. Others struggled with debilitating injuries, madness, and broken hearts. This program examines the pre-and post-war lives of selected troops and officers by using pension applications and sources from local history. Learn about strategies and sources that you can apply to your research.
Leslie Anderson, a native Virginian, is the owner of Anderson Historic Research, LLC, and a former reference librarian at Alexandria Library, Local History/Special Collections Branch. Named a Virginia Humanities Scholar in 2020, she won the 2013 NGS Family History Writing Contest. Her publications include, Virginia Slave Births Index, 1853-1865 (Project Editor), Alexandria (Co-author), and the Magazine of Virginia Genealogy. Leslie holds a Master of Science in Library Science, and her genealogical education includes GRIP, IGHR, and Gen-Fed. She’s a member of AAHGS, NGS, and VGS. She blogs at "1st U.S. Colored Cavalry: Private Lives, Public Records."
Join Janice and Cerkana of Speak on It! for a discussion with Dr. Evelyn McDowell, chair of Rider University’s accounting department in Lawrenceville, NJ. She co-chaired the task force who recommended the removal of the name “Van Cleve” from an 18th-century house on Rider University’s campus following the discovery that its namesake, Benjamin Van Cleve, supported slavery. Rider University removed the name “Van Cleve” from an 18th-century house on its campus following this discovery. McDowell is a founding board member of the National Society of the Sons & Daughters of the United States Middle Passage, a lineage society that works to preserve the memory and history of slavery.
Join hosts Janice and Cherekana for a conversation with Melvin J. Collier, Author, Genealogist, Presenter, and Blogger. Melvin will share information regarding his website: Roots Revealed and his book, 150 Years Later: Broken Ties Mended.
Melvin J. Collier has been conducting historical and genealogical research for over 25 years, starting at the age of 19. He is a former civil engineer, who used his passion for African American history and historical preservation to foster a career change. He then earned a Master of Arts degree in African American Studies, Clark Atlanta University, in 2008, with additional graduate coursework in Archival Studies from Clayton State University.
Join hosts Janice and Cherekana for a conversation with author, Kathy Marshall: Lots of Roots investigation led Kathy Marshall on another thrilling journey into her family’s tangled historical past, finding black and white ancestors she’d never known, leading to places she’d never been, and uncovering secrets that did not want to be told.
The family only knew that Grandpa Austin Marshall smoked sweet-smelling cigars, sported a white linen suit, jingled coins in his pockets, and was born in Columbus, Georgia. So how did he put his son through medical school on a Pullman porter’s salary? Marshall will share some of her research methodologies, which may help you find results too.
Join host Janice and Cherekana for a conversation with Warren Eugene Milteer Jr, Assistant Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. We will discuss his new book, Beyond Slavery’s Shadow: Free People of Color in the South.
Warren is also the author of North Carolina’s Free People of Color, 1715-1885 (LSU Press, 2020), the independently published Hertford County, North Carolina’s Free People of Color and Their Descendants (2016), as well as articles in the Journal of Social History and the North Carolina Historical Review. Milteer was the recipient of the Historical Society of North Carolina’s R. D. W. Connor Award in 2014 and 2016 for the best journal article in the North Carolina Historical Review.
Join hosts Janice and Cerekana of Speak On It! for a conversation with Rodney Sam about the Legacy: Marie Senegal - his African Ancestor.
Marie is Rodney Sam's paternal 7th great-grandmother and the oldest known ancestor of African descent. She was born in 1699 in Africa and was in the French colony of Louisiana by the 1720s. She is described as "Marie Senegal" and was emancipated out of slavery in 1769 by Andre Masse, an early French trader, and rancher, in Louisiana with her family. Rodney descends from her daughter, Marie-Flore, who was manumitted over a decade earlier.
Rodney Sam is a graduate of Prairie View A&M University. His family has deep Louisiana Creole roots that extend to the beginning of the colony. He is passionate about learning about the history, genealogy, and culture of his Louisiana Creole ancestors.
Join Hosts Janice and Cherekana of Speak On It ! for a conversation with Frederick DeShon Murphy.
At History Before Us, we understand the importance of history to our collective humanity and we are committed to collecting and preserving it. We are born from many years of family research and a passion for preserving the oral stories taken from the people before us who were part of certain periods of history. With careful attention to historical events came a burning desire to share the knowledge gained via various modalities of education.
Our goal is to preserve for future generations, these valuable stories, and experiences that will never return. We are committed to making sure that the masses have insight into historical events with the firm belief historical knowledge provides a background for making solid decisions in the future. As the old saying goes, “he who refuses to learn from the past is doomed to repeat it.” History Before Us understands that history is the lens through which we can put our present experiences into perspective. It is the one thing that shows us who we truly are, and how we arrived at our present state of being.
Website: http://www.historybeforeus.com
Documentary: http://americansouthfilm.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HistoryBeforeUs/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/HistoryBeforeUs
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/historybeforeus
Join Hosts Janice and Cherekana of Speak On It ! for a conversation with Desi L. Campbell.
The African American Experience is a vehicle to serve African Americans in genealogical research through various workshops, seminars that will enable them to pursue their own family history and create a lasting presentation of their findings. We encourage African Americans to have a sense of pride and dignity based on their cultural heritage and to assist them in acquiring a growing cultural awareness. We develop sustainable initiatives that examine the African American Experience through genealogy research.
Desi is on a mission to help African Americans discover their family history beyond 1870. His experience in researching wills, probate records, and deeds enables researchers to discover information prior to their ancestor’s freedom. Desi also uses his experiences with ancestry DNA, 23 and Me, Family Tree DNA, and GEDmatch to connect relatives of his clients that may not know who they are.
Join Hosts Janice and Cherekana of Speak On It ! for a conversation with Taneya Y. Koonce and Renate Yarborough Sanders about North Carolina Genealogy.
Let’s Talk North Carolina Genealogy! is a platform hosted by Renate Yarborough Sanders and Taneya Y. Koonce. Initially created in June 2020, as a one summer YouTube show to support and provide North Carolina-focused genealogical education for researchers, the initiative has now grown to include an interactive Facebook page, occasional special programming, and a monthly Research Chat, using Zoom, which has strengthened the mission to provide a caring, supportive and educationally-enriched community of and for North Carolina researchers. And, by popular demand, Let’s Talk North Carolina Genealogy! returned in 2021 with Season 2 of its summer series and will continue the chats through December of this year.
Join Hosts Janice and Cherekana of Speak On It ! for a conversation with Ruth D. Hunt about honoring her enslaved Great Great Grandfather - Richard "Dick" Lewis.
Ms. Hunt has been researching her great, great grandfather Richard for over 40 years. Early on, she began with the oral history passed down from her Great Aunt Okie Clark, an entrepreneur, who owned a local restaurant with her husband Skipper in Glade Springs, Virginia. She feels honored, privileged, and proud to paint the picture of her enslaved Great, Great Grandfather and serve as a scribe to tell his story.
Ruth D. Hunt has changed the lives of many and is praised for her masterful achievements in the profession of genealogy. Like Alex Haley (her mentor) she wants to awaken people's consciousness and inspire all races to embark upon their personal journeys, explore their Roots, and interconnecting relationships.
Join Hosts Janice and Cherekana of Speak On It ! as they discuss Phyllis Elmore's family history.
Phyllis was born in Detroit, Michigan. At the age of four, she was sent to the tiny town of Livingston, Alabama to be raised by her grandmother Lula Horn (1883-1988), who made beautiful quilts out of the clothing of her loved ones. Each strip of fabric tells the story of the wearer’s life and death. She shared these mostly tragic and sometimes witty tales with little Phyllis as she sewed their clothes into a quilt that threaded broken lives back together. Phyllis now shares these profound stories with the world as Grandmother Lula told them to her.
Join Hosts Janice and Cherekana of Speak On It ! for a conversation with Stacey Bell on Family Matters!
The importance of knowing your family’s story. Every life has a story, but stories of the lives lived by Black people are not told often enough. We should use genealogy and history to tell the stories of our families as Black people in the diaspora because their lives mattered.
Stacey Bell, BS, MPA, is currently the Program Chair and former Vice President of The Afro American Historical & Genealogical Society – New York Chapter, current Girl Scout Greater New York Board Member, Urban Women’s Safe Haven DV Shelter - Community Advisory Board President, and Genealogist.
Join Hosts Janice and Cherekana of Speak On It ! for a conversation with Flora Morris Brown on Sharing Your Family Stories.
Flora Morris Brown is an author, publishing coach, and certified Guided Autobiography Facilitator and Trainer who confesses to being a reformed coffee snob and having an unhealthy love of British murder mysteries. She helps everyday people--even those insecure about their writing skills--write their life stories to pass on their experiences, values, and memories to their families to treasure now and as part of their unique legacy.
Dr. Brown earned a B.A., M.S., and Ph.D. from the University of Southern California. She enjoyed teaching junior high through university levels over a 40-year career, the last twenty of which were at Fullerton College from which she retired as Professor Emeritus.
Drawing from the highlights of happiness research and her adventures as a wife, mom, and educator, Dr. Brown wrote the bestselling book Color Your Life Happy: Create Your Unique Path and Claim the Joy You Deserve. Her most recently released book is Redesigning My Resilient Life: A Guided Journal for the Pandemic, Social Unrest, and Political Turmoil
She invites you to visit her website florabrown.com to learn about her current programs, get free downloads, and discover how to connect with her on social media.
Join hosts Janice and Cherekana of Speak on It! to celebrate 10 years of broadcasting on Research at the National Archives and Beyond with Bernice Alexander Bennett.
Bernice Alexander Bennett is an award-winning author, genealogist, nationally recognized guest speaker, storyteller, and producer-host of the popular Research at the National Archives and Beyond BlogTalkRadio program. She is also the first recipient of the Ida B. Wells Service Award given by the Sons and Daughters of the United States Middle Passage for her dedication to broadcast stories about enslaved and indentured ancestors of African descent. She also received the Elizabeth Clark-Lewis Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society (AAHGS) Genealogy Award in 2019 for original research in support of African American Genealogy. Bennett is on the Board of Directors for the National Genealogical Society.
Did your ancestors own land under the Homestead Act of 1862? Join the Descendants of African American Homesteaders to hear about their research and land-owning ancestor's stories.
Margo Lee Williams is the great-granddaughter of Florida Homesteader, Randel Farnell and his wife, Sallie Jacobs Farnell. Williams is an award-winning author and genealogist/family historian, having published three books. She is currently the Deputy Registrar for the Sons and Daughters of the United States Middle Passage (SDUSMP), and a former editor of the Journal of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society. She is currently the Project Historian for the Historical Black Families of Sandy Spring project with the Sandy Spring Museum.
Orice Jenkins is from Hartford, Connecticut, and is the great-great-grandson of Vandy Hutchins and Betty Horn. He is a recording artist, performer, educator, and genealogy researcher. His most recent album, 'Centennial Cole', is a celebration of a great voice from the past: Nat 'King' Cole. Released on Truth Revolution Recording Collective in September of 2019, this body of work has been featured in Jazziz, JazzWeekly, and JazzTimes magazines.
An avid genealogist for over 30 years, Dr. Shelley Viola Murphy, aka "familytreegirl," was born and raised in Michigan. She conducts genealogy workshops at local, state, and national conferences. Murphy is known for her inspiring & interactive "SO WHAT" with genealogy research, along with interesting problem-solving methodology lectures such as the use of Timelines. Murphy is also a coordinator and instructor at the Midwest African American Genealogy Institute (MAAGI) and serves on the Boards of the Library of Virginia. Albemarle Charlottesville and Fluvanna Historical Societies.
Music: Sweet Mellow Spice - AK Alexander
Karen Branan will share the many twists and turns her work for racial justice has taken since the book’s release in 2016. This includes meeting and building relationships with Black and White cousins she’d never known of, joining the movement for Lynching Remembrance and Reparations, and working with others to do the kind of research she did for her book.
Karen Branan is a long-time investigative reporter and documentary filmmaker whose book The Family Tree: A Lynching in Georgia, A Legacy of Secrets, and My Search for the Truth, caused James Cone, renowned author of The Cross and the Lynching Tree and founder of Black Liberation Theology to write “every American should read this book.”
Opening music - Sweet Mello Spice by AK Alexander Productions
Bound to History: Leoncia Lasalle's Slave Narrative from Moca, Puerto Rico, 1945
Dr. Fernandez-Sacco's recent article is about interviews, enslavement, testimony, and the communities involved in a 1945 interview by the historian Luis Diaz Soler with Leoncia Lassalle then 112 years old, and her 85-year old daughter, Juana Rodriguez Lasalle's experiences under bondage. Fernandez-Sacco offers a context for the account, traces their family history, considers the multiple contexts for this narrative, the limits on archives, and how historical knowledge is made as we do genealogy that engages slavery & life post-emancipation. The need for a collaborative genealogical practice has never been so necessary.
Dr. Ellen Fernandez-Sacco is an independent scholar whose current work focuses on the genealogy and family history of people transitioning into freedom after 1870 in Northwest Puerto Rico. She's co-founder and moderator of Sociedad Ancestros Mocanos, a discussion group that began in 2004. She's also a panelist and curator for Black ProGen Live, hosted by Nicka Smith & True Lewis. Her publications & blog posts engage themes that constrain family histories and shape institutions also involved with genealogy that includes enslavement, eugenics, museum displays, and the aftereffects of violence. How do we navigate institutions designed to prevent the formation of a sense of historical self and agency? What Lasalle's account urges us to consider are the ways that genealogy navigates structural racism, then and now.
Opening music: Sweet Mellow Spice by AK Alexander
In 1879, Islay Walden, born enslaved and visually impaired, returned to North Carolina after a twelve-year odyssey in search of an education. It was a journey that would take him from emancipation in Randolph County, North Carolina to Washington, D. C., where he earned a teaching degree from Howard University, then to the New Brunswick Theological Seminary, in New Jersey. Along the way, he published two volumes of poetry and founded two schools for African American children. Once ordained, he returned Randolph County, where he founded a Congregational church (Strieby Church) and common school. Despite an early death at age forty, he would leave an educational and spiritual legacy that endures to this day. Born Missionary uses Walden’s own words as well as reports from newspapers and church publications to follow his journey from enslavement to teacher, ordained minister, and community leader.
Margo Lee Williams is a graduate of Marquette University, and has her M. A. in Sociology from Hunter College, and an M. A. in Religious Education from The Catholic University of America. She is a frequent lecturer for the Family History Centers in the Washington, D.C./Baltimore area, and a former editor of the Journal of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society. She is particularly interested in the community and family histories of people of color in the southeast, especially those in North Carolina and Virginia. Born Missionary is her third book.
Opening Music: Sweet Mellow Spice by AK Alexander Productions
Being an African American woman researching and working on plantations, Ja'el often gets the question: why work at a place with such an horrific history? There are no slave costumes or reenactments for her; this is real life. Whether she is being interrogated to see if she is teaching the watered down version or being met with the unspoken hope that she actually will water it down; every single encounter is unique. Nothing will ever stop Ja'el from researching and providing the life stories of the enslaved with dignity and facts. As a historian, she revisits this type of trauma by choice and, her purpose is to help others process, not suppress.
Ja'el Gordon, Louisiana-born Genealogist and Historian is a graduate of Southern University (Baton Rouge) with a Bachelor of Arts in History. She worked for the Division for Student Affairs and created a plethora of successful, engaging events and programs for the student body and community. In 2015, she received her Master of Arts in Museum Studies from Southern University - New Orleans and is currently a Ph.D. Candidate in Jackson State University’s Higher Education program.
Ms. Gordon has owned her genealogy business for several years where she provides family history and genetic genealogy research through educational program facilitation. She specializes in antebellum and enslaved history research in Louisiana and Mississippi. Her research provides corrective narratives of the enslaved, and descendant tracing for present and lost plantations around the State of Louisiana with a special focus on the River Road plantations. She is a Charter Member and President of Louisiana AAHGS Chapter and proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority,Inc and, Sigma Alpha Iota International Music Fraternity for Women.
It is essential when attempting to trace enslaved ancestors that one become familiar with the laws of each pertinent state or territory regarding the institution of slavery. Without such a survey of the laws, valuable information can often be overlooked. Knowledge of laws and their associated records can alert the researcher to more obscure sources of information.
Victoria Robinson is an experienced genealogist who, while growing up in Utah, started tracing her family history. After graduating Georgetown University, she continued to be curious of mind and passionate about genealogy. Combining these traits, she also works to help others discover their roots. For nearly 30 years, she has worked as a senior librarian at the Annandale [VA] Family History Center, where she assists patrons and staff with their research and serves as the staff expert in African American genealogy. She has presented at various local and national genealogy/history conferences over the past 19 years on the topics of research methodology, and using various strategies to uncover African-American family history and genealogy.
Opeing Music: Sweet Mellow Spice by AK Alexander
You researched your family back to the county where they were living right after enslavement; located white people in the community with the same surnames and found wills associated with their family.
In addition, you may also (or instead) utilize DNA information to lead you to a specific family that held enslaved people.
You have done the work of finding records of people and sometimes families linked to a place or maybe two places in time but there is no centralized or searchable place for us to leave those records for others.
This discussion will focus on:
• Records that are kept at the County level
• Why enslaved people may use the surnames of the seller, buyer, the grantors or the grantees or another name altogether
• Finding enslaved people that may be sold across the county or state lines
• Searching for a family member that may have been split up
Sasha Mitchell is a family and community historian, former chair of African American Heritage for Asheville & Buncombe County, NC. Researching for over 30 years. A mother of 3 sons, age 22, 20 & 17, a former foster mom, a seamstress, miniaturist, and budding woodworker. She works as Operations Manager at Dogwood Alliance, a non-profit devoted to protecting the forests of the South. She loves genealogy research for its power to connect people to history, to places in time, and to communities. And at a time when DNA is exposing connections between white and black families that have long been hidden, family history is helping people to heal and build connections.
Opening Music: Sweet Mellow Spice by AK Alexander Productions
Get the latest information on the release of the 1950 US Census population schedules on April 1st, 2022. We'll cover how to access the images, how to locate your ancestors based on their address and enumeration district, and share information on how you can volunteer to index the 1950 US Census!
Thomas MacEntee is a genealogy professional specializing in using technology and social media to improve genealogy research and to connect with the family history community.
http://stevemorse.org
Opening Music: Sweet Melow Spice - AK Alexander Productions
Myrt has stress-free ideas for sharing family history discoveries one story at a time, using a single photo, document, heirloom or historical tidbit. It starts with a 15-minute brainstorming session.
DearMYRTLE is the nom de plume of genealogy blogger Pat Richley-Erickson also known for hosting genealogy webinars and Zoom “how-to” sessions, with over 1,300 videos on her YouTube channel. She began online genealogy work in 1985 with Q-Link, progressed to PC-Link then America Online’s Genealogy Forum She serves as President of the Association of Professional Genealogists Second Life Chapter. You’ll find Myrt online at Blog.DearMYRTLE.com where she has lately been chronicling new additions to her “ancestor trunk” under the popular title 52 THINGS.
Opening music: Sweet Mellow Spice by AK Alexander Productions
Join Gaynell Brady, owner and educator at Our Mammy’s for a discussion about the legacy and fallacies of mammy. Genealogy remembers all of our ancestors, not just the most famous or free people.
In 2013, Our Mammy's was created to honor the legacy of those who sacrificed their lives to take care of others. The company was named Our Mammy’s to reclaim the name Mammy, and to emphasize to others that a Mammy was much more than just a name. Mammy cared for generations of plantation owners, laborers, and enslaved Africans and African Americans. Mammy's strength, courage, wisdom, and tenacity is displayed on every family tree. Mammy is often stereotyped as an uneducated, submissive, dark skin, overweight maternal woman.
Gaynell Brady is an educator and museum professional who is passionate about learning, genealogy, and museums. She currently serves as the Owner/Educator at Our Mammy’s LLC, where she teaches families about genealogy and African American history. In her current role as Owner/Educator at Our Mammy’s, she develops and implements hands-on history and genealogy lessons for children using historical research from her family tree. Past professional experiences include The National World War II Museum, National Park Service Jean Lafitte National Historical Park & Preserve and New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park, Louisiana State Museum, and River Road African American Museum. Gaynell holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and a Master of Arts degree in Museum Studies from Southern University at New Orleans. She is currently a PhD candidate at Capella University.
Opening Music: Sweet Mellow by AK Alexander Productions
Difficult truths about slavery, racial injustice, and other harm, bring up a variety of emotions and challenges for genealogy researchers and families. Adrienne Fikes wants us to reframe the narrative about the descendants of enslaved persons and enslavers gathering together to heal. This shift in perspective allows us to stand firm in our deepest truth; have consistent access to unspeakable joy; and develop the deep roots and bubble wrap we need to stay in this principled struggle to understand each other, while addressing the structural issues continuing these wrongs.
How many of your 16 great-great-grandparents can you call by name? After a random tweet led her to information about her roots, Adrienne Fikes M.Ed, PCC (she/her) created the #16Greats Challenge, encouraging other GenXers and younger to learn the names of their 16 great-great-grandparents, or understand why they can’t. Adrienne is a seventh-generation Virginian, with deep roots in North Carolina, and is part of the 1st generation to grow up in the planned community of Columbia, Maryland.
Adrienne is the Soul Power Coach™ of SoulPowerCoach.com, an executive coach and consultant, TEDx speaker, and author of Finding Your #UnspeakableJoy: Right There Where You Are. Adrienne has a M.Ed in Human Growth and Development, BS in Psychology, and is a NCBH Adult Mental Health First Aid Responder. She serves on the International Coaching Federation Metro DC Board, launching it's Racial Justice Community of Practice. Adrienne has been deeply involved in advocating for restorative justice within Alexandria's Equal Justice Initiative Community Remembrance Project, and is the co-founder of Racial Justice Alexandria. Adrienne is a member of the James Dent Walker DC Chapter of AAHGS.
From Sago and Fatima, Randall and Esther, to Moosa and Katy, learn the ancestral story of the Trask 250 from the vantage point of the oldest traceable ancestors who unite them, those who were born in the late 18th century, mostly in Africa, with descendants who number more than 5,000.
Nicka Smith is a professional photographer, speaker, host, consultant, and documentarian with more than 20 years of experience as a genealogist. She has extensive experience in African ancestored genealogy, and reverse genealogy, and is expert in genealogical research in the Northeastern Louisiana area, and researching enslaved communities. Nicka has diverse and varied experience in media with a background in audio, video, and written communications. She's appeared on TODAY Show, CNN, MSNBC, on the series Who Do You Think You Are and has been interviewed by Oakland Tribune, The Undefeated, National Geographic, and TIME. She is the host of BlackProGen LIVE, an innovative web show with more than 125 episodes focused on people of color genealogy and family history.
Opening music: Sweet Mellow Spice by AKA Productions
Dr. Penny Walters, author ofThe Psychology of Searching (Amazon, 2020) asks why is compiling a family tree now such a popular hobby. We will look at kinship, homelands, ethnicity, becoming obsessed with searching, race memory, and putting all the pieces in our jigsaw. Why do we research ancestors we share so little DNA with? Are we searching for who they were, or who we are?
Once we have started our search, some discoveries reveal painful realities (including injustices and enslavement), uncovering our relatives’ secrets and lies, and numerous ethical dilemmas can arise. These are covered in depth in the book Ethical Dilemmas in Genealogy’(Amazon, 2019).
Dr. Penny Walters www.searchmypast.co.uk has been a University lecturer for 30 years in Psychology and Business Studies. Penny's interest in genealogy started after having her first child and then wondering about her biological parents, as she was adopted. DNA testing has revealed 94% Irish heritage; and fascinating insights into her Black British children’s African heritage. Penny lectures internationally and writes articles about a variety of genealogy topics including ethical dilemmas, the psychology of searching, ethnicity and identity, adoption, and Irish heritage. Penny has lectured at Roots Tech London and USA; APG PMC; Brigham Young University; throughout Ireland; nationally and regionally at UK events; Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society (AAHGS), the Society of Australian Genealogists and Vivid-Pix.
Music: Sweet Mellow Spice with AK Alexander
Tina Jones research journey began in 2000 when she began working with the local senior citizens - many of whom were residents of two historically African American neighborhoods in Franklin, Tennessee. Franklin was the site of a significant Civil War battle and is the county seat of Williamson County, Tennessee. Several historic homes operate as museums and significant local attention is paid to the community’s Civil War history. The genealogy program with 50 senior citizens soon had constructed dozens of family trees - many intersecting. She started compiling any information she could find about the experiences of enslaved people in Williamson County to understand more fully the context in which the people she was researching had lived. Tina tracked down slave narratives of people with ties to the area, newspaper clippings, probate documents, and diary entries. It all helped paint a fuller story - and highlighted an aspect of local history that had been almost entirely overlooked: the contributions of black men who served in the who joined the US Navy and the US Army’s Colored Troops during the Civil War. She now specializes in researching these men and telling their stories. She raises money to install brick pavers inscribed with their names in the County’s Veterans Park through her “Slaves To Soldiers” project. Inspired partially by this work, a local group called the “Fuller Story” has formed to erect a statue depicting a local US Colored Troop soldier on the town square.
Opening music: Sweet Mello Spice by AK Alexander Productions
Funeral Programs serve as a wonderful legacy and memento to remember a cherished love one. These programs are given at funerals and are written with great care to honor the dearly departed. This show will discuss the genealogical value of Funeral Programs and how genealogist/family historians can partner with funeral homes, churches and others to gather, organize and compile these programs to tell the community story.
Dr. Antoinette Harrell, is a renowned genealogist, author and local historian specializing in Tangipahoa and St. Helena Parishes of Louisiana. Her books include several children's genealogy activity books and the first ever publication "Images of America - African Americans in Tangipahoa and St. Helena Parishes. In addition to her books, she is also the host of Nurturing Our Roots Genealogy Zoom Sessions. Dr. Harrell has been featured in many national and international magazines and other media such as on Vice for her peonage and genealogy research attracting over 3 million viewers.
Opening music: Sweet Mello Spice by AK Alexander Productions
Jordan Bankston Noble, commonly known as the Drummer Boy of New Orleans was easily one of the Reconstruction era's most prominent Black men, known internationally for his military and musical career. From childhood, Jordan was enslaved and ordered to enlist in the Battle of New Orleans, Seminole, Mexican American, and Civil Wars. He was sold at least 6 times, raised a family, and spent at least 60 years of his life as a Free Man of Color. Despite all of this, his story is still not well known by the public and what has been written about him has largely been falsified. In this episode, meet Jordan Noble's 5X great grandson Alex Trapps-Chabala to give clarity to his life and his legacy.
Alex Trapps-Chabala is a Bay Area-based historian and genealogist on a mission to help all BIPOC people learn about their family histories in a safe, informative, and engaging way. He is a 4th generation Bay Area native, deeply connected to his roots on the Gulf Coast. Alex is a Black Queer activist with a knack for disrupting harmful norms, deconstructing anti-Black ideas about our pasts, and facilitating healing via our ancestors' experiences.
A narrative is an oral or written account of events or experiences. While there is no mainstream research design in family history, narrative inquiry is a research method that uses oral accounts, photos, obituaries, newspaper articles, and other forms of artifacts and contextualization, as units of analysis to research and interpretation to understand the way relatives create meaning in their lives as narratives. The show will share with listeners how to incorporate narrative inquiry to research family history. Dr. Curry will provide examples of narrative inquiry from his award winning book, The Thompson Family: Untold Stories From the Past (1830-1960).
Dr. Curry is a genealogist, educator and author who focuses his genealogical research in eastern Aiken County and western Orangeburg County, South Carolina.
Opening Music: Sweet Mellow Spice by AK Alexander Productions.
Kathy Lynne Marshall’s most endearing tale of heroism was about her three times great-grandmother, Margaret Booker, and the grisly reason she left Beverly, West Virginia, with her young children in tow, for freedom in Barnesville, Ohio.
Imagine Marshall’s surprise when an 1855 newspaper article connected Margaret’s possible father, Edward “Ned” Backus, to the Fusion (aka Republican) Convention in Ravenna, Ohio. After many unsuccessful attempts to free his wife and children, Ned’s lawyer suggested he seek legal and financial assistance at the convention. What was it like for a newly freed man traveling 150 miles from the slave state of Virginia to north-central Ohio, five years before Abraham Lincoln was voted the first Republican President? Marshall will discuss her research process and reveal the many twists and turns which culminated in an unbelievable story that was broadcast in many newspapers east of the Mississippi River. The new knowledge of who Edward’s likely slaveowner was, as well as serendipitous information from the Beverly Heritage Center, helped to confirm who Margaret’s actual mother was.
For thirty-six years, Marshall was a researcher, analyst, personnel consultant, and technical writer for the California Highway Patrol. Since 1993, she has been the owner and sculptor/author for her Kanika Marshall Art and Books business (www.KanikaMarshall.com), self-publishing since 2017: The Ancestors Are Smiling!, Finding Otho: The Search for Our Enslaved Williams Ancestors, Finding Daisy: From the Deep South to the Promised Land, and The Mystery of Margaret Booker. She has also been published in the National and Northern California AAHGS Quarterly Newsletters.
Opening Music: Sweet Mellow Spice with AK Alexander Productions
The Daughter Dialogues podcast shares real-life stories from women of color who honor their ancestors' fight to achieve independence for America and are members of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). The host, Reisha Raney, a leader in the DAR and a direct descendant of President Thomas Jefferson's grandfather, is conducting research as a Harvard University non-resident fellow, under the direction of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. She is exploring the lives of DAR members of color and their ancestry which includes men and women of American Indian, black or African descent, and white or European descent who contributed to the founding of the USA. This is not an official podcast of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR).
Reisha Raney is the owner of Encyde Corporation, providing business analysis, systems engineering, independent testing and post implementation solutions for some of the world’s largest systems, ranked in the top 4% of all women owned businesses in the United States by the National Association of Women Business Owners. She received a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics from Spelman College and Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Reisha is the founder and host of DaughterDialogues.com and the Daughter Dialogues podcast. She is also the first black state officer in the Maryland State Society Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). Her DAR journey has been featured in The Washington Post, The Japan Times, USA Today, NBC News, and on the Colors podcast by WTOP (Washington D.C.’s top news radio). The Daughter Dialogues podcast can be found on her website DaughterDialogues.com.
Opening music: Sweet Mellow Spice by AK Alexander Productions
Join Sylvia Cyrus, Executive Director of the ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF AFRICAN AMERICAN LIFE AND HISTORY for a discussion around the theme and events to celebrate Black History Month (The Black Family Representation, Identity, and Diversity).
The black family has been a topic of study in many disciplines—history, literature, the visual arts and film studies, sociology, anthropology, and social policy. Its representation, identity, and diversity have been reverenced, stereotyped, and vilified from the days of slavery to our own time. The black family knows no single location, since family reunions and genetic-ancestry searches testify to the spread of family members across states, nations, and continents. Not only are individual black families diasporic, but Africa and the diaspora itself have been long portrayed as the black family at large. While the role of the black family has been described by some as a microcosm of the entire race, its complexity as the “foundation” of African American life and history can be seen in numerous debates over how to represent its meaning and typicality from a historical perspective—as slave or free, as patriarchal or matriarchal/matrifocal, as single-headed or dual-headed household, as extended or nuclear, as fictive kin or blood lineage, as legal or common law, and as black or interracial, etc. Variation appears, as well, in discussions on the nature and impact of parenting, childhood, marriage, gender norms, sexuality, and incarceration. The family offers a rich tapestry of images for ex-ploring the African American past and present.
Opening music - Sweet Mello Spice by AK Alexander Productions.
A Ruse, A Railroad, A River - Mapping Miles from the Antebellum South to Freedom
Fearlessness and the clever escape from enslavement taken by Miles Eason, 3x Great Grandfather who used the Civil War as ruse for escape, inevitably breaking the color barriers of the Coal Mining boom of Philadelphia.
Tanisha is content creator and microblogger behind Ancestral Bequest, a bespoke and inclusive community that is dedicated to genealogical exchange and education. Penned by her peers as The Rebel Genealogist™️, she is driven to tell compelling stories of the lives of her ancestors beyond the databases they’re often confined to. We have to be the ones to tell their stories and honor them with pride.
Tanisha joined the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society – New Jersey Chapter in November of 2019 and is an alum of the Midwest African American Genealogical Institute where her focus has been Genetic Genealogy and DNA Analysis. Ms. Watson is her families historian since she was 8 years old, often telling family stories and impersonating the elders. Through her research she has been able to trace back to the 1790’s making connections to her ancestors from Norfolk, Virginia to Gatesville, North Carolina.
Music: Sweet Mello Spice by AK Alexander Productions
While researching his grandfather, James Morgan learned a lot about unique records of the AME church that enabled him to learn more about his and others' family histories! He will share his findings with us!
James R. Morgan III is a graduate of Howard University in Washington, D.C. where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Communications and Africana Studies in 2011. He is currently employed with the United States Department of State and serves as a Curatorial Consultant with the African American Civil War Museum in Washington, DC.
James is an active Prince Hall Freemason and as such he serves as Worshipful Grand Historian & Archivist of the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia. He has authored several scholarly writings on African American Freemasonry and fraternalism. He is also an Honorary Fellow and Life Member of the Phylaxis Research Society.
James is an active and experienced genealogist and is a member of the James Dent Walker Chapter of the Afro American Historical and Genealogical Society. He has presented at the 2016 International Black Genealogy Symposium as well as at the 2019 National Conference of the African American Historical and Genealogcal Society (AAHGS) among others. James serves as a member of the Advisory Board of the Bishop Henry McNeal Turner Project and is the author of The Lost Empire: Black Freemasonry in the Old West (1867-1906) which was awarded the 2019 Dr. Charles H. Wesley Medal of History and the 2020 Phillis Wheatley Book Award for Non-Fiction Biography. James is a Co-Panelist on both Black Pro Gen-Live and the Prince Hall Think Tank, both of which can be found on Youtube.
Opening Music - Sweet Mellow Spice by AK Alexander Productions
Listeners will be able to learn the beliefs and ideals from Dr. Joy G. Kinard a historian who has worked in African American History and Historic Preservation for over 20 years and whose family has been involved for over 70 years. This show will share with listeners a different perspective on preserving African American History in their neighborhoods with municipal development on the rise all over the nation, African American historic sites are left vulnerable and are being demolished that need to be saved. Kinard will discuss examples of wins and losses in this battle using community activism, advocacy, and new trends with the impacts of COVID-19.
As a Family Historian and DNA Data Manager, Jerome has had the opportunity to use his family’s oral history, coupled with an extensive collection of DNA results, a well-maintained family tree and modern research resources/tools to bridge the gap between African-American persons on this side of the Atlantic Ocean with their distant cousins (in Africa). All available resources have to be brought to bear (including using: Sibling Summation techniques, various DNA testing company’s data holdings, GEDmatch and DNA Painter to successfully find distant DNA matches in Nigeria and Senegal using these methods. Finding your family’s Kunta Kinte is rewarding and will provide a source of interest and pride for your family. The use of small (single digit) centimorgan (cM) values/results will certainly play a critical part in the successful analysis directly because of the distance you must travel back in time to make the necessary connections to the most recent common ancestors (MRCA)s – to validate [ if consolidated with other research methods ] your concluding findings.
Jerome Spears, has many years of general family history and genealogical research going back to 2009. His undergraduate and graduate degrees in Geography have served him well. He has positioned his ancestors within the historical context of place and time in order to uncover and reveal some remarkable family history discoveries. Jerome was honored in 2016 with the Afro-American Historical & Genealogical Society (AAHGS) - Elizabeth Clark-Lewis Genealogy Award for his original African American research. He has also presented at the AAHGS annual national-level conferences.
In most homes, women gather at the kitchen to celebrate and comfort each other, discuss important topics, make life-changing decisions, and address the challenges of life. The My Sister's Keeper Kitchen Table Talks are a culturally relevant and historic community-defined practice of creating safe spaces for the exploration of significant issues impacting the health of black women.
Katrina Kimble is the Project Coordinator for the Methodist LeBonheur Healthcare's - My Sister's Keeper Project. She has worked in population health and community engagement for over 15 years. She has a Bachelor's in Human Resource Management from The University of Memphis, a Wellness Advocate Certificate from Living Compass Health Ministry, and a Health Minister Certificate from Wesley Theological Seminary. Katrina's mission in life is to help individuals discover their journey to wholistic wellness. She believes that we should strive to be well not perfect...
Learn about the Center for Healing Racial Trauma with Dr. Candice Nicole Hargons.
Intervention: The Center for Healing Racial Trauma is dedicated to using love, liberation, equity, and creativity informed therapeutic interventions to help racially/ethnically marginalized people heal from racism. Prevention: The Center for Healing Racial Trauma additionally provides continuing education and training for mental health, education, business, religious, and medical professionals, and we engage in and support activist work, to create an anti-racist world.
Dr. Candice Nicole Hargons is an award-winning assistant professor of counseling psychology at the University of Kentucky, where she studies sex, social justice, and leadership – all with a love ethic. She is also the founding director of the Center for Healing Racial Trauma. Dr. Hargons is the creator of the Ally + Accomplice Meditation for Cultivating an Anti-Racist Mindset and the Black Lives Matter Meditation for Healing Racial Trauma, which has been featured in the Huffington Post and Blavity and used by universities and private practices across the US. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Therapy for Black Girls, Women's Health, Good Housekeeping, and Blavity.
Opening music: Sweet Mellow Spice by AK Alexander Productions, LLC
Angela Walton-Raji is known nationally for her research and work on Oklahoma Native American records. Her book Black Indian Genealogy Research, African Ancestors Among the Five Civilized Tribes, is the only book of its kind focusing on the unique record sets pertaining to the Oklahoma Freedmen.
Angela has published two volumes called Freedmen of the Frontier from a blogging project that unfolded in 2017. The goal was to document 52 families from Indian Territory in 52 weeks.By the end of that year, 52 family histories had been placed on the African-Native American Genealogy blog. The families covered in the books are Indian tribal Freedmen---people who were once enslaved by Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole Indians. Many of the elders in some of the families highlighted, were people who were brought to Indian Territory on the Trail of Tears. The Trail of Tears is the same journey that forced those tribes from their homes in the southeast to the west. The lesser known story is that those five tribes, including the tribal chiefs took enslaved black people with them. The Freedmen are the people freed by the treaty of 1866, and who lived their lives in Indian Territory from that time, onward.
In 2018, it was decided to put those 52 family stories into a book manuscript. When the stories were tweaked and consolidated there were more than 500 pages of data in the project. Angela then decided to divide the book into two volumes. Volume 1 documented Cherokee, Choctaw, and Chickasaw Freedmen. Volume 2 documented Creek and Seminole Freedmen.
Opening music: Sweet Mellow Spice by AK Alexander Productions, Inc.
A Denver, Colorado native, Mr. Stephen Hammond is a retired federal employee having spent his entire 40-year career as an earth scientist with the United States Geological Survey. He is now a Scientist Emeritus with the agency.
Steve has now swapped his full-time geology work for genealogy and family history research. It is a hobby he’s had since he was in grade school. His goals are to educate and inspire others to document their own family history. He is a 7th generation member of the Syphax family of Washington, DC; a line that moved by force to New Orleans and then by choice to Denver. He has participated in a variety of National Park Service programs at the Arlington House – the Robert E. Lee Memorial to highlight the lives of his Syphax ancestors and other enslaved Americans on the estate.
He has spoken at the African American Civil War Museum and the historic Decatur House on Lafayette Square both in Washington, DC and has contributed to exhibits at George Washington’s Mount Vernon and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. He has been interviewed by numerous organizations including NPR, C-Span, Civil War Times and Arlington (VA) magazines among others, as well as for numerous newspaper articles to provide authoritative family-history information and historical perspective. Steve has a DNA study underway to support genealogical information that is helping to identify ancestral origins and tie the Syphax family directly to Martha Washington.
Music: Sweet Mellow Spice with AK Alexander Productions
Telling Her Story: Finding Female Ancestors When Few Clues Exist”
Viola Osborne Baskerville is a Richmond native who has been tracing several lines of her own family history for over thirty years. Brief sketches about three family matriarchs led her on a hunt to find out more about them. Ms. Baskerville is a member of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society (AAHGS), Greater Richmond VA Chapter as well as a member of ASALH, Richmond Chapter. She received her B.A. from the College of William and Mary and her Juris Doctorate from the University of Iowa, College of Law. As a public servant, she advocated for the preservation of Virginia’s African American history through placing statues and historical markers, most notably a monument to Arthur Ashe in Richmond and a plaque naming and honoring Virginia’s Black Reconstruction Era state lawmakers at the Capitol. In addition, Ms. Baskerville secured state funded scholarships for former students locked out of Virginia’s schools when the state closed public schools rather than integrate them. Currently, she serves as a Virginia Outdoors Foundation trustee. The foundation is focused on creating equity and justice in selecting its land use preservation projects. One project the Foundation has supported is the restoration of Evergreen Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia, a historic African American Cemetery. Ms. Baskerville is currently featured as one of the contemporary Agents of Change, in the Virginia Museum of History and Culture’s exhibition, Agents of Change: Female Activism in Virginia from Women’s Suffrage to Today on exhibit through November 1.
How an 1829 Slave Bill of Sale & A Question Connects Janice Cross-Gilyard to her 5th Great-Grandmother, Willoughby McWhite. Janice Cross-Gilyard will share how a segment from the PBS Show – The History Detectives has impacted her genealogy research.
Jeanie Hans (From Wichita, Kansas) found a box of her grandfather’s possessions. Among some books and old gun manuals, she found a disturbing document: an 1829 ‘Bill of Sale’ for the purchase of a 17-year old “negro girl” named Willoby. Jeanie wants to know more about this young girl. Jeanie asks host Eduardo Pagan to find out what happened to Willoby. (Source: PBS Program – The History Detectives)
https://www.pbs.org/video/history-detectives-bill-sale/
Janice Cross-Gilyard is a Charter Member of The Harriet Tubman Chapter of Sons & Daughters of the United States Middle Passage. She also joined the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society – New Jersey Chapter in March of 2016 and currently serves as President, Editor of the Family Times Newsletter as well as managing and providing content for their Facebook page.
Janice has conducted her family research for the past 25 years and has documented her family history back to 1790. She is proud of her ancestors, which include educators (two founded colleges), midwives, farmers, and pastors. She is passionate about history and genealogy and believes that her ancestors chose her to tell their stories. She is always willing to assist anyone who may be interested in researching their family history.
Renate began seriously researching her paternal Yarborough line in 1997, after the death of her father. She learned that the progenitor of this line,her great-grandfather, Calvin, had been enslaved in North Carolina for the first 25 years of his life, and that during that time, he had multiple owners. Renate shares Calvin's slavery story on numerous platforms - at workshops and conferences, on webinars, and through her blog, "Into the LIGHT;" and is still working continuously to uncover more details of his life, both before and after emancipation.
Renate Yarborough Sanders has been formally engaged in genealogy research for 23 years. She is the descendant of enslaved ancestors, as well as enslavers and free people of color. Renate authors two blogs: “Into the LIGHT”, focused on her own family history; and, “Genea-Related”, a platform for presenting a variety of information of genealogical interest. Renate also produces a “(Mostly) African-American Funeral Programs” online database, in which she publishes vital data extracted from funeral programs.
Renate is a member of the National Genealogical Society, the North Carolina Genealogical Society, the Afro American Genealogical and Historical Society (AAHGS), the Virtual Genealogical Association, and the Tyrrell County (NC) Genealogical and Historical Society. She is a BlackProGen LIVE panelist and is currently co-hosting a summer series of webinars called “Let’s Talk North Carolina Genealogy!” She has articles in genealogical newsletters and volunteers in a number of activities in the genealogical community and is the Newsletter Editor for the Hampton Roads Chapter of AAHGS, a member of the AAHGS National Editorial Board, and a volunteer photographer for Find-A-Grave. She retired in July 2017 from a 32-year career as elementary educator.
Adrienne Abiodun is a professional genealogist located outside of Tampa, Florida. Combined, her personal and professional genealogical pursuits span nearly two decades, fourteen years of which have been in the exploration of genetic genealogy. She is a member of the Florida Genealogical Society, and a handful of lineage societies which include: Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War (DUVCW), Sons and Daughters of the United States Middle Passage (SDUSMP) which she serves on the board for and Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) where she is presently the National Vice Chair for the NSDAR DNA Network Committee and State Chairman for the Florida Society Children of the American Revolution. Her niche areas include African American genealogy, Deep South U.S., lineage societies and genetic genealogy.
Adrienne strives to make genealogy down-to-earth, fun and attainable by anyone interested in their family history. By mixing past professional experience in experiential marketing with genealogy, Adrienne has successfully been able to secure grant funding on four occasions. This allowed her to organize youth genealogy events on behalf of her local C.A.R. society which she is Society President in addition to a community genealogical reconnection event on behalf of the SDUSMP which took place in 2019 at the Bentonia Blues Festival in Yazoo County, Mississippi.
When Adrienne isn’t researching or giving presentations, she enjoys spending time with her two favorite DNA matches - her two children Naomi (9) and Oneil (6).
Opening music - Sweet Mello Spice by AKAlexander Productions
This is a collection of runaway slave ads from Edgefield county, South Carolina. Edgefield split into multiple counties, Aiken county being one. The ads cover the 1830s-1860s. Get a different side of slavery, the side we’re not really taught about. About those who weren’t gonna stay in bondage and got away.
Jerome A. Gaines, born and raised in Aiken county, South Carolina. At a young age, his Sweet grandmother would tell him little bits and pieces about their family. About 7 years ago he had the urge to conduct research and was able to get back pretty far in his family history. After assisting others with their research, he realized that he had a special talent. He loves family history and genealogy and it’s important that we know who and where we come from. Therefore, Jerome has turned his love into a business and is currently working with clients.
Music: Sweet Mello Spice with AK Alexander Productions
Are you worried that you’ve been collecting ancestral information for years but haven’t done anything with it?
In 2016, Kathy Lynne Marshall, 60, felt the mandate from her ancestors to write their stories NOW. She finally figured out a quick-start method for taking the hints and tips from African American genealogists, family lore, and DNA results to write three books in three years, winning three book awards in the process. She will share her method for determining which book to write, how to get started, and how to finish strong, to leave a written legacy for your family. Encouraging others bring their family stories into the American historical record has become her passion.
Each chapter in Marshall’s first book, The Ancestors are Smiling!, was written from the point of view of different descendants of her great-great-grandfather, Otho Williams. Her second book, Finding Otho: The Search for Our Enslaved Williams Ancestors, described her research process and included an interesting interplay with her ancestors. Marshall's latest book, Finding Daisy: From the Deep South to the Promised Land, investigated why her grandmother lied about her birthplace.
Finding Otho and Finding Daisy both have a “Solving Your Mystery” chapter that describe Marshall’s quick-start process to plan, outline, research, write, and print or publish family history books.
Marshall was a 36-year researcher, analyst and technical writer for the California Highway Patrol. She is also an artist (www.KanikaMarshall.com) and has published in the AAHGS Quarterly Newsletters and two Anthologies.
Opening Music - Sweet Mellow Spice by AK Productions
Join Brian Sheffey for a discussion of the research behind the Moses Williams Project where he will discuss the numerous repositories and databases accessed in the course of researching his life to-date.
Brian Sheffey has expertise in Genetic Genealogy, mid-Atlantic & Southern genealogical research, with an emphasis on the intersection of white, black, and Native American genealogy. He has used his research knowledge to solve cases of unknown parentage from Colonial America to the present day utilizing DNA and paper trail evidence.
He has deep ancestral roots in colonial Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, as well as the early Kentucky and Tennessee territories. He combine years of experience in marketing research and academia with a passion for genealogical research - and a unique ability to solve seemingly impossible cases. His primary research interests include cases of unknown parentage, such as identifying the white progenitors of his numerous mulatto family lines; and triangulating answers to tough genealogical questions using traditional records and genetic evidence.
Behind his passion for research lies the belief that genealogy is an opportunity to connect with Americans from different backgrounds to enable them to connect with each other – and make connections around the globe.
Opening Music - Sweet Mellow Spice by AK Alexander Productions
North Carolina’s Free People of Color, 1715–1885
Warren Eugene Milteer Jr. examines the lives of free persons categorized by their communities as negroes, mulattoes, mustees, Indians,mixed-bloods, or simply free people of color. From the colonial period through Reconstruction, lawmakers passed legislation that curbed the rights and privileges of these non-enslaved residents, from prohibiting their testimony against whites to barring them from the ballot box. While such laws suggest that most white North Carolinians desired to limit the freedoms and civil liberties enjoyed by free people of color, Milteer reveals that the two groups often interacted—praying together, working the same land, and occasionally sharing households and starting families. Some free people of color also rose to prominence in their communities, becoming successful businesspeople and winning the respect of their white neighbors.
Warren Eugene Milteer Jr. is assistant professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
Hidden in Plain Site: Researching for the Descendants of the Enslaved Laborers who built UVA
Dr. Shelley Murphy was hired to conduct genealogical research for descendants of the enslaved laborers who helped to build the University of Virginia. This six month position presented challenges in conducting slave era research. She expected brick walls and set goals that would be consistent with her limited research time. Being familiar with the laws, she knew that she had to stay local for the best resources and follow the money, land, water, community and the faith of the people.
Over 10 years ago, a group of UVA students proposed creating a memorial to acknowledge and honor African Americans' contributions to the university. This project responded to a deep need to address an untold and uncomfortable history while building community. Join Terri Allard for a conversation with Dr. Shelley Murphy about the UVA Descendant Outreach Program and Memorial to Enslaved Laborers.
https://www.pbs.org/video/memorial-enslaved-laborers-descendant-outreach-program-pqigk/
Opening music - Sweet Mellow Spice by A. K. Alexander Productions
Have you considered the role DNA might play in corroborating the oral history of your family?
LaBrenda Garrett-Nelson, JD, LLM, CG®, CGL(SM), is a trustee and President of the Board for Certification of Genealogists. She earned a BA from John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York, and both a Law degree and a Master of Laws degree from the New York University School of Law. After working as a corporate tax attorney for thirty-five years, she retired from a partner-level position at Ernst & Young in 2013 and turned her attention to her longtime avocation of Genealogy. She is now a full-time genealogist focused on writing and teaching, and currently serves as the Registrar General of the Sons and Daughters of the United States Middle Passage, a national lineage society that honors ancestors who were enslaved in the United States before 1870.
LaBrenda published A Guide to Researching African American Ancestors in Laurens County, South Carolina and Selected Finding Aids(2016), an award-winning book that was hailed in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s long-running genealogy column as a model for researching African Americans in South Carolina and other states.
Opening music - Sweet Mellow Spice by A. K. Alexander Productions
Learn about the digital humanities project dedicated to the writings and study of Bishop Henry Mcneal Turner.
Andre E. Johnson is an Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Media Studies in the Department of Communication & Film at the University of Memphis. He teaches classes in African American Public Address, Rhetoric, Race, Religion, and Interracial Communication. Dr. Johnson is the founding director of the Henry McNeal Turner Project—a digital humanities project dedicated to the writings and study of Bishop Turner. In addition, he has published two monographs on the life and legacy of Bishop Turner. The first one “The Forgotten Prophet: Bishop Henry McNeal Turner and the African American Prophetic Tradition (Lexington Books, 2012) won Outstanding Book Award for the African American Communication and Culture Division of the National Communication Association. The second one, “No Future in this Country: The Prophetic Pessimism of Bishop Henry McNeal Turner (University Press of Mississippi, 2020) is scheduled for release in November of 2020.
http://www.thehenrymcnealturnerproject.org/
John F. Baker Jr. is the author of The Washingtons of Wessyngton Plantation: Stories of My Family’s Journey to Freedom published by Simon & Schuster(2010).
Baker tells the story of his ancestors, who were enslaved on Wessyngton Plantation owned by the Washington family as well as the story of the hundreds of other African Americans connected with the plantation for more than two centuries. It is a story of family, faith, and community.
Baker has managed to create groundbreaking research in African American history and American history. He uses historical records to trace genealogy such as Slave bills of sale, Freedmen’s Bureau records, church records, death records, birth records, marriage records, U. S. Census records, Military records, Pension records, Civil War records, Wills, Deeds, Estate records, Plantation records and many others. In addition, he interviewed dozens of individuals ranging in age from 80 to 107 years old to collect their oral histories. He used more than 11,000 documents to trace the lives of his ancestors, the Washington family and more than 300 other African Americans enslaved on Wessyngton Plantation, which was the largest tobacco plantation in America.
Opening music - Sweet Mellow Spice by A. K. Alexander Productions
Never say Never! Discovering the Untold Story of Archer Alexander
Keith Winstead of Louisville, Kentucky sent Dorris Keeven-Franke a message in October of 2018 inquiring about a post on Archer Alexander and Muhammad Ali. Neither imagined the journey of discovery that lay ahead. Winstead, a third cousin of Ali, and a great great-great-grandson of Archer Alexander, had spent the past 30 years researching his family history and had just discovered the family connection through DNA. That journey has taken them all the way from St. Charles, Missouri where Keeven-Franke lives to Washington DC to stand at the Emancipation Memorial, where Archer portrays the former enslaved with President Abraham Lincoln.
Keeven-Franke is a writer and professional genealogist, who has been researching the history of St. Charles and St. Louis for over 40 years and Keith Winstead born Louisville, Ky. has been reesearching his family history for over 30 years.
Opening music - Sweet Mellow Spice by A. K. Alexander Productions
What would it look and feel like if the descendant of an enslaved ancestor and descendant of slave holder would collaborate to share family records?
Cheri Hudson Passey is a Professional Genealogist, Instructor, Writer, and Speaker and the owner of Carolina Girl Genealogy, LLC which provides research services as well as instruction and coaching through her Genealogy 1-on-1 classes. Cheri is the host of the genealogy chat show GenFriends seen on YouTube and is a genealogical researcher, subcontracted by Eagle Investigative Services, Inc., for the US Army Past Conflict Repatriations Branch.
Cheri enjoys volunteering and serving the genealogy community. She is a Past President of The Grand Strand Genealogy Club and currently serves as Program Chair. She is the secretary for the Federation of Genealogical Societies and treasurer for the GeneaBloggersTRIBE.
Opening music - Sweet Mellow Spice by A. K. Alexander Productions
A false assumption in the genealogy research process led to years of being unable to find out who my 4th great-grandmother really was. An accidental discovery in a courthouse basement led to her true identity. Learn how to think outside of the genealogy research box to find the female ancestors hiding in the family tree.
As a genealogy researcher and creator of the Are You My Cousin? blog, Lisa Lisson takes the overwhelm out of genealogy research and keeps researchers moving forward finding their ancestors. Whether researching ancestors alongside clients or writing how-to articles and books, Lisa uses her 12 years of research experience to help others build a solid research plan, find the needed genealogy records, and get the most out of those resources. When not working with clients or writing genealogy articles, Lisa can be found pursuing her passion for running, traveling with her husband or simply enjoying time with her two adult children.
Have you wondered why you can't find your ancestors? Tony Burroughs will explore reasons why you are having problems finding your ancestors.
Tony Burroughs is founder and CEO of the Center for Black Genealogy. He is an internationally known genealogist who taught genealogy at Chicago State University for fifteen years. Burroughs researched Olympic Gold Medal sprint champion Michael Johnson’s family history and consulted on the Smokey Robinson genealogy, the Oprah Winfrey genealogy, Reverend Al Sharpton-Strom Thurmond genealogy, African American Lives2, Who Do You Think You Are, The Real Family of Jesus and consulted with Chicago Public Schools, New York Public Schools, Chicago City Colleges and Ancestry.com.
Burroughs’ book, Black Roots: A Beginners Guide to Tracing the African American Family Tree (Simon & Schuster, 2001) was number one on Essence Magazine's Best Seller List and is now in its fifth printing. His chapter, African American Genealogy is in the Encyclopedia of African American History (Oxford University Press, 2009). His chapter, How to Create a Family Tree, is in The Experts Guide to 100 Things Everyone Should Know How to Do (Samantha Ettus editor, Clarkson Potter Division of Random House Inc., September 2004), along with other experts, Donald Trump, Jennifer Capriati, Debbie Fields, and Larry King. His chapter, African American Genealogy appears in The Source, revised edition (edited by Lou Szucs and Sandra Luebking, Ancestry, 2006) and he was one of three co-authors of the African American Genealogical Sourcebook (Paula Byers, editor, Detroit: Gale Research, 1995).
Barbara Ricard Landix is a native of New Orleans and a recently inducted member into the Pleasant Run Chapter, NSDAR of Texas DAR. Barbara will share her journey to become a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution based upon her seventh generation grandfather Pierre Belly. Barbara is a charter member of The Louisiana Creole Research Association, Inc., known as LA Creole, that was founded on August 21, 2004 as a New Orleans-based, non-profit family research and educational organization.
In 1820, exactly two hundred years ago, with the signing of The Treaty of Doak’s Stand, more than five million acres of Choctaw ancestral land in what is now Madison, County, MS was ceded to the United States. As a result, white planters flocked to the area forcing thousands of enslaved black people to migrate with them often leaving family members behind. A number of those planters originated in Bertie County, NC including John Johnston, who migrated there in 1820 and brought with him his body servant, who was her third paternal great grandfather, an enslaved man named March. Other planters from Bertie followed including Noah B. Hinton who brought with him over one hundred and twenty enslaved people among whom were Habeus and Mary, her great, great maternal grandparents.
Freddi Williams Evans is a native of Madison, MS located in Madison County, and she resides in New Orleans. She is internationally recognized for her scholarship on historic Congo Square and is the author of Congo Square: African Roots in New Orleans, the first comprehensive study of the location, which received the 2012 Louisiana Humanities Book of the Year Award and is published in French. Her research and advocacy influenced the 2011 New Orleans City Council Ordinance that made the popular name “Congo Square” the official name of the location. Evans is also the author of three picture books: Hush Harbor - Praying in Secret, The Battle of New Orleans: The Drummer’s Story, and A Bus of Our Own.
Almost Disappeared: Unearthing My Family History is a blog that will primarily share genealogical resources and methodology, and add a new voice to those who feel they have been chosen to call the names of their ancestors and tell their stories.
Alvin Blakes is a lifelong organizer and community worker who has been researching African history since he was a teenager, and has traveled to Africa, Europe, the Caribbean and all over the United States to pursue his studies. For over 20 years, he has researched his family’s history from Woodville, Wilkinson County Mississippi, back to the late 1700s in the Eastern US. He is a member of the Dallas Genealogical Society’s African American Genealogy Interest Group. He graduated with a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from Howard University’s School of Engineering. Currently, he is the Manager of the Dallas Area Rapid Transit Agency’s Bus Fleet Engineering Group.
almostdisappeared.com
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 Rights in America, Changing Face of America, the 1968 Project and most recently, 1619. She is also the editor of USA TODAY's annual Black History Month special edition, which was nominated for a Salute to Excellence Award in 2017 from the National Association of Black Journalists and won awards for writers in 2018.
Before coming to USA TODAY more than a decade ago, she was features editor for Gannett News Service, a public affairs specialist for the Smithsonian Institution and a copy chief for Black Entertainment Television’s magazine division. Nichelle is a native of Gary, Ind., a graduate of Indiana University, and passionate about reading, travel, art, cooking, gardening and North African dance.
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 Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute, the Smithsonian’s American Women’s History Initiative and George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs.
www.aleliabundles.com
https://bit.ly/341GJF4
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 family history research on relationships between his enslaved ancestors and enslaver ancestors before Emancipation.
https://struggleandprogress.com/2020/03/22/the-riggs-family-harriet-riggs-story-part-2/
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 of musicians, institutions, and family histories. His most recent project, " A Place Called Desire" was a finalist for best documentary in 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 60's and 70"s in New Orleans. He has a deep abiding love to "educate, entertain, inspire others to tell their story."
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 Genealogist Angela Walton- Raji and host Bernice Alexander Bennett for a quick conversation about what they are doing during the coronavirus covid-19 pandemic.
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 Studies at the University of Nebraska. He is coauthor of Homesteading the Plains: Toward a New History (2017). He is currently studying the history of black homesteaders in the Great Plains. His most recent coauthored article in Great Plains Quarterly "African American Homesteader 'Colonies' in the Settling of the Great Plains" explores the history of six black homesteader communities.
https://www.unl.edu/plains/homesteading-research
Friefeld@unl.edu
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 Microsoft. In 2018, he celebrated 25 years of marriage with his wife, Dianne, and left the corporate world behind. A few years ago he found out about the “family secret” and through research the facts uncovered the truth.
Linda Cherry is a Documentary Filmmaker, lecturer, researcher and Ph.D. in the fields of Consciousness and Transformation, Cosmology and Women’s Spirituality. She has Master’s Degree in Religious Studies, a BS in Communications/Journalism and Theatre and is Ordained Interfaith Minister.
Documentary on Reconstruction and my Great-Great Grandfather-One of the first African American Senators during Reconstruction, Senator Lawrence Cain from Edgefield, South Carolina. Web Series: Shambhala Warriors: Ordinary People doing Extraordinary Things to Make this World a Better Place.
Tune in to hear genealogists Luke Alexander, Lisa Fanning, Tyrone Goodwyn and Andre Kearns discuss and share their perspectives on the challenges and opportunities DNA test companies face in marketing to the African American consumer.
Andre Kearns is a genealogist, public speaker, commentator and writer. He regularly shares his research findings at his website www.cumbofamily.com. He also blogs on race, culture, history and genealogy at https://medium.com/@andrekearns.
Lisa Ann Fanning is a genealogist, family historian, diversity and inclusion strategist, and award-winning artist. She also specializes in genetic genealogy and using DNA to help adoptees locate their birth families.
Luke Alexander is a genealogist and community historian with a focus on FPOC/Indigenous heritage in the Carolinas, and as vice-president of the Benjamin & Edith Spaulding Descendants Foundation, Inc. (spauldingfamily.org) is engaged in philanthropic activities in his FPOC ancestral hometown Farmers Union, NC.
Tyrone S. Goodwyn is a genealogist and sign language interpreter; and an IT Director by day. His focus on maternal line is free people of color in southeast North Carolina, including their 17th century migration from Virginia and subsequent movement southward along the Atlantic seaboard.
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 from Antioch. She is currently working on a memoir about her journey to document the Oklahoma-based Freedmen, and her own African-Choctaw family. Her research continues at the National Archives in Washington DC, and also from Maryland where she continues to research and write.
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 obsession, especially once she discovered that her paternal ancestors were all from the Georgia counties of Liberty, Dooly and Wilcox. She has since become secretary of the Liberty County's Midway Museum Board of Governors, and president of the Coastal Georgia Genealogical Society (CGGS). Combining an interest in social media with a love of genealogy and history, she developed the Midway Museum, CGGS and her own TheyHadNames.net web pages, and is an administrator for the CGGS, Midway Museum, and Liberty County Historical Society Facebook pages/groups. She is also the host of GenealogyTrail.com's Liberty County page, and was a speaker at the 2018 annual Susie King Taylor Mami Wata Rising conference in Midway, Georgia.
Pamela Bailey is a nationally published author, a singer-songwriter, and a self-described Carolina Daughter. She is descended from enslaved people from the Pee Dee region of South Carolina. Pamela earned her MFA Degree in Non-fiction Creative Writing from Queens University of Charlotte, North Carolina, and her undergraduate degree in Business Marketing from South Carolina State University in Orangeburg, South Carolina
Pamela has created a project called the Big Family Search, and she is using social media, DNA testing, and accessible technology to reunite descendants from various branches of her ancestral family. Their South Carolina ancestors were separated by forced migration between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War when the domestic slave trade boomed at the end of the Transatlantic Slave Trade around 1808. She is creating a documentary project about her family’s reunification in an effort to shed light on this important, but often neglected part of American history.
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=a2b8626f0b2604ea0ee256e3dd8be82e
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.
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 a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Communications and African American History in 2011. He is a genealogist and member of the James Dent Walker Chapter of the African American Historical and Genealogical Society (AAHGS) and a panelist on the Black ProGen Live Youtube show. He is a founding member and Co-Panelist on the monthly Youtube based show entitled “The Prince Hall Think Tank”.
Mr. Morgan serves the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia as its Worshipful Grand Historian & Archivist. James is also an Honorary Fellow of the Phylaxis Research Society. Brother Morgan is the author of the book The Lost Empire: Black Freemasonry in the Old West (1867-1906).
Ric Murphy will explore the history of the 20 and odd African captives that arrived in Virginia around 1619 and planted the seeds of the American slave trade. This is the first group of Africans to go on record to be sold as involuntary laborers.
A Boston native, Ric Murphy is an educator, historian, and award-winning author of several books and historical publications. Long before he started writing, Murphy had always heard about his rich family background, which led him to begin as a hobby — genealogical research. His family lineage dates to the earliest colonial periods of Plymouth, Massachusetts, and Jamestown, Virginia. Mr. Murphy’s lineage has been evaluated and accepted by several heredity societies, including the Daughters of the American Revolution; the National Society of the Sons of Colonial New England; the Sons of the American Revolution; the Sons of the Union Veterans of the Civil War; and the Sons and Daughters of the U. S. Middle Passage.
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.
The enslaved of the Keithly Plantation were buried on a small one acre known today as Sage Chapel Cemetery. The owner of the adjoining land was a German emigrant and abolitionist Arnold Krekel who came to America in 1832. On January 11, 1865, Krekel would be the President of Missouri’s Constitutional Convention who would sign the Missouri Emancipation Proclamation that freed the enslaved that were buried at Sage Chapel Cemetery and across the entire State of Missouri. Today, this beautiful graveyard still exists in the City of O’Fallon, Missouri and is being placed on the National Register of Historic Places. This is the research behind the story, and some of the stories that come from that research.
Dorris Keeven-Franke has been researching history her entire life. Born in St. Louis, she resides in St. Charles and writes about the history of Missouri. She loves to share the stories of all the people, of all colors, cultures and countries. She is Director of Missouri Germans Consortium, Curator at the St. Charles County Veterans Museum, and an archivist at the Bellefontaine Cemetery and Arboretum. She is author of several books and is currently working on stories of the African-Americans and the German abolitionists.
Music by composer, musician and producer Alvin Alexander
Song - Sweet Mello Spice
Nicka Smith will share how she discovered that James Alexander Ventress, the namesake of Ventress Hall on the University of Mississippi’s campus was also a slave owner and owned her family.
Nicka Smith is a professional photographer, speaker, host, and documentarian with more than 19 years of experience as a genealogist. She has extensive experience in African /ancestored genealogy, reverse genealogy, and family reunion planning and execution. She is also an expert in genealogical research in the Northeastern Louisiana area, sharing genealogy with youth, documenting the ancestral journey, and employing the use of new technology in genealogy and family history research.
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 Williams is an eight generation Stagville Descendant. Since Michael’s 1996 Adoption Search & Reunion journey he has traced his direct maternal ancestry to Durham, North Carolina’s State Historic Stagville Plantation Site. Michael currently works in Healthcare and he is a genetic genealogy coach and presenter with Sankofa Genealogy Tech Seminars.
Theresa Williams-Stoudamire is a retired healthcare administrator. Her undergraduate degree is in history. Upon retirement, she decided to explore her family roots. All four of her familial lines relocated to NYC during the Great Migration from the South. Her paternal lines both hailed from North Carolina. As she delved into her Durham family's past she discovered that her great grandparents were enslaved on Stagville plantation.
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 family histories.
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 North Carolina who served in World War I. It can be found at http://blacksoldiersmattered.com.
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. is the Founder & Secretary of The Georgetown Memory Project
Richard Cellini graduated from Georgetown University with a bachelor’s degree in 1984, and a law degree in 1988. He received a master’s degree from the University of Cambridge (UK) in 1994.
Richard founded the Georgetown Memory Project in 2015. The GMP is a non-profit research institute focused on the topic of university-sponsored slavery. The GMP is currently working to identify 272 enslaved people sold by Georgetown University to southern Louisiana in 1838, and to locate their lineal descendants. To date, the GMP has documented the lives of 211 of the original GU272, and traced more than 6,100 direct descendants (living and deceased).
www.georgetownmemoryproject.org
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 and Mary's Special Collections Archive. Most recently he has shifted his focus on research related to African and Native American history and genealogy with his latest project, "By Any Other Name: An Exploration of Afro-Amerindian Heritage." This film received the 'Inventos Award' at the FistUp Film Festival in Berkeley, CA, and 'Best Feature' at the Warsaw Avenue Film Festival in Cincinnati, OH. It has also been screened at the 20th Native American Film Festival of the Southeast, the Native Spirit Film festival in London and the Apex Museum in Atlanta. It is Steven’s intention that "By Any Other Name" stands as a meaningful contribution in the realm of historical documentary and in understanding both the African American and Native American diasporas.
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 research which is how Ms. Huston found her records that aligned them together. She grew up in a multicultural environment in a mining camp in New Mexico. She came to appreciate & love the cultural differences among those who lived & worked together. Her understanding evolved that we are more alike than we are different. She believes that we can let our differences divide us or have our likenesses unite us. No other success exceeds family & that’s why she loves family history.
http://www.blackokelleys.org/
www.msjoyce.com
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 African diaspora studies, and the George W.Littlefield Fellow in American History, at the University of Texas at Austin. An award-winning historian, she is also a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians.
Family Pictures USA is a television series and transmedia project that explores neighborhoods and cities through the lens of the family photo album. Hosted by Thomas Allen Harris, this innovative television series enlarges our understanding of history, our diversity, and our shared values.
Thomas Allen Harris is a critically acclaimed artist who uses film, video, photography, and performance to explore family and identity. Harris' work has been broadcast internationally and exhibited at major festivals, museums and galleries across the globe. A graduate of Harvard College, and a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, he has received numerous awards including an NAACP Image Award and African Oscar, as well as Guggeheim, Rockfeller, and United States Artist fellowships. He lectures and teaches widely on media arts, visual literacy, and personal archiving at such institutions as Yale, Dartmouth, University of California, and many others.
www.familypicturesusa.com
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 African American Genealogy, Slave Ancestral Research and DNA. Kenyatta is extremely knowledgeable in the field of Genealogy as a whole and is working diligently to bridge the gap between Genealogists and Historians, a merging of professions Berry deems necessary. As the demand grows for people to learn more about their lineage and DNA, Berry remains deeply engrossed in her pursuit of knowledge and uses it to continually educate and inform. With her first book newly completed, The Family Tree Toolkit: A Comprehensive Guide to Uncovering Your Ancestry and Researching Genealogy, due to be published as early as next spring, Kenyatta may soon find herself connecting more dots than ever.
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 the founder of her blog: “theotheralexandria”. Char is currently working on her second book which will be available in 2018; and, she has completed a PBS documentary on the first African American NBA player as well as working with PBS on other projects. The documentary is scheduled to be in the theatres in February 2018. The title “The First to Do It.” Char recently accepted a freelance position with the Alexandria Gazette Newspaper in Alexandria, Virginia writing articles on the history of African Americans’ in Alexandria, Virginia. She is a member of over 25 Writer’s Association, Historical and Genealogical Societies including Prince Georges’ AAHGS.
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 People Magazine, Nightline, ABC News and many other National and International Publications.
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 equipped with TV/DVD system that allows visitors to the site to hear and see films, speeches and sermons by and about Dr. Mays and his extraordinary life.
Christopher B. Thomas is a native of Sacramento, CA and was educated in the Sacramento public schools. He has lived in Greenwood, SC since 2007. He hold a Bachelors of Arts in History from California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo, a Master of Arts in Theological Studies and a Master of Theology from Liberty University. He is an ordained Elder in the Church of God In Christ and is celebrating his 25th years in public ministry. He currently is the Director of the GLEAMNS Dr. Benjamin E. Mays Historical Preservation Site in Greenwood, SC, and senior pastor of Faith Fellowship Community Church of God In Christ in Greenwood, SC.
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 genealogy hobbyist. By day he works in the business and technology world, and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA in Business Administration from Morehouse College. His website www.Cumbofamily.com is where he regularly shares his research findings through blog posts. He also regularly blogs on Race, Culture, History and Genealogy at www.medium.com under the name Andre Kearns.
The history of slavery in America has made our DNA a complex cultural stew. In this episode, Nicka Smith combine traditional genealogy and DNA research to trace back to previously unknown but well documented enslaved ancestors.
Nicka Smith is a professional photographer, speaker, host, and documentarian with more than 18 years of experience as a genealogist. She has extensive experience in African ancestored genealogy, reverse genealogy, and family reunion planning and execution. She is also an expert in genealogical research in the Northeastern Louisiana area, sharing genealogy with youth, documenting the ancestral journey, and employing the use of new technology in genealogy and family history research.
Nicka has diverse and varied experience in communications, with a background in publications, editing, graphic design, radio, and video production. She has edited and designed several volumes of family history that include narratives, photos, and genealogical information and has also transferred these things to an online environment. She is the host of BlackProGen LIVE, an innovative web show focused on people of color genealogy and family history.
The Genealogy Do-Over (https://genealogydo-over.com) is an online educational initiative to improve genealogical and family history research skills. The Facebook group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/genealogydoover/) has over 15,000 members working through the monthly topics provided by genealogy author and educator Thomas MacEntee.
The goal of The Genealogy Do-Over is not to wallow in regrets over the mistakes we've made with our genealogy in the past. Do-Over members are willing to set aside years of research and start over - from scratch!
And finally, a NEW FEATURE is added for 2018 - the DNA Do-Over! This group targets genealogists and family historians who have taken DNA tests but really haven't put their DNA data to work! Patterned after The Genealogy Do-Over, we cover one topic each month and improve our genetic genealogy education in a supportive atmosphere.
What happens when a “tech guy” with a love for history gets laid off during The Great Recession of 2008? You get Thomas MacEntee, a genealogy professional based in the United States who is also a blogger, educator, author, social media connector, online community builder and more.
Thomas was laid off after a 25-year career in the information technology field, so he started his own genealogy-related business called High Definition Genealogy.
Thomas describes himself as a lifelong learner with a background in a multitude of topics who has finally figured out what he does best: teach, inspire, instigate, and serve as a curator and go-to-guy for concept nurturing and inspiration. Thomas is a big believer in success, and that we all succeed when we help each other find success.
In 2017, Kathy Kanika Marshall wrote, The Ancestors Are Smiling! which is a collection of uplifting, funny, touching and sometimes harrowing real life stories, creatively told by Kathy Marshall’s ancestors and their descendants. For example, Marshall’s great-grandmother, Ella, worked for a congressman who helped convince President Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, making it possible for her second great-grandmother, Margaret, to transport her five enslaved children in a buckboard to freedom in Ohio. Spunky Great-aunt Reba describes receiving her high school diploma at 106, and being profiled in Essence Magazine and on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Pullman Porter Austin’s dream came true when his sometimes wayward son (Marshall’s father) became a doctor. Marshall’s mother, Mary, a Principal, shares her excitement when Apple Computers installed the first computer technology lab in her Sacramento school in 1983. And 93-year-old great-uncle Charles describes how he became a medical miracle in 1946. These true stories are woven by Marshall with the African fabric of American historical events.
Marshall has been exploring her family roots off and on since 1976. She used several effective techniques to write her book in a mere 10 months, from start to published book on amazon.com. She is a self-avowed missionary for family history, encouraging others to write their own family stories NOW!
Kathy Kanika Marshall has been the owner/artist for her Kanika African Sculptures business since 1993, sharing her love of African fabric and ethnic-inspired, welded and ceramic sculptures with art aficionados around the world.
"The African Royal DNA Project is based in the United States and has a global network extending into various Countries. This project is designed to assist Africans in the Diaspora whose ancestors were forcefully removed from the Continent an opportunity to return to their families. DNA technology is used to test Kings and Queens as well as family members living in Africa for the purpose of re-connecting them to their rightful homes."
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 three years, she has organized trips to Cameroon with African Americans who traced their DNA to Cameroon. Collectively, she has facilitated the travel of over 160 individuals.
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.
Anita R. Henderson is known by many as The Author’s Midwife. She is owner of The Write Image, and creator of The Genealogist's Writing Room, an online community helping genealogists write and share the stories of their ancestors and their journey to find them. Her work with professionals and family history researchers has resulted in multiple award-winning books and has helped them grow their overall confidence in their ability to write a compelling story that captures the interest and emotion of readers.
Christine Easterling is a retired teacher and school administrator who served students in Washington, DC, for over thirty years. As a certified dean of Standard Leadership Schools in affiliation with the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., she’s responsible for accrediting church schools. She is the former president of the DC Retired Educators’ Association (DCREA) and author of Inspirational Treasures: Essays by Educators and the Students Reflecting the Joy of Teaching. She also wrote A Giant for Justice: Inspirational Biography of William H. “Bill” Simons III, which is a twenty-five-year history of the Washington Teachers’ Union. Her latest book is titled: You Can Move Your Mountains: Keep Pushing with Your Mountain—Moving Faith. She teaches a Miracles of Jesus class for the Baptist Congress of Christian Education, Maryland, from her book titled The Miracles of Jesus.
Have you noticed the changes in your DNA test results? Do you know about the new companies that have appeared in the last 12 months? Has your DNA company recently announced the use of a new chip to analyze your DNA results?
Shannon Christmas will discuss the latest happenings in the DNA Landscape.
Named an “essential blog for genetic genealogy education” by the Board of Certification for Genealogists, Through The Trees is a blog for genealogy enthusiasts seeking to locate and leverage new tools and emerging technologies to break through genealogical brick walls.
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, and as a co-administrator of The Hemings-Jefferson-Wayles-Eppes Autosomal DNA Project. Shannon Christmas is also on the DNA Faculty of the Midwest African American Genealogy Institute.
Host Bernice Bennett welcomes Dr. Evelyn McDowell, LaBrenda Garrett Nelson, and Muriel D. Roberts for a discussion on a new lineage society - the Sons and Daughters of the United States Middle Passage. The discussion will focus on the organization (creation & purpose); why join a lineage society and the process to join this society.
Sons and Daughters of the United States Middle Passage (SDUSMP) is a lineage society that is a non-profit, charitable 501(c)3 organization dedicated to the memory, education, and historic preservation of the artifacts and landmarks of slavery in the United States and its economic, psychological, and cultural impact on today's society.
Evelyn Aniton McDowell, Ph.D., CPA, CGMA is an Associate Professor of Accounting at Rider University in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. She currently serves as founder and President of Sons & Daughters of the United States Middle Passage (SDUSMP), a heritage society for descendants of Africans who were enslaved in colonial America and in the United States of America. Through genealogical research, she has found over 35 enslaved ancestors.
LaBrenda Garrett- Nelson, CG(sm) is the Registrar General of SDUSMP, responsible for reviewing the sufficiency of applications. Board-certified since 2015, she is also a trustee of the Board for Certification of Genealogists and a frequent speaker at national and local venues. In 2016 she published a guide for researching African Americans in her home county of Laurens, South Carolina, a book that was hailed as an important model for other SC counties.
Muriel D. Roberts is serving her 3rd year as Secretary and 9th year as Membership Chairperson for the New Jersey Chapter of the Afro–American Historical and Genealogical Society. She is a charter member of SDUSMP, honoring ancestor Melendia Dixon.
Host Bernice Bennett welcomes author, Michael W. Twitty for a discussion of his new book, The Cooking Gene - A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South.
Michael W. Twitty is also the author of Afroculinaria a food blog. As a food writer, independent scholar, culinary historian, and historical interpreter, he is personally charged with preparing, preserving and promoting African American foodways and its parent traditions in Africa and her Diaspora and the legacy in the food culture of the American South. Michael is a Judaic studies teacher from the Washington D.C. Metropolitan area and his interests include food culture, food history, Jewish cultural issues, African American history and cultural politics. Afroculinaria highlights and addresses the critical role of food in the development and definition of African American civilization and the politics of consumption and cultural ownership that surround it.
"The Civil War is sometimes called the Second Haitian Revolution. For over seventy years pro-slavers feared Haiti, and the enslaved and abolitionists found great hope from Toussaint Louverture and Haiti. Marvin T. Jones details the actions of enslaved and abolitionists who were encouraged by the Haitian Revolution, Haiti’s own involvement in offering freedom to people of color. And, why Haiti was so important to keeping alive the hope that all Americans would be free. American leaders who wrote, spoke of and acted due to their admiration for Louverture include John Brown, Martin Delaney, Gabriel Prosser, Frederick Douglass, Charlotte Forten, William Lloyd Garrison, Prince Hall, John Mercer Langston, Wendell Phillips, Senator Charles Sumner, Denmark Vesey and David Walker. Many African Americans today are descended from all who saw Haiti as a guiding light.
Marvin T. Jones, a documentary photographer and filmmaker, is the executive Director of the Chowan Discovery Group, a research, documentation, preservation and presentation organization. Among the CDG's accomplishments are five documentaries, seven North Carolina Highway Historical Markers, the funding of community organizations, a stage presentation, several articles, hosted conference panels, lectures and an award from the North Carolina Society of Historians. Early in Marvin's career he documented Haitian forts for UNESCO. Please visit www.chowandiscovery.org.
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 African diaspora studies, and the George W.Littlefield Fellow in American History, at the University of Texas at Austin. An award-winning historian, she is also a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians.
Angela P. Dodson documents one of the longest, most hard-won struggles for civil rights in our country’s history. Her approach to this history is inclusive, detailing the contributions of activists from various movements, women and men, of different races, religions and politics who helped bring about the victory to secure the right to vote for women. She also documents women’s political gains since that milestone. This book, complete with beautiful photographs and illustrations, will help facilitate the conversation about how far women have come and where they are headed politically.
Angela P. Dodson, CEO of Editorsoncall LLC. and a contributing editor for Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, has served as senior editor for The New York Times and executive editor of Black Issues Book Review. She has written and edited newspaper and magazine articles, feature stories and books. She is married to Michael I. Days, editor for reader engagement and vice president of Philadelphia Media Network, and author of “Obama’s Legacy: What He Accomplished as President.” They live in Trenton, NJ. She is a graduate of Marshall University and earned a master’s degree at American University. As an editor, Angela has worked on such books as “n Charge: Finding the Leader in You, by Myles Munroe, He Is Risen: Reflections on Easter and the Forty Days of Lent, by Richard Abanes, and Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority”by Tom Burrell.
The panelist will focus on Indian Territory Freedmen Family History and resources.
Angela Walton-Raji is known nationally for her genealogical and historical research and work on Civil War west of the Mississippi, as well as her work on Oklahoma Native-American records. Her book, “Black Indian Genealogy Research” is the only book of its kind focusing on the unique record set reflecting Freedmen found within the Dawes Records. She also includes several chapters and documents in her book, focusing on the records that reflect Blended Families, African and Native American families in many households.
Ronald Graham, Sr. was born and raised in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. His father Theodore Graham was an original allottee, roll number Creek Freedmen newborn 671. He's also a direct descendant of: Hutton/Grayson, Corbray and McGilbray. All were Muscogee(Creek) nation citizen's.
Terry Ligon is a history and genealogical researcher who has dedicated twenty eight years researching Freedmen of Indian Territory. One area of expertise has been the research what is known as Equity Case 7071- Bettie Ligon et al. vs the Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations and the Department of Interior.
Nicka Smith is a professional photographer, speaker, host, and documentarian with more than 18 years of experience as a genealogist. She has extensive experience in African ancestored genealogy, reverse genealogy, and family reunion planning and execution. Her family in the Cherokee Nation is well documented.
The International African American Museum's Center for Family History is a one of a kind research center with a special focus on African American genealogy. You can visit the IAAM CFH website at https://cfh.iaamuseum.org/.
The exhibitions at the IAAM will use groundbreaking research to inform cutting-edge exhibit techniques, bringing historical events to life.
The exhibition features eight distinct chapters that guide visitors through the African American story. Visitors begin in West Africa in the 17th century, and end with the formation of new African American communities in the 21st century.
Toni Carrier is an anthropologist, historian and genealogist. She holds a Master’s degree in Applied Anthropology from the University of South Florida and is the founder of Lowcountry Africana (www.lowcountryafricana.com), the USF Africana Heritage Project (www.africanaheritage.com) and co-founder with Angela Walton-Raji of Mapping the Freedmen’s Bureau (www.mappingthefreedmensbureau.com ).
Robin Foster has been researching and helping people discover and share information about their ancestors since 1985 and as a blogger and freelancer, she has worked to heighten awareness of genealogical and historical resources through social media. She has worked as a FamilySearch Missionary from May 2007 until July 2013. Robin is a HubSpot certified Inbound Marketer. She was selected as Family Tree Magazine’s Social Media Mavericks: 40 to Follow in 2014. Robin is currently consulting to establish the Center for Family History at the International African American Museum.
Wendy Wilson Fall and Teresa Vega will share the history and origin of Malagasy Roots and how DNA testing can help identify your Malagasy ancestry.
Wendy Wilson Fall is Associate Professor and Program Chair of the Africana Studies Program at Lafayette College. Wilson-Fall has a PhD from Howard University’s African Studies Center, with a concentration in Social Anthropology. Her research engages questions of socio-cultural change and ethnic identity. She has published numerous journal articles and book chapters on these themes, including work from her field research in West Africa as well as her work in the U.S. on African American family narratives. At Lafayette College she and colleagues have built an interactive website using GIS visualization to explore the early demographics of families claiming Malagasy ancestry at http://digital.lafayette.edu/collections/madagascar. Her book, Memories of Madagascar and the Black Atlantic was released in October, 2015 by Ohio University Press.
Teresa Vega's background in cultural anthropology helped her to research her ancestral roots. She began blogging to document the genealogy research she had been doing over the past several years. She is a proud member of both the NJ and NY Chapters of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society (AAGHS) and the Facebook Group African American Genealogy & Slave Ancestry Research. Since 2014,Teresa is the co-administrator of FTDNA's Malagasy Roots Project with CeCe Moore and a descendant of Malagasy enslaved people going back to the late 1600s and early 1700s from New York and Virginia.
The African American Odyssey of John Kizell
(A South Carolina Slave Returns to Fight the Slave Trade in His African Homeland)
Join host Bernice Bennett and co-host Natonne Elaine Kemp for an engaging conversation with author and historian Kevin G. Lowther about the the life of a Sierra Leonean who survived slavery in Charleston, South Carolina, and served with British forces during the American Revolution. He eventually returned to his homeland, where he campaigned among his people to end slave trading.
Lowther majored in history at Dartmouth College before joining the Peace Corps and teaching, in 1963-65, at the Sierra Leone Grammar School in Freetown. In 1971 he helped to found the non-governmental organization, Africare, and later managed its humanitarian programs in Southern Africa for 29 years.
Theme music - Sweet Mello Spice by composer / producer Alvin K. Alexander.
Leontyne Clay Peck shares the story of her journey from Piedmont, WV to the Virginia Piedmont, better known as the land of the Presidents-Jefferson, Madison and Monroe. Since age 10, Leontyne has heard "whispers" from the ancestors and intrigued by family connections. Her fourteen year journey revealed her family connections to Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky, President Thomas Jefferson and most recently to President James Madison (with the enslaved community of Montpelier). In her research, she also discovered her connection her 3rd great grandfather, Job Gaiter, who served in the US Colored Troops.
Leontyne is a native of Piedmont, WV. She is an author, speaker, educator, family historian and ancestor advocate. She is the author of, Our Mother's Dresses, Silver Children,and "Paxton Street.
She received her formal education from The American University, the American University of Rome and West Virginia University. She is the recipient of a host of awards, among them, Ford Foundation African American History & Culture Scholar. She is the mother of two grown daughters. She and her husband reside outside of Charlottesville, VA.
Rebroadcast
How the courts dealt with wills bequeathing property or freedom to mixed race children.
Fathers of Conscience examines high-court decisions in the antebellum South that involved wills in which white male planters bequeathed property, freedom, or both to women of color and their mixed-race children. These men, whose wills were contested by their white relatives, had used trusts and estates law to give their slave partners and children official recognition and thus circumvent the law of slavery. The will contests that followed determined whether that elevated status would be approved or denied by courts of law.
Bernie D. Jones argues that these will contests indicated a struggle within the elite over race, gender, and class issues-over questions of social mores and who was truly family. Judges thus acted as umpires after a man’s death, deciding whether to permit his attempts to provide for his slave partner and family. Her analysis of these differing judicial opinions on inheritance rights for slave partners makes an important contribution to the literature on the law of slavery in the United States.
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 genealogy hobbyist. By day he works in the business and technology world, and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BA in Business Administration from Morehouse College. His website www.Cumbofamily.com is where he regularly shares his research findings through blog posts. He also regularly blogs on Race, Culture, History and Genealogy at www.medium.com under the name Andre Kearns.
Gigi Best is an Author, Historian, Genealogist, Poet, Playwright, Journalist, Speaker and Antiquarian Bookstore Owner. While earning her A.A. and B.S. Degrees, she was awarded Who’s Who in American Universities and Colleges. While in her M. A. Program in English Literature and History, she received the All American Scholar awards. As a Federal Retiree she earned the Citation for Exemplary Civil Service to the United States Air Force 2002-2004.
She is a recipient of the Phillis Wheatley Literary Award for her Book, “Thomas the Melungeon: His Locust Family of Free Persons of Color Civil and Revolutionary War Patriots.” This genealogical and historical work has been placed in many Genealogical Libraries to include Daughters of the American Revolution; Tampa, Florida’s John G. Germany Library; North Carolina Archives and the Jefferson Davis Presidential Library. Gigi is currently working on two historical novels entitled: Nathan Best: From Enslaved Body Servant to Confederate Courier and Chapin’s Forty Acres.
She is a member of Phi Alpha Theta, Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society and many National Lineage Societies to include: Board of Directors Sons & Daughters of the U.S. Middle Passage, Florida Branch Governor, Sons and Daughters of Pilgrims; Daughters of the American Revolution; Daughters of Founders and Patriots of America; Colonial Dames 17th Century; Colonial Dames of America; Society of New England Women; Daughters of Union Veterans of Civil War. Gigi has proven her Best, Hardy,Sutton,Durant, and Tilden ancestors to 1583 and her Free Persons of Color, Lucas/Locust ancestors to 1806.
Daniel has built his personal family tree and helped others do the same for more than 30 years. He archived many goals during this time: finding documents, interviewing family members, visiting archives and cemeteries, connecting long lost relatives and using techniques that proved to be more -or less- successful.
Daniel will share the resources and repositories used in the United States and the world to find his American Family, giving examples of what to do and what not to do to help you bust your research and achieve your goals.
Daniel Horowitz is the genealogy expert at MyHeritage. He provides key contributions, liaising with genealogy societies, bloggers and media, as well as lecturing and attending conferences around the world. Dedicated to the study of genealogy for 30+ years, Daniel was the study guide editor and instructor for the project "Searching for My Roots" in his native Venezuela. He holds board level positions at the Israel Genealogy Research Association (IGRA) and the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS), among others.
David B. Dumas was born in Galveston, Texas and holds a Ph.D. in geophysics. An amateur historian and photographer who has been photographying for the last 30 years. In fact, he spent several years photographing birds. He was also a sports official for 45 years. The last 11 football seasons as a replay official in the Big 12, Mountain West, and Southland conferences.
Photographing Civil War sites enabled David to become more knowledgeable about US history by learning much more than could be found in any textbook. Many of these areas are located on back roads and not found on any of the model highway maps. David is currently retired and teaching math part-time at Galveston Community College.
David B. Dumas is the author of Steel's Bayou Expedition, (A Driving Tour); Major General U.S. Grant's March in Louisiana - (A Driving Tour); Yazoo Pass Expedition, (A Driving Tour), and most recently The Original Vicksburg National Military Park and Vicinity (A Driving Tour Guide).
Frazine Taylor has helped people of all ethnic backgrounds to research their family history for over 25 years. However she has witnessed firsthand the frustration and disappointment of African-Americans when the research gets to the year of 1870, and for some, 1866, where they hit the predictable “brick wall.” You can’t go around it, get under it, or go through it, because there is no hope or help!
Frazine K. Taylor and Donna Cox Baker conceived the Beyond Kin Project in 2016 as a way to encourage and facilitate the documentation of enslaved populations, particularly by recruiting the resources and efforts of the descendants of slaveholders.
http://beyondkin.gegbound.com
Scott Fisher - Extreme Genes is a natural for Fisher, a Connecticut native, who has been in radio since his youth, and has spent three decades of spare time as a passionate roots sleuth. A long-time morning show host, Fisher is the author of New York City Methodist Marriages, 1785-1893,Picton Press, 1994. He has also been published in the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society Journal (April 2004), and Catholic Ancestor, Journal of the Catholic Family History Society of England (June 1996). His ten books on the families of both his and his wife’s ancestors, written over 25 years, fill the better part of a shelf in Fisher’s family room library. In the spring of 2015, the remains of a murder victim, who had been missing since 1983, were found near his home. When local authorities were unable to find next-of-kin, Fisher offered his services, locating family after three dedicated weeks of researching, Facebooking, emailing, and telephoning. The story received national attention, and was written up in People, FoxNews, CBS.com, the 48 Hours Facebook page, and countless newspapers. Where does the name Extreme Genes come from? Fisher explains: “To begin with, Mom was from the Oregon and Dad was from New Jersey. She was a liberal Democrat and he was a conservative Republican. They were both from different religions. As Mom once explained it… Honey, bottom line is… you’ve got extreme genes! It’s a perfect name for the radio show! Fisher and wife Julie have four children, and five grandchildren.
Karen Batchelor will share the many unexpected twists and turns on her 40-year family history journey and how what she has learned from the past has changed her life.
Karen started doing genealogy because of a New Year’s resolution in 1976 - before the Internet and computers. By 1977, she became the first known Black woman to be admitted for membership in Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). Since then, Karen has discovered ancestors who were slaves and slaveowners, patriots and Puritans and even a colonial witch or two. Her family history in America goes back to the year 1630.
With a background in the practice of law and over 40 years of experience as a genealogist, Karen founded Story Mountain LLC, where she helps others with family research. She specializes in colonial New England and the Revolutionary War era; preparation of lineage applications; and analysis of historic legal documents. In addition to her client work, Karen serves as a National Vice Chair of Lineage Research for DAR and is a certified instructor of guided autobiography.
Karen continues to research her own family history, making discoveries that have recently led to membership in five other hereditary societies. When not "hot on the trail" of the long-dead but not forgotten, Karen enjoys spending time with family and friends, knitting and has been known to dress up in 18th century clothing on occasion. She lives in a historic 1898 building in Midtown Detroit.
Cultural Heritage in the Republic of Benin: What the country has to offer and it has in store for the years ahead.
Nathalie Blanc Chekete is Haitian and Canadian (Afro-descendant) and has lived Haiti; Canada; France; Brasil and now Benin. She received a Bachelor of Commerce in Finance from the University of Quebec in Montreal and a Master’s degree in international marketing management (Boston University).
She has more than 15 years of experience, in Project and Customer Experience Management.
Currently Natalie is responsible for the development of Cultural Heritage Tourism at the National Agency for the promotion of Heritage and the development of Tourism in the government of Benin.
This show is sponsored by Roots To Glory - www.rootstoglory.com
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 groups. Some of her more recent work focuses on strategies researchers can use to analyze Louisiana’s Freedmen’s Bureau field office records for revealing, often personal information on freedmen ancestors.
Ms. Gillins is a member of the Galveston Historical Society, National Genealogical Society, and Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society. A retired Associate Professor at Riverside City College, she frequently calls upon her career background as a college educator to present workshops or deliver courses at regional and national conferences and genealogical institutes. She is also a member of the adjunct faculty at Samford Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research in Birmingham.
Join Co-Moderator Jeannettee Kah LeGuil and Ivorian community representatives for a discussion on Cote d’Ivoire, tribes, ethnic groups and spoken languages.
Some of you attended the DNA Tested Côte d’Ivoire(IvoryCoast) Descendants Forum organized at the 2016 International Black Genealogy Summit on September 2, 2016, in Arlington,Virginia. The Ambassador of Cote d’Ivoire in the USA participated in the Forum and offered his full support to the implementation of the outcome of the Forum and commissioned us to develop a strategy which will help enlarge the DNA Tested family, and reveal the DNA Tested Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) Descendants. A follow-up Committee was established and we collected a series of suggestions from the participants.
April 24, 2017, will launch the beginning of a series of conversations with the aim to create an environment that promotes knowledge and sharing between Côte d’Ivoire and its diaspora.
Cote d’Ivoire regroups lots of tribes, ethnic groups, and spoken languages – over 85. We will focus on a sample of what constitutes Cote d’Ivoire’s populations and their social-cultural environment.
Some members of the Ivorian community in the US have volunteered to share the customs and practices of the ethnic group they belong to. The conversation will focus on the following sample of regions and ethnic groups: AboissoAdzopeAgbovilleBondoukouNoe (Cote d'Ivoire Ghana)DaloaFacoblyGuigloKouiblyKrindjaboToulepleuMan - BiankoumanOumeSeguelaMankonoSemienToumodiYamoussoukroDivo
Melissa L. Cooper is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Rutgers University-Newark.
Cooper’s ground breaking book, Making Gullah: A History of Sapelo Islanders, Race and the American Imagination, published by the University of North Carolina Press, is a fascinating history. Using Sapelo Island as a case study, Cooper unearths the intellectual and cultural trends that inspired, and continues to inspire, fascination with low country blacks and the African roots of their unique culture. Examining the history of Islanders in published works, Making Gullah tells a larger story about race and the American imagination. Drawing inspiration from her own family’s connection to Sapelo, Cooper explores how the Islanders’ multi-generational struggle for land and racial equality have been overshadowed by the race fantasies that pervaded the stories that researchers and writers told about their exotic folk culture. From the 1920s and 1930s to the present day, Cooper follows evolving theories about Gullah people's heritage through the rise of the social sciences; the Harlem Renaissance; the Great Migration; the voodoo craze; Jim Crow; and the Black Studies Movement. As new fears about the vanishing Gullah grip the nation, Making Gullah offers readers an opportunity to discover the complexity of an identity famous for its simplicity and timelessness.
Shawn Utsey is the Interim Chair of African American Studies and Professor of Psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University. He received his PhD(1997) from Fordham University.
The film - Until the Well Runs Dry: Medicine and the Exploitation of Black Bodies was released in 2011. This film sparked renewed interest in honoring the remains of 44 people (most were African American Descent) whose bodies have been used in medical research. The remains were found in a well on the VCU Medical Campus during an excavation project more than 20 years ago.
Drew Smith is an Assistant Librarian with the USF Tampa Library, and is the 2016 winner of the Filby Award for Genealogical Librarianship, presented by the National Genealogical Society. He is past president of the Florida Genealogical Society of Tampa, and has served on the boards of the Federation of Genealogical Societies, the Association of Professional Genealogists, and the Florida State Genealogical Society. Drew is the author of the book Social Networking for Genealogists, is the co-author of the book Advanced Genealogy Research Techniques, and has written extensively for a number of genealogical print and online magazines. His latest book, Organize Your Genealogy: Strategies and Solutions for Every Researcher, was published in 2016.
After retiring from a career in banking, Bill Webb began to investigate his family history. His interest had been sparked by a family Bible record of his ancestor Brown Colbert that he saw as a child in Parkersburg, West Virginia. The research of Bill and his wife, Eva Kobus-Webb, revealed the connection to Monticello and brought to light other Colbert descendants like the Civil War soldier George Edmondson and suffragist Coralie Franklin Cook.
Webb can track his lineage to Elizabeth (Betty) Hemings, mother of Betty Brown & Sally Hemings.
Orville Vernon Burton is Creativity Professor of Humanities, Professor of History, Pan-African Studies, Sociology, and Computer Science at Clemson University, and the Director of the Clemson CyberInstitute.
Burton is a prolific author and scholar (twenty authored or edited books and more than two hundred articles); and author or director of numerous digital humanities projects. The Age of Lincoln (2007) won the Chicago Tribune Heartland Literary Award for Nonfiction and was selected for Book of the Month Club, History Book Club, and Military Book Club. One reviewer proclaimed, “If the Civil War era was America's ‘Iliad,’ then historian Orville Vernon Burton is our latest Homer.” The book was featured at sessions of the annual meetings of African American History and Life Association, the Social Science History Association, the Southern Intellectual History Circle, and the latter was the basis for a forum published in The Journal of the Historical Society. His In My Father’s House Are Many Mansions: Family and Community in Edgefield, South Carolina (1985) was featured at sessions of the Southern Historical Association and the Social Science History Association annual meetings. The Age of Lincoln and In My Fathers’ House were nominated for Pulitzers. His most recent book, is Penn Center: A History Preserved (2014).
Burton's research and teaching interests include the American South, especially race relations and community, and the intersection of humanities and social sciences.
https://ageoflincoln.app.clemson.edu
Bernice Bennett welcomes James Louis Bacon for a moving discussion about his genealogical journey to document his family history.
James Louis Bacon has entertained a lifelong passion for writing and African American History. He began his family research 35 years ago, and published his book in 2016. He is a veteran of the United States Navy where he proudly served from 1970-1974.
The Ties That Bind is a written tribute to his family which documents both the hardships, strength and fortitude of those who were enslaved. It is the story of the Van Arsdale, Jackson and Bowie Family, and their struggle to live as free Black Men and Women. It traces their triumph as they emerged out of the uncertainty and unforgiving nature of bondage into a strange new world of Freedom. It is also the story of the Industrial Savings Bank founded in 1913 by John Whitelaw Lewis & William Augus Bowie who was the grandson of a slave and their important historical contributions to Black Washington DC.
Rebroadcast:
Join Wilhelmena Rhodes Kelly with host Bernice Bennett for an exciting discussion of the African Americans presence in Brooklyn, and their long residence in Bedford Township (today's Bedford-Stuyvesant) and the Dutch community of Flatbush - founded in the 1650.
Wilhelmena Rhodes Kelly is a third generation Brooklyn native with roots in both Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights. An avid genealogist who discovered the hidden foundations of Brooklyn history, and the vanishing roots of central Brooklyn in particular. This moved her to write a pictorial history titled, “Bedford-Stuyvesant” in 2007, and a second book titled, “Crown Heights & Weeksville” in 2010.
Wilhelmena is an honorary Regent of the Manhattan Chapter of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution, and organized a DAR chapter in Queens. She sits on the boards of the African Atlantic Genealogy Society, Manhattan’s Solders’ and Sailors’ Memorial Association, and the Erasmus Hall High School Alumni Association.
Zann Nelson will discuss the occurrence of selling literally 100s of thousands of enslaved people South to the cotton and sugar fields with Virginia being the largest exporter and how challenging it is to reunite these ancestors with their place of birth and in many cases with family members who remained behind. Searching for the sixteen slaves sold South is supported by the Montpelier Foundation to learn more about the 16 enslaved Virginians sold by James Madison in 1834 to William Taylor who relocated them to Pointe Coupee Parish, LA.
The ultimate goal is to find at least one living descendant. It is an ambitious endeavour but one well worth the effort.
Zann Nelson is a historian and freelance writer specializing in historical investigations with a focus on African American history.
She currently serves as the Director of African American Descendants’ Project for James Madison’s Montpelier Foundation.
The project’s two primary goals are to 1) build a mutually beneficial alliance between the African American Descendant Communities and the Montpelier Foundation and 2) identify and connect with living descendants of those whose ancestors lived free or enslaved at Montpelier or in other parts of Orange County, Virginia.
She holds a graduate certificate in Nonprofit Management from Georgetown University and resides on the family farm in Culpeper County, VA
The Civil War Pension File of Philip McQuerter of Woodville, Wilkinson County, Mississippi provides revealing information about his family.
Alvin Blakes is a lifelong organizer and community worker who has been researching African history since he was a teenager, and has travelled to Africa, Europe, the Caribbean and all over the United States to pursue his studies. He has researched his family’s history from Woodville, Mississippi back to the late 1700s in the Eastern US. He is a member of the Dallas Genealogical Society’s African American Genealogy Interest Group. He graduated with a Bachelors and Masters of Mechanical Engineering degree from Howard University’s School of Engineering. Currently, he is the Manager of the Dallas Area Rapid Transit Agency’s Bus Fleet Engineering Group.
Dr. Eva Semien Baham is as an assistant professor of history at Dillard University, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Prior to coming to Dillard, she taught for twenty-one years at Southern University, Baton Rouge. Her specialties include American, African-American and Intellectual history.
She received her undergraduate degree in journalism from Southern University in Baton Rouge and her Masters of Arts and her Ph.D. in American Studies/History from Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana.
Currently, her work involves genealogy, biographical studies and the history of African Americans in Louisiana. Her most recent project is the book, African Americans in Covington. (Published June, 2015.) This follows a two-year study and presentation of the history of African-Americans in Covington in observance of the city’s Bi-Centennial in 2013.
She is the founder of the research organization, université sans murs, l.l.c., translated as University Without Walls, under which she conducts genealogical research projects. At present, those projects involves the Baham, Robert, Kelly, Simien and White families of south Louisiana. She has also assisted several families in seeking out searching for avenues to “fill in” their family trees.
Bernice Bennett welcomes Angela Walton-Raji for a discussion on the Challenges and Opportunities in African American Genealogy.
Angela Walton-Raji is known nationally for her research and work on Oklahoma Native American records. Her book Black Indian Genealogy Research, African Ancestors Among the Five Civilized Tribes, is the only book of its kind focusing on the unique record sets pertaining to the Oklahoma Freedmen.
A founding member of the well known AfriGeneas.com, webite, Ms. Walton-Raji is also a genealogist specializing in information for beginners, via daily and weekly online genealogy chats on AfriGeneas.com. She also serves as the host of a weekly genealogy podcast, The African Roots Podcast a number of instructional videos and has been used in recent years as a genealogical consultant on several video documentaries. Ms. Walton-Raji combines her skills as a genealogist with a warm on camera personality that brings comfort to her viewers through and her video channels on YouTube, while providing her viewers with useful information. Her African Roots TV, and Beginning Genealogist channels have both brought new insights to hundreds of viewers nationwide.
Join author, genealogist, community activist, television and blogtalkradio show host Antoinette Harrell for a discussion of her dedication to family, preservation of records, genealogical research and social justice.
Ms. Harrell brings over 20 years of genealogical experiences that has resulted in the Antoinette Harrell Collections located at the Armistad Research Center in New Orleans and the South Eastern Louisiana State University. She is also the host of her own blogtalkradio show Nurturing Our Roots and a TV show - African Roots. She is the founder and editor of the Tangipahoa African -American News.
Ms. Harrell is a leader in community activism and does not just talk about what should be done, she does it! Her most recent advocacy work has resulted in assisting the Black Boy's of the Dozier Reform School to tell their story.
Dana P. Saxon, JD, MSc, is the Executive Director of Ancestors unKnown, an education nonprofit that’s providing schools with genealogy research and history curriculum. After spending nearly 10 years in the education nonprofit sector in the U.S., Dana moved from NYC to the Netherlands in 2011. It’s there that she earned a Master’s in Sociology at the University of Amsterdam, focusing her studies on the significance of family history research among people who descend from survivors of slavery. Since then, she’s traveled between the U.S., the Netherlands and Suriname to introduce new audiences to some of the world’s untold histories and the power of genealogy research. Ancestors unKnown officially launched in 2014 and currently serves primary and secondary schools in the U.S. and the Netherlands. Dana currently resides in The Hague and blogs about her life as a U.S. expat at http://blackgirlgone.com.
Dana will share the journey that took her from amateur genealogy research to launching a business that introduces young people to their own family histories. And she’ll share some of the family stories that were most inspiring. Her story starts somewhere in New York, when she began looking for motivation and new ideas, which quickly led her to become more curious about her family’s history.
From researching online to digging into the archives at the Schomburg Center (NYC) and the National Archives (DC), Dana pieced together the story of her 2nd great grandfather, Thomas Warren (T.W.) Long. Although she knew her grandfather by the same name, she never knew there was another T.W.
Learn more about Ancestors unKnown: http://ancestors-unknown.org
Rebroadcast
Pension Files of African Americans in the War of 1812
We are natives of this country; we ask only to be treated as well as foreigners. Not a few of our fathers suffered and bled to purchase its independence; we ask only to be treated as well as those who fought against it. We have toiled to cultivate it, and to raise it to its present prosperous condition; we ask only to share equal privileges with those who come from distant lands to enjoy the fruits of our labor.
Rev. Peter Williams, Jr. African American Episcopal Priest 1786 - 1840
Genealogist Sharon Batiste Gillins will share the following information concerning African Americans in the War of 1812 files:
Witness To Change - From Jim Crow to Political Empowerment
Sybil Haydel Morial is an activist and community leader in New Orleans. She spent her career in the education field, first, as a public school teacher and later as an administrator at Xavier University.
Sybil’s memoir reveals a woman whose intelligence overrides the clichés of racial division. In its pages, we catch rare glimpses of black professionals in an earlier New Orleans, when races, though socially isolated, lived side by side; when social connections helped to circumvent Jim Crow; when African-American culture forged New Orleans—and American—identity.
Through loving eyes, Sybil traces the rise of her sons and daughters: After Dutch’s death, Marc Morial served two terms as New Orleans mayor. Sybil’s other children—a physician, a public policy strategist, a community development director, and a judge—lead and serve their communities before, and after, Hurricane Katrina’s devastation.
The New Orleans Tribune: An Introduction to America's First Black Daily Newspaper
Mark Charles Roudané was born in New Orleans and currently resides in St. Paul, Minnesota. An educator, author, and public speaker, Mr. Roudané’s recent release, The New Orleans Tribune, An Introduction to America’s First Black Daily Newspaper, has sold over 800 copies. His articles have appeared in numerous journals including the Atlantic magazine South Atlantic Review and the Journal of the Louisiana Creole Research Association. Mr. Roudané was featured as the keynote speaker at the 150th Anniversary of the Tribune at Dillard University and recently presented lectures on Tribune history at Savannah State University, the Louisiana Public History Forum at Southern University of New Orleans, and the Louisiana Creole Research Association.
Mark's roots are in Africa, France, Haiti, and Louisiana. His 4th great paternal and maternal grandmothers were enslaved in Saint-Domingue (now Haiti). Both had children with French colonists. Their descendants lived as free people of color in Louisiana, including Jean Baptiste Roudanez, the publisher of the New Orleans Tribune, and Louis Charles Roudanez, the newspaper’s founder and his great, great grandfather. Mark's father, also named Louis Charles Roudanez, was the first to be listed as white on his birth certificate. His paternal ancestry was hidden from him, and he did not discover the Afro-Creole roots until after his death. Inspired by his heritage, Mark spent the last several years passionately reading and researching the South’s first Black newspaper, L’Union, and America’s first Black daily newspaper, the New Orleans Tribune.
Amy Johnson Crow is a Certified Genealogist with a Masters degree in Library and Information Science. She regularly speaks at the industry’s top events throughout the year, including the Federation of Genealogical Societies and RootsTech, as well as state and regional events. She previously served as series editor for the National Genealogical Society Guides, published by Rutledge Hill Press and have served on several national and state boards.
Rebroadcast
The Black Russian with Valdimir Alexandrov, Ph.D.
The Black Russian tells the story of Frederick Bruce Thomas, who was born in 1872 to former slaves and spent his youth on his family’s farm in Mississippi. After leaving the South and working as a waiter and valet in Chicago and Brooklyn, he went to London in 1894, then traveled throughout Europe, and decided to go to Russia in 1899, all of which was highly unusual for a black American at the time. He chose Moscow as his home, and during the next nineteen years renamed himself “Fyodor Fyodorovich Tomas,” married twice, acquired a mistress, took Russian citizenship, and by dint of his talents, hard work, charm, and guile became one of the city’s richest and most famous owners of variety theaters and restaurants. The Bolshevik Revolution ruined him and he barely escaped with his life and family to Turkey in 1919. Starting with just a handful of dollars out of the millions he had lost, Thomas made a second fortune in Constantinople by opening a series of celebrated nightclubs that introduced jazz to Turkey. However, because of the long arm of American racism, the xenophobia of the new Turkish Republic, and his own extravagance, he fell on hard times, was thrown into debtor's prison and died in Constantinople in 1928.
Dr. Alexandrov is the B. E. Bensinger Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures and Acting Chair, Slavic Department at Yale University. www.valexandrov.com
A Legend in the Classroom-The Life Story of Ms Yvonne Busch
Leonard Smith III is a self-proclaimed technology geek, with a passion for genealogy and story. He has authored many articles and workshops on research techniques, storytelling, and filmmaking. In 2008, he started LS3 Studios. This multimedia studio has produced interviews and award-winning documentary films.
Leonard has helped his clients unearth their family history dating back centuries. He has over forty years of researching his own family history. This experience helps him to mentor others who are looking for that “next step.”
Leonard’s style of teaching is in plain everyday language for the non-technical individual. This enables students to understand and learn with ease. He loves teaching others on how to apply technology in their genealogy research. His mission, “Educate, Entertain, and Inspire Others To Tell Their Stories.”
Some of the most recent projects include; “A Place Called Desire”, “From Shanghai to Harlem” winner of the Gold AVA Award and Bronze Telly; “The 100th Anniversary of St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church,” winner of two Bronze Telly Awards and “A Legend in the Classroom-The Life Story of Ms. Yvonne Busch” winner of the AVA Platinum Award, Hermes Gold Award and Bronze Telly Award.
Challenges and Opportunities in Searching for your African American Roots!
Nicka Sewell-Smith is a professional photographer, speaker, and documentarian with more than 17 years of experience as a genealogist. She has extensive experience in African ancestored genealogy, reverse genealogy, and family reunion planning and execution. She is also an expert in genealogical research in the Northeastern Louisiana area, sharing genealogy with youth, documenting the ancestral journey, and employing the use of new technology in genealogy and family history research.
Nicka has diverse and varied experience in communications, with a background in publications, editing, graphic design, radio, and video production. She has edited and designed several volumes of family history that include narratives, photos, and genealogical information and has also transferred these things to an online environment.
Nicka Smith is also the producer and host of the Black ProGen Live!
www.whoisnickasmith.com
Wilmington on Fire chronicles the bloody attack on the African-American community and unseated elected officials in the port city of Wilmington, North Carolina November 10, 1898. The massacre and coup d’etat was the springboard for the white supremacy movement and Jim Crow segregation throughout the state of North Carolina and the American South. This discussion will focus on the historical research and documentation that lead to the creation this valuable documentary film. Never forget because this could happen again.
Christopher Everett is a writer, film director and film producer from Laurinburg, North Carolina. He has experience in film, graphic design, marketing and advertising. He recently directed and produced his first feature-length documentary entitled “Wilmington on Fire” which is on the 1898 Wilmington Massacre/Coup in Wilmington, NC.
Website: wilmingtononfire.com
Facebook: facebook.com/wilmingtononfire
Twitter: twitter.com/wilmington1898
Instagram: instagram.com/wilmingtononfire
SoundCloud: soundcloud.com/wilmingtononfire
Rebroadcast:
Public historian David E. Paterson studies people who lived in nineteenth-century Upson County, Georgia, especially those who experienced slavery and Reconstruction. A civilian employee of the US Navy by day, he spends his leisure hours researching and writing local history. David has helped manage the Slave Research Forum at AfriGeneas.com since about 2001. David emigrated to the U.S. in 1958 from Scotland and was granted U.S. citizenship in 1975. He lives in Norfolk, Virginia.
We will discuss the most fruitful probate records for slavery research in most states, for the period about 1800 to 1865. The discussion may be less useful for the colonial period, or for the records of Louisiana or Spanish colonial Florida whose laws and processes derived from different legal traditions. In addition, David will describe the process flow from one record to the next – the purpoe of each record – and what kinds of slavery-related information maybe found in the record. Particular attention will focus on records that are sometimes overlooked in guides or how-to books; especially annual returns and vouchers. Researchers may find records of a deceased slaveholder separated by many years – in cases when a “life estate” came back under supervision of the court as a “residual estate.” Finally we will show the connections and similarities between probate records and guardians’ records.
A Guide to Researching African American Ancestors in Laurens County, South Carolina
LaBrenda Garrett-Nelson, CG, is a board-certified genealogist since 2015. She teaches and lectures on African-American genealogy, and serves as the co-chair of BCG's Intellectual Property Committee. She has written a reference book that is both a locality guide (with tips on where to look for records) and a "how to" manual to aid in the development and execution of research plans relating to African American ancestors . Although the book focuses on a single county in South Carolina, it provides background information regarding laws and history that apply to all SC counties, and more general guidance relevant to genealogical methodology. The author has included practical advice based on her own research and formal studies, as well as up-to-date information about internet and other resources.
Rebroadcast
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is the official repository of the permanently valuable records of the U.S. Government. NARA's vast holdings document the lives and experiences of persons who interacted with the Federal Government. The records created by post-Civil War Federal Agencies are perhaps some of the most important records available for the study of black family life and genealogy. This discussion will focus on NARA's Reference Information Paper 108.
This reference information paper describes three post-Civil War Federal agencies' records: the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands; the Freedman's Savings and Trust Company; and the Commissioners of Claims. Case examples will be shared to illustrate the value of researching these important records.
Reginald Washington is a retired archivist/ genealogy specialist with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). He lectures frequently on records and research procedures at the National Archives, and has served as the African-American Genealogy Subject Area Specialist at NARA. He has spoken at conferences of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society, National Genealogical Society, Federation of Genealogical Societies, National Institute on Genealogical Research, and numerous local genealogical societies and clubs.
Tithe, Time, and Talent: African Americans, Philanthropy, and the Civil Rights Movement, 1925-1968 addresses an important gap in civil rights historiography that centers on philanthropy, volunteerism, and fundraising. Philanthropy has been an immutable part of the American experience since the late sixteenth century. Since money is often emphasized as the highest form of contributory assistance, philanthropic studies frequently fail to take into account the socio-cultural value of time, expertise, and the exchange of goods and services. African Americans hampered by enslavement, economic disparity, exclusion and social inequality entrenched in White supremacy, were forced to operate clandestinely. “Hidden in plain sight,” their self-help initiatives though silent and informal, were orchestrated through the church, fraternal orders, benevolent and burial societies. Practiced under the guise of self-care and community uplift, African Americans maintained schools, purchased land, operated soup kitchens, and created socio-political institutions that offered protection against a hostile world. While there are myriad numbers of ways of understanding how African Americans actualized philanthropy, the documentation of their charitable activities have been more easily qualified than quantified. As a result, documentation of their efforts has been grossly underestimated and they have become artificially marginalized as recipients and never as providers.
Dr. Rhonda Jones is a proficient scholar, researcher, and instructor who specializes in Public History, Archives, Digital History, United States History, Oral History, African American Philanthropy, the Civil Rights Movement, and International Documentary Studies.
Teresa Vega will share her journey to discover her tri-racial roots in the United States, Puerto Rico and Madagascar.
Teresa Vega's background in cultural anthropology helped her to research her ancestral roots. She began blogging to document the genealogy research she had been doing over the past several years. She is a proud member of both the NJ and NY Chapters of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society (AAGHS) and the Facebook Group African American Genealogy & Slave Ancestry Research. She is currently featured in an ancestry.com commercial.
http://radiantrootsboricuabranches.com/about/
Music by AK Alexander Productions
This program will examine the suppressed history of the commercialization of Race and Race Consciousness through the lense of sheet music and early sound recordings of turn of the century Coon Songs and Minstrel Shows produced by Victor and Columbia Records 1900-1910.
Bill Doggett is a California based archivist and specialist in Race and Race Consciousness in recordings at the Dawn of Recorded Sound. With hundreds of rare 1900-1920 78rpm recordings of Coon Songs and other "Race Records" in his Sound Archive, Doggett was commissioned in 2015 by The Sound Division of The Library of Congress to create a project for The National Juke Box which will launch in 2017.
The Sound files are: (a) Jests from Georgia by Ralph Bingham- attached is Jest#1(b) Two Negro Stories by Nat Wills: Attached is Story#1-The Head Waiter (c) Collins and Harlan: Nigger Loves His Possum-a 1905 Platinum Gold record for Victor Records (d) Moonlight in Jungleland by Collins and Harlan-excerpt (e) The Whistling Coon sung by the George W. Johnson:the first African American to record a record for Victor Records
Pension Files of African Americans in the War of 1812
We are natives of this country; we ask only to be treated as well as foreigners. Not a few of our fathers suffered and bled to purchase its independence; we ask only to be treated as well as those who fought against it. We have toiled to cultivate it, and to raise it to its present prosperous condition; we ask only to share equal privileges with those who come from distant lands to enjoy the fruits of our labor.
Rev. Peter Williams, Jr. African American Episcopal Priest 1786 - 1840
Genealogist Sharon Batiste Gillins will share the following information concerning African Americans in the War of 1812 files:
Identifying the primary geographic regions in which battles of the War of 1812 were fought.
Describing post-war benefits of service and related legislation.
Accessing the record groups that contain pension and bounty land claims:
Describing the United States War of 1812 Index to Pension Application Files, 1812-1910 (M313)
Describing the War of 1812 Pension Application Files (RG 15)
War of 1812 Military Bounty Land Warrants
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 genealogical research over the past 25 years. Her career spans 40 years in education, recently retiring as Associate Professor at Riverside Community College. Ms. Gillins is a Research Associate at the Mary Moody Northen Endowment in Galveston, Texas where she is responsible for the Moody family and business archive of manuscripts and photographs that date to the early 1800s.
Letters From Edgar’s Trunk is a fascinating account of Black civilian life in rural Virginia during World War I as reflected in letters between James Edgar Thornton, his family and friends. This collection of letters not only captures the vibrations of everyday Black life during wartime, but also discloses the continuing reality of civilian existence in America, in contrast to the terror of war in Europe. While the absence of details of military life among soldiers in America and Europe may reflect the imposition of wartime security measures and censorship, Edgar’s Letters reflect a deeper concern for the family, which may suffer in his absence than for any personal peril his military service may impose.
Marilyn Thornton holds a Masters Degree in fine Arts from Catholic University of America. She was Assistant Professor for Art at the University of Eastern Shore. Her interest in family history and discovery of Edgar's letters motivated her to compile Letters from Edgar's Trunk.
Have you searched for records and finally found that special person you have been looking for? So what? What does the record tell you? Is this all that you need?
Join Dr. Shelley Murphy, aka "familytreegirl" for a discussion on the "SO WHAT" concept? "So What" is a concept used in the Midwestern African American Genealogy Institute to help analyze genealogical records and resources. The goal is to question the value of the evidence and plan the path to new leads and discoveries.
Shelley Murphy, aka "familytreegirl" is a native of Michigan. Shelley has been an avid genealogist for over 25 years researching the Davis, Marsh, Goens/Goins/Goings, Roper, Boyer, Worden, Cureton, & Murphy, etc. family lines. She attends and presents at local and national conferences and currently works for a nonprofit and serves as adjunct faculty at Averett University. In addition, Shelley is a founding member and current President of the Afro-American Historical Genealogical Society Chapter of Central Virginia.
Dr. Adam Arenson discusses his ongoing research about African North Americans—those men and women, born free or enslaved, who crossed or re-crossed the U.S.-Canada border in the era of emancipation, Civil War, and Reconstruction. We will discuss how difficult it is to determine how many fugitive slaves and free blacks were in Canada; the history of the more than 600 African North Americans who returned to fight for the U.S. Colored Troops; the thousands more who returned to the United States in the decades that followed; the hundreds of men, women, and children who traveled north to Canada after emancipation; and even the reason Civil War records are filled with fake claims of Canadian and other citizenship.
Dr. Adam Arenson is an associate professor of history and the director of the urban studies program at Manhattan College. He is the author of the award-winning The Great Heart of the Republic: St. Louis and the Cultural Civil War (Harvard, 2011 — now out in paperback from Missouri, 2015); as well as co-editor of Civil War Wests: Testing the Limits of the United States (California, 2015) and Frontier Cities: Encounters at the Crossroads of Empire (Penn, 2013). He is researching a book about African North Americans crossing the US-Canada border during and after the Civil War.
Author and Genealogist Robyn Smith has been researching her family and others for 18 years. An engineer by day, Robyn makes good use of those research and problem-solving skills in the field of genealogy. She specializes in Maryland research, African-American and Slave-era research and Court Records research. Robyn has a strong interest in promoting the documentation of families and communities, and emphasizing the use of proper genealogical standards in our research. Robyn teaches an Advanced African-American Genealogy class part-time at Howard Community College in Columbia, MD, lectures locally and has published several genealogy articles in local journals. She is also the author of a new book The Best of Reclaiming Kin and the genealogy blog "Reclaiming Kin" which can be viewed at http://msualumni.wordpress.com.
Join Zann Nelson and Elizabeth Chew for a discussion on the following topics:
African American research in Virginia: (challenges, what works, successes)
Why is it important?
How Montpelier's African American heritage project differs from other plantations and how it relates to the ongoing discussions about the Constitution.
Zann Nelson is an award-winning freelance writer specializing in African American historical investigations. She is the former president of the preservation nonprofit organization, Friends of Wilderness Battlefield, Inc., the current president of History Quest, co-founder of the African American Heritage Alliance, and is currently the Consultant for “The African Americans of the Montpelier Community Project.”
Elizabeth Chew is Vice President for Museum Programs at James Madison's Montpelier. She has worked in the museum field for thirty years, focusing on the interpretation of women's and African American history. At Monticello, where she was Curator for 13 years, she co-organized, with Rex Ellis, the exhibition "Slavery at Jefferson's Monticello: Paradox of Liberty" for the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. At Montpelier, she oversees the documentary and archaeological research into the identities and stories of the enslaved people on the plantation.
Join Genealogist Judy Riffel and Patricia Bayonne-Johnson- a descendant of one of the Georgetown slaves for a discussion of the Georgetown Memory project.
The Georgetown slaves were unusual in two ways, according to Georgetown Memory Project Founder Richard Cellini. First, they were baptized by Jesuits and kept the faith; second, they had both first and last names, whereas most slaves only had one name. During her search, the last name Butler stood out to Bayonne-Johnson.
Judy Riffel is a professional genealogist with over thirty-five years experience. Based in Baton Rouge, she specializes in Louisiana records and research. Judy has done genealogical and historical research for numerous television shows and documentaries. Her work has appeared on Who Do You Think You Are?, Finding Your Roots, Genealogy Roadshow, The Dead Files, and Killer Profile. She is the lead genealogist in the Georgetown Memory Project
Patricia Bayonne-Johnson, a 75-year-old retired biology teacher lives in Spokane, Wash., after growing up in New Orleans and living for 40 years in the San Francisco Bay Area. Today, she volunteers and travels — and in her spare time, researches her past.
Slaves Waiting For Sale
In 1853, Eyre Crowe, a young British artist, visited a slave auction in Richmond, Virginia. Harrowed by what he witnessed, he captured the scene in sketches that he would later develop into a series of illustrations and paintings, including the culminating painting, Slaves Waiting for Sale, Richmond, Virginia.
This innovative book uses Crowe’s paintings to explore the texture of the slave trade in Richmond, Charleston, and New Orleans, the evolving iconography of abolitionist art, and the role of visual culture in the transatlantic world of abolitionism. Tracing Crowe’s trajectory from Richmond across the American South and back to London—where his paintings were exhibited just a few weeks after the start of the Civil War—Maurie D. McInnis illuminates not only how his abolitionist art was inspired and made, but also how it influenced the international public’s grasp of slavery in America. With almost 140 illustrations, Slaves Waiting for Sale brings a fresh perspective to the American slave trade and abolitionism as we enter the sesquicentennial of the Civil War.
Maurie McInnis is professor of Art History and American Studies at the University of Virginia and will begin as provost at the University of Texas at Austin on July 1. She is the author of several books about art and the politics of slavery, most recently Slaves Waiting for Sale: Abolitionist Art and the American Slave Trade (2011). She also curated, “To Be Sold: Virginia and the American Slave Trade,” an exhibition at the Library of Virginia from Oct. 2014-May 2015.
Join Nicka Smith and Bernice Bennett for an intriguing discussion about their experiences with DNA testing. What was their reaction to the DNA admixture results?How have they connected the dots?Where have they tested and why?What successes and frustrations?Why communications is important? Nicka Smith is a professional photographer, speaker, and documentarian with more than 17 years of experience as a genealogist. She has extensive experience in African ancestored genealogy, reverse genealogy, and family reunion planning and execution. She is also an expert in genealogical research in the Northeastern Louisiana area, sharing genealogy with youth, documenting the ancestral journey, and employing the use of new technology in genealogy and family history research.
Bernice Bennett is a speaker, family historian, author, citizen's archivist with the National Archives, and Producer and Host of her own blogtalkradio show. Her research interest are in African American genealogy, DNA and connecting with the African Diaspora, Homestead Land Records, Civil War Pensions, and Freedmen Bureau documents.
Rebroadcast
Join author Craig Steven Wilder for a discussion of his research and book - Ebony & Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America's University. Craig Steven Wilder is a professor of American history at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has taught at Wiliams College and Dartmouth College.
Many of America's revered colleges and universities - from Harvard, Yale, and Princeton to Rutgers, Williams College, and UNC - were soaked in the sweat and the tears, and sometimes the blood of people of color. The earliest academies proclaimed their mission to Christianize the savages of North America, and played a key role in white conquest. Later, the slave economy and higher education grew up together, each nurturing the other. Slavery funded colleges, built campuses, and paid the wages of professors. Enslaved Americans waited on faculty and students; academic leaders aggressively courted the support of slave owners and slave traders. Significantly, as Wilder shows, our leading universities, dependent on human bondage, became breeding grounds for the racist ideas that sustained them.
Ebony and Ivy is a powerful and propulsive study and the first of its kind, revealing a history of oppression behind the institutions usually considered the cradle of liberal politics.
Have you considered joining a lineage society? Why is a lineage society important? Do you know what information and research is required to qualify for membership? Dr. Shelley Murphy and True Lewis will answer your questions and discuss the research and documentation process to prove your ancestors connection to the Revolutionary War. Chatters are encouraged to call in to share their thoughts and research on joining a lineage society.
Dr. Shelley Murphy, aka "familytreegirl" is a native of Michigan. Shelley has been an avid genealogist for over 25 years researching the Davis, Marsh, Goens/Goins/Goings, Roper, Boyer, Worden, Cureton, & Murphy, etc. family lines. She attends and presents at local and national conferences and currently works for a nonprofit and serves as adjunct faculty at Averett University. In addition, Shelley is a Coordinator of the Track 1 for the Midwest African American Genealogy Institute. The only Institute developed exclusively to address the issues associated with African American Research.
True Lewis is a Family Historian & Geneablogger for her personal diary and family history research work on MyTrueRoots.com . She was also a guest on the Season 2 - Genealogy Roadshow St. Louis Episode.
She is also the Family Historian for www.ike-iveryfamily.org in Honor of Ike Ivery his 3 wives and 23 Children.
Finding Samuel Lowe is a remarkable journey about one woman’s path to self-discovery. It is a story about love and devotion that transcends time and race, and a beautiful reflection of the power of family and the interconnectedness of our world.
Paula Williams Madison is Chairman and CEO of Madison Media Management LLC, a Los Angeles based media consultancy company with global reach.
In 2011, Madison retired from NBCUniversal, where she had been Executive Vice President of Diversity as well as a Vice President of the General Electric Company (GE), then the parent company of NBCU. During her 22 years with NBCU, she held a number of successful leadership roles, including President and General Manager of NBC4 Los Angeles, Los Angeles Regional General Manager for NBCU’s Telemundo TV stations and Vice President and News Director of NBC4 New York.
She’s been honored by Asian organizations as well, having been recognized in 2014 as one of the Outstanding 50 Asian Americans in Business and in 2015, she was honored by the East West Players and AARP with their Visionary Award and by the Chinese American Museum in Los Angeles with their Historymaker Award.
A native of Harlem, Madison and her husband Roosevelt reside in Los Angeles.
Jari C.Honora and James Morgan III will discuss a step by step guide to documenting fraternal society participation of ancestors and relatives as well as offer tips and tricks on how to locate documents in this field of study. They will show that through understanding fraternal happenings in state and local communities, researchers will be able to get a better understanding of not only who their ancestors were, but also a better understanding of relatives contributions to society at large.
James Morgan III is a Prince Hall Mason serving as Worshipful Master of Corinthian Lodge #18 in Washington, D.C. and as the Worshipful Associate Grand Historian of the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia. Mr. Morgan is a member of the Phylaxis Society, the only independent research organization dedicated to study African American Freemasonry and Fraternalism and has published several critically acclaimed research papers in their journal. He recently co-wrote and published the 2016 book “The Greatest Prince Hall Mason of the 20th Century”.
Jari C. Honora is a New Orleans native and proud Louisiana Creole with roots dating back more than two centuries along Bayou LaFourche and the German-Acadian Coast. He is a member of several societies including the Louisiana Historical Society and CreoleGen, which maintains a popular blog, CreoleGen.org. He serves as an officer in a variety of other organizations including the Association of St. Augustine Alumni. He serves as National Historian for the Knights of Peter Claver and is writing a history of that organization.
Music - Sweet Mellow Spice with A. K. Alexander Productions
Char McCargo Bah is the CEO/Owner of FindingThingsforU, LLC. She has been a genealogist since 1981; she has appeared in numerous television interviews with CBS, FOX-5, Comcast, Public Broadcasting Services just to name a few and documentaries. She has received numerous awards in 2014, 2013, 2010, and in 2009 for her work in genealogy. She was the City of Alexandria’s genealogist on the Alexandria Freedmen and Contraband Cemetery. She 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 is currently working on her second book which will be available in the late Fall of 2016.
Char will provide an overview of the following topics:
(1) Take a Close Look at Slave owners’ Probate Records and where their slaves went
(2) I was hired out – Case Studies on Slave owners hiring their slaves out
(3) Slaves and Free people of color working on State and County Projects
(4) Catch Me If You Can – Runaway Slaves: How to Research Them?
Ada Anagho Brown will explore as an African why she tested her DNA and the questions raised after identifying the many people who share her DNA outside the continent of Africa. How did they get here? Where were they taken? Where they alone? How did they survive captivity? Who are they? Are there more out there?
These question stimulated so many more questions and emotions....
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 three years, she has organized trips to Cameroon with African Americans who traced their DNA to Cameroon. Collectively, she has facilitated the travel of over 160 individuals.
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.
In addition to her work as a stay home mom, she is also the Chair of the organizing committee for the Pan African Festival (Panafest) held yearly in downtown Silver Spring, Maryland.
She is currently a board member of the Bunce Island Coalition USA, the All Cameroonian Cultural Development Foundation as well as a member of the Advisory Committee of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art.
In this program Mr. Morgan will seek to show the benefits of studying African American Fraternal and Benevolent Organizations. Mr. Morgan will provide some historical narrative on various organizations as well as give tips on how these organizations can provide some in-depth analysis of how ancestral communities functioned and organized within these groups.
James Morgan III is a graduate of Howard University where he studied Mass Communications and African American History. James is a very active Prince Hall Mason serving as Worshipful Master of Corinthian Lodge #18 in Washington, D.C. and as the Associate Grand Historian of the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia. Mr. Morgan is a member of the Phylaxis Society (the only independent research organization dedicated to study African American Freemasonry) as well as the James Dent Walker Chapter of AAHGS. You can catch Mr. Morgan's monthly thoughts on black fraternal history on the Prince Hall Think Tank which airs the last Sunday of every month on Youtube.
THE FAMILY TREE:
A Lynching in Georgia, a Legacy of Secrets and My Search for the Truth by Karen Branan
A true account of the hanging of four black people by a white lynch mob in 1912—written by the great-granddaughter of the sheriff who allowed the lynching.
Branan describes her almost twenty-year search for the truth behind her grandmother’s casual reply to the query “What is your most unforgettable memory?” The reply was, “The hanging,” which Branan would learn referred to the 1912 lynching of four black residents–a woman and three men–in retaliation for the killing of the sheriff’s nephew. Newly sworn into office, the sheriff–Branan’s maternal great-grandfather–allowed the lynching, for which no one was ever apprehended.
Karen Branan is a veteran journalist who has written for newspapers, magazines, stage, and television for almost fifty years. Her work has appeared in Life, Mother Jones, Ms., Ladies’ Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, Today’s Health, Learning, Parents, Star Tribune (Minneapolis), The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and on PBS, CBS, ABC, CBC, BBC, and CNN.
Alondra Nelson is Dean of Social Science and professor of sociology and gender studies at Columbia University. She is author of the award-winning book Body and Soul: The Black Panther Party and the Fight Against Medical Discrimination and editor of Genetics and the Unsettled Past: The Collision of DNA, Race, and History. Her reviews, writing and commentary have also appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Science, Boston Globe, and the Guardian. She lives in New York City.
The Social Life of DNA, Alondra Nelson takes us on an unprecedented journey into how the double helix has wound its way into the heart of the most urgent contemporary social issues around race. These cutting-edge DNA-based techniques, she reveals, are being used in myriad ways, including grappling with the unfinished business of slavery: to foster reconciliation, to establish ties with African ancestral homelands, to rethink and sometimes alter citizenship, and to make legal claims for slavery reparations specifically based on ancestry. Weaving together keenly observed interactions with root-seekers alongside illuminating historical details and revealing personal narrative, The Social Life of DNA shows that genetic genealogy is a new tool for addressing old and enduring issues.
Leonard Todd is the author of CAROLINA CLAY, the story of the slave potter known as Dave. Newsweek calls it a fascinating account. Publishers Weekly describes it as a sweeping tale of the South itself. It was a finalist for The National Award for Arts Writing, and it won the South Carolina Center for the Book Award for Writing. It is published by W. W. Norton.
Born in South Carolina, Leonard was educated at Yale University. He is a former Fulbright Scholar to France. He lived for many years in New York City, where he began his writing career with travel articles, short stories, and novels for young adults. Two of his novels, set in areas of the South that he knew well as a boy, were optioned for film productions.
Author Leonard Todd will be talking with us about the great ceramic artisan known as Dave, who lived in South Carolina during the 19th century. He was a potter, a poet, and a slave.
For many years, very few details were known about this enigmatic man. Leonard, however, discovered a startling personal link to him and set out to uncover his story. The prize-winning book, CAROLINA CLAY, is the result.
Leonard now lives with his wife, a poet, in Edgefield, South Carolina, where he recently wrote the book, lyrics, and music for his first theatrical musical, SUNNY DAY, which had its premiere at the Edgefield County Theatre Company.
Leonard has told Dave’s story to audiences at the Smithsonian, at Oxford, on National Public Radio, and today he will be telling it to us.
Join my special guest Wendy Jyang from Frienship Improvement Sharing Hands Development and Commerce.
The Civil War Pension Files of Philip McQuerter of Woodville, Wilkinson County, Mississippi provides revealing information about the family.
Alvin Blakes is a lifelong organizer and community worker who has been researching African history since he was a teenager, and has travelled to Africa, Europe, the Caribbean and all over the United States to pursue his studies. He has researched his family’s history from Woodville, Mississippi back to the late 1700s in the Eastern US. He is a member of the Dallas Genealogical Society’s African American Genealogy Interest Group. He graduated with a Bachelors and Masters of Mechanical Engineering degree from Howard University’s School of Engineering. Currently, he is the Manager of the Dallas Area Rapid Transit Agency’s Bus Fleet Engineering Group.
This show will examine various case examples of when "wills" don't go as planned such as protests to wills, residual estates and guardianships. In addition, this show will review the records of probate for a typical slave-holding estate.
Public historian David E. Paterson studies people who lived in nineteenth-century Upson County, Georgia, especially those who experienced slavery and Reconstruction. A civilian employee of the US Navy by day, he spends his leisure hours researching and writing local history. David has helped manage the Slave Research Forum at AfriGeneas.com since about 2001. David emigrated to the U.S. in 1958 from Scotland and was granted U.S. citizenship in 1975. He lives in Norfolk, Virginia.
Link to diagram of “Typical Actions in Probate of a Slaveholding Estate Probate Process”: http://www.afrigeneas.com/library/Probate%20actions_color.pdf
Companion link to an explanation of the diagram, “Records of Probate for a Typical Slave-holding Estate”: http://www.afrigeneas.com/library/Probate_Records.pdf
Marcellaus A. Joiner: Supervisor of the Heritage Research Center at the High Point Public Library and the Archivist for the High Point Museum in High Point, North Carolina. Marcellaus has a B.A.in History from North Carolina A&T State University and a Masters of Library Science from North Carolina Central University. He has proudly worked in the Archives and Library field for over the past 8 years. He is also a member of the Kappa Lambda chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha, Inc.
Marcellaus A. Joiner will discuss his research on his Neal family’s past as well as discuss how his career played a large part in his family research findings. In addition, this discussion will focus on how Marcellaus linked his family to William Neal the slave owner of Greene County, Georgia. This fascinating story and research will explore how he discovered that his third great grandmother Zilphy Ann Neal was owned by William Neal and that they had seven children together. His 2nd great grandfather John Neal was the only child that he could find in his research that moved away from Georgia in the early 20’s. One of Marcellaus major reasons for doing this research is to help reestablish these family lines.
History has always been a favorite subject for Erwin, and his genealogy research made it possible for him to be interviewed live by Bryant Gumble on the Friday July 3, 1993 “Today Show.” He has been featured in the Wilmington News Journal in 1996, regarding the history of his family and a memorial service for his great grandfather Thomas Elzey Polk Sr. a 9th Cavalry Regiment soldier (a Buffalo Soldier). He has been interviewed for another News Journal Article for the Sunday August 16, 2009 edition regarding a celebration of 200 years of Freedom in the United States by his Polk Ancestors.
Erwin Polk is constantly working on genealogy projects and in 1997 made a break through in discovering the ancestors of a childhood friend and neighbor also named Polk. His findings which started from the name of a Northwestern Pennsylvania town and the name of one person has taken the research back to 1825 Delaware and numerous stories about the Underground Railroad and escapes from slavery.
Erwin’s genealogy and historical research projects have included many states such as: North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Tennessee, Texas, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Illinois. He has also researched information from England, Trinidad, Canada, Grenada, Poland and Germany at various times.
Thomas Elzey Polk, Sr. the oldest son of Morris and Rebecca Black Polk, served in the United States 9th Cavalry Regiment Company C, from 1882 until 1892. He was a Buffalo Soldier in the Indian Territory of the West and earned the rank of sergeant during both of his enlistments. Thomas Polk earned a pension for his ten years of service in the Indian Territories.
The Todd’s telling our Story from Virginia to Kentucky.
Underwood vs Underwood’s Executor, 1830, Federal Records, United States Circuit Court Records, 5th Circuit Court, obtained from the Library of Virginia’s Manuscripts Collection in Richmond.
The library is a wealth of knowledge and you can find books, periodicals, reference material and if you look real hard, you will find your ancestors hanging out in the library collections just waiting to be discovered. Starting 20 April 1826 and ending 19 December 1830, there was a lawsuit brought by the heirs of Jane Pollard Dandridge Underwood against James Underwood, her estate executor. This lawsuit was filed by the heirs to recover the slaves and the income they had produced from James Underwood. As a descendant of enslaved ancestors, you can only research so far before you hit a brick wall. However, it is possible to go beyond that brick wall and find incredible information about your family’s past.
Phyllis Grimes is a graduate of Arizona State University where she graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Justice Studies. Phyllis held various positions working for the Maricopa County Superior Court System and is an employee for the State of Arizona as an Investigator. Phyllis’ passion is researching her family history and she has been involved in genealogical research for over the past 20 years. While researching her history, she has gained a greater appreciation for early American History. She holds the position of the Family Historian/Genealogist for her family.
Have you had your DNA tested and don't know what to do or say to your newly discovered relatives?
Corresponding and conversing with unknown relatives found via DNA testing can present family members and genealogists with as many challenges as opportunities. Learn how to initiate a fruitful dialogue, double response rates, and clear a path to genealogical discovery with these tried-and-true communication techniques.
Join Shannon Christmas to discuss what you may need to say and do to take your DNA results to the next level. Communications is key to getting the answers to many of your DNA question
Public historian David E. Paterson studies people who lived in nineteenth-century Upson County, Georgia, especially those who experienced slavery and Reconstruction. A civilian employee of the US Navy by day, he spends his leisure hours researching and writing local history. David has helped manage the Slave Research Forum at AfriGeneas.com since about 2001. David emigrated to the U.S. in 1958 from Scotland and was granted U.S. citizenship in 1975. He lives in Norfolk, Virginia.
We will discuss the most fruitful probate records for slavery research in most states, for the period about 1800 to 1865. The discussion may be less useful for the colonial period, or for the records of Louisiana or Spanish colonial Florida whose laws and processes derived from different legal traditions. In addition, David will describe the process flow from one record to the next – the purpoe of each record – and what kinds of slavery-related information maybe found in the record. Particular attention will focus on records that are sometimes overlooked in guides or how-to books; especially annual returns and vouchers. Researchers may find records of a deceased slaveholder separated by many years – in cases when a “life estate” came back under supervision of the court as a “residual estate.” Finally we will show the connections and similarities between probate records and guardians’ records.
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 powerful men, black and white--all in an effort to solidify and expand their freedom. Never fully free, black women had to depend on their skills of negotiation in a society dedicated to upholding both slavery and patriarchy. Forging Freedom thus examines the many ways in which Charleston's black women crafted a freedom of their own design instead of accepting the limited existence imagined for them by white Southerners.
Amrita Chakrabarti Myers earned her doctorate in American History from Rutgers University. A historian of the black female experience, she is interested in race, gender, sexuality, rights, freedom, and citizenship and the ways in which these constructs intersect with one another in the lives of black women in the Old South. She is currently Associate Professor of History and Gender Studies at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.
Reclaiming Grimes: Author of the First Fugitive Slave Narrative
Oakland, California native, REGINA E. MASON, has spent fifteen years authenticating the pioneering narrative of her direct ancestor William Grimes—author of the first fugitive slave narrative in American history.
Not only is she the gate-keeper of her family’s history, she is also coeditor of the new edition of her forefather’s book Life of William Grimes, the Runaway Slave. In recognition of her work, the San Francisco African American Historical and Cultural Society presented her the 2009 Herndon Lecturer award. She is currently working on the documentary Gina’s Journey: The Search for William Grimes.
https://vimeo.com/119890622
Dionne's search for her family history began at age 12, when she asked a simple question: Grandpa, are you white? Her grandfather’s answer sent her on a lifelong journey to piece together a family story and reveal a not uncommon but often untold part of American history. His grandparents were a slave named Tempy Burton and her master, Col. W. R. Stuart. Three decades after she first learned of this interracial, Civil War-era duo, she found another one of their descendants. Dionne's family’s history includes masters and slaves, Confederates and Senators, preachers and entertainers.
Dionne Ford is a freelance writer and M.F.A. candidate at New York University. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, More, Ebony and other publications. Her essay for MORE on her family’s history won two magazine awards. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and two daughters and blogs about her family's history at FindingJosephine.com.
Who Owned Solomon? A Case study of 19th Century African American Research– Many African American researchers struggle to break through the brick wall of slavery. This discussion will look at the strategies used by Janice Lovelace to identify her ancestors’ slave-owners through the use of military, land, probate and court records.
Janice Lovelace, Ph.D. a genealogist who primarily lectures and writes on health, genetics, research methodology and her ethnic minority heritage, lives and lectures primarily in the West. A licensed psychologist (with an undergraduate degree in Biology), she recently retired from 30 years of tenured college teaching in the social sciences, including women’s studies and American Cultural studies. Janice is a member of APG, GSG, AAGHS and several local societies.
Prior to the Civil War, Alexandria, Virginia had a large freed African American and slave population who contributed a lot to the community and to the United States. Each one of these groups helped build Alexandria, Virginia through their skilled labor, involvement in politics, teachers, churches, businessmen and etc. The history of Alexandria, Virginia cannot be told without including these African Americans.
Char is posting blogs every two weeks on African American people in the 19th century that made a difference in the History of Alexandria, Virginia at http://theotheralexandria.com.
Char McCargo Bah is the CEO/Owner of FindingThingsforU, LLC. She has been a genealogist since 1981; appeared on numerous television interviews with CBS, FOX-5, Comcast, Public Broadcasting Services just to name a few and documentaries. She has also received numerous awards in 2014, 2013, 2010, and in 2009 for her work in genealogy. Char became a 2014 Living Legend in Alexandria, VA. She was the City of Alexandria’s genealogist on the Alexandria Freedmen and Contraband Cemetery. She is doing an advance study in genealogy at the University of Toronto and is co-author of “African Americans of Alexandria, VA: Beacons of Light in the Twentieth Century.”
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 during Reconstruction.
Angela Walton-Raji is an author, genealogist, guest lecturer and producer of the weekly African Roots Podcast and Toni Carrier is the Founder of LowcountryAfricana, a free website dedicated to African American genealogy and history in SC, GA and FL.
www.mappingthefreedmensbureau.com
Have you had your DNA tested and don't know what to do or say to your newly discovered relatives?
Corresponding and conversing with unknown relatives found via DNA testing can present family members and genealogists with as many challenges as opportunities. Learn how to initiate a fruitful dialogue, double response rates, and clear a path to genealogical discovery with these tried-and-true communication techniques.
Join Shannon Christmas to discuss what you may need to say and do to take your DNA results to the next level. Communications is key to getting the answers to many of your DNA questions.
IT's COMING - October 1st: A Place Called Desire
Kickstarter Campaign
Join Producer Leonard Smith of LS3Studios.com for a discussion about a unique project to chronicle the story of an African American community located in the Upper Ninth Ward of New Orleans, Louisiana called Desire. Leonard Smith has worked tirelessly to interview residents of this community to capture the essence of what it meant for African American families to become homeowners after World War II in one of the first communities designated for returning Veterans. In addition, this self contained community of schools, grocery stores, a theatre and religious institutions provided the opportunity for the residents to develop a strong bond with their humble beginnings.
A Place Called DESIRE documentary will show how the effects of two powerful, catastrophic disasters, took aim on this once tight-knit community. These disasters are only intensified by the lack of movement from the local, state and federal governments. The goal is to show how residents and former residents are left with a feeling of being forgotten. The clouds of abandonment and homelessness hang low over the once thriving community of Desire.
The kickstarter campaign will provide the needed funds to bring this story to life. Please support this campaign with your generous contribution to A PLACE CALLED DESIRE- Kickstarter campaign.
www.ls3studios.com
www.APlaceCalledDesire.com
Join Genealogist Jim W. Petty for a discussion of his research on Black Slavery Emancipation Research in the Northern States and learn about the four categories of records that provide genealogical data on enslaved people in Northern states before the Civil War.
Beginning in 2010, Jim became interested in African American Genealogy Studies upon following client genealogy into the Slave culture of Rhode Island. Upon learning about the concept of Slavery in all States in America, and the eventual “gradual emancipation” of Black Slaves in each of the Northern States, he realized that a product of the emancipation movement was the creation of Slave birth records from as early as 1777, and continuing until national emancipation in 1865. These records led to the keeping of other records relating to African Americans in the Northern States, which will hopefully become a resource for researchers throughout the United States.
Currently Jim has been collecting and abstracting Slave Birth Records for the State of New Jersey from 1804 to 1865, with the goal of publishing his findings during the 2015-2016 sesquicentennial of Slave Emancipation in the U.S. (1865-1866).
Jim has a degree in Genealogy Technology from Brigham Young University, and has been certified as a Genealogist and a Genealogy Records Searcher by the Board for the Certification of Genealogists (1984-2015), and accredited by the International Commission for the Accreditation of Genealogists (1972-2015).
Based on the genealogy blog Reclaiming Kin, this new publication includes over 200 pages of some of the best posts from the blog arranged in the following chapters: (1) Records and Resources, (2) Evidence Analysis, (3) Slave Research, (4) Research Tips and (5) Robyn’s Family Research. There is something of value here for all genealogists, whether you consider yourself a beginner or an intermediate/advanced level research, no matter the geographical location or time period and no matter your race or ethnicity.
Robyn N. Smith
Robyn has been researching her family and others for 18 years. An engineer by day, Robyn applies those research and problem-solving skills to the field of genealogy. She specializes in Maryland research, African-American and slavery research and court records. Robyn has a strong interest in promoting the documentation of communities and emphasizing the use of proper genealogical standards. Robyn teaches an Advanced African-American Genealogy class part-time at Howard Community College in Columbia, MD. She also lectures and writes about family history research. She is also the author of a genealogy blog called Reclaiming Kin which can be viewed at http://www.reclaimingkin.com, and the author of the book “The Best of Reclaiming Kin,” which is available for purchase at the website.
Join my special guest Phyllistene Lawson for a discussion of her book Quilt of Souls. Quilt of Souls is a memoir that represents the author's childhood, her loving grandmother, and an old, tattered quilt that tells the untold stories that have long since been hushed. A quilt sewn with the used clothing of her grandmother's loved ones. Each piece of fabric woven into the quilt tells stories of how that person lived and died. Tragic stories of pain and suffering threaded back together with each healing stitch of perseverance and courage. Grandma Lula Horn (1883-1986) was like many other grandmothers of her era, a pioneer, and a symbol of hope who found alternative ways to soften the horrors of racism and bigotry.
Ms. Lawson completed her military career in 2013. Prior to her completing 20 years of military service, she earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Ms. Lawson is married with two sons and five Granddaughter’s and currently reside in Florida.
Leslie Anderson will discuss how to apply the classic strategy of information gathering to your research so that you can write a robust family history. She will explain how customized timelines, resource guides, and locality guides can help you with your writing.
Leslie's research began with one question: "Where was my great -grandfather born"? The answer (and the analysis) culminated in an article that won the 2013 National Genealogyical Society Family History Writitng Contest. The four-generaton narrative "Tabitha (Bugg) George Smith (1838-ca 1890) of Mecklenburg County, Virginia" was published in the National Genealogical Society Quarterly (March 2015). "It was over 20 pages with more than 10,000 words and 200 citations."
Doreen's Jazz New Orleans is a group whose primary interest lies in spreading the culture and traditional music of New Orleans all over the world, through performances and education. Doreen Ketchens, the leader of the group, has been called "Queen Clarinet", "The female Louis Armstrong", and “Lady Louie” by critics who have heard her perform. She has performed with Ellis Marsalis, Jon Faddis, Trombone Shorty, Al Hirt, Dorothy Donagan, The Black Crows and Jennifer Warrens, to name a few. She has opened for such names as Macy Grey and Dr. John.
Doreen’s Jazz New Orleans has represented New Orleans and the United States around the world, performing in Africa, Asia, Canada, Europe, South America, Central Asia and the United States. They have performed for four United States presidents, including Bill Clinton, George Bush Sr., Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter. The band also boasts 23 volumes of CD’s and 3 DVD’s.
In addition to being superb performers, Doreen and Lawrence are outstanding educators. They regularly perform in schools around the world, educating students of all languages, spreading the culture and music of New Orleans.
www.doreensjazz.com
Join the Officers of the Annie Malone Historical Society for a discussion about the legacy that has been the driving force in our Black hair and beauty culture today. The purpose of the Annie Malone Historical Society is to give proper recognition to a pillar of history. To share the story of extraordinary vision, dedication, commitment and success that was the life of Annie M.Turnbo Pope Malone. To place the accomplishments of this African American icon in one body of evidence that is easily accessible to the public.
Linda M.Nance is the President of the Annie Malone Historical Society and earned a Bachelor Degree in Psychology and a Bachelor Degree in Sociology from Maryville University in St. Louis, Missouri. She holds an Associate in Applied Science Degree (emphases in Human Services/Corrections) from St. Louis Community College at Florissant Valley also in St. Louis, Missouri. A 2009 graduate of the FOCUS St. Louis Leadership program, Linda has also completed the Community Arts Training and the TIGER Fellowship programs sponsored by the St. Louis Regional Arts Commission.
Linda F. Jones is the Vice-President of the Annie Malone Historical Society and is a gifted educator, historian, writer, and lecturer. She received her Master of Business Administration from Indiana University and a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from Calumet College. She is a historian with an insatiable interest in researching the history of African Americans, her own family history, and in particular, the history of Annie Turnbo Pope Malone.
http://anniemalonehistoricalsociety.org
Property Rights and Wrongs: African-Americans at the Courthouse with The Legal Genealogist
From being treated as property to having their property stolen by those who used the law against the freedmen, African Americans' experience at the courthouse had only one bright spot: it created records for the genealogist-descendants.
A Certified Genealogist with a law degree, The Legal Genealogist Judy G. Russell examines the interplay between genealogy and the law. She is a lecturer, educator and writer who enjoys helping others understand a variety of issues, ranging from using DNA in family history to the effect the law had on our ancestors’ lives and the records they left behind.
A graduate of George Washington University and Rutgers School of Law-Newark, Judy is a Colorado native with roots deep in the American south on her mother’s side and entirely in Germany on her father’s side. She's a member of the National Genealogical Society, the Association of Professional Genealogists, and, among others, the state genealogical societies of New Jersey, North Carolina, Virginia, Texas and Illinois. She has written for the National Genealogical Society Quarterly and the National Genealogical Society Magazine .
Many Americans of African descent have thought that connecting with their African kin was next to impossible, yet Carol Hector-Harris has done just that. Not only did she visit Ghana but she also met relatives. She is the fifth great-granddaughter of Africa-born Quock Martrick, who served in the Revolutionary War with George Washington in New York. She found Martrick's family, HER FAMILY, in Big Ada, Ghana. She also met members of her ethnic group, the Ga-Adangbe (the African lineage she discovered through DNA testing), which includes Sangmorkie Tetteh, who is with Carol in the photo.
Carol Hector-Harris earned a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and a Master of Arts in Political Science from The Ohio State University. Currently she is working toward a Ph.D. at Ohio University’s Scripps College of Communication. An eleventh generation Bostonian, she lives in Columbus, Ohio with her husband, two sons, and eight grandchildren. Ms. Hector-Harris serves as the librarian for a Columbus Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Join author, Daniel J. Sharfstein for a discussion of his book and research - The Invisible Line - Three American Families and the Secret Journey from Black to White.
Defining their identities first as people of color and later as whites, these families provide a lens for understanding how people thought about and experienced race and how these ideas and experiences evolved—how the very meaning of black and white changed—over time. Cutting through centuries of myth, amnesia, and poisonous racial politics, The Invisible Line will change the way we talk about race, racism, and civil rights.
Join Antoinette Harrell for a discussion on Modern Day Plantations.
Most people tour plantations to learn about life in early times. Antoinette Harrell has conducted research on peonage and involuntary servitude for the past twelve years and has visited several plantations throughout the Mississippi Delta where people have lived for generations without leaving.
In addition, she has interviewed several people who still live on those plantations. What is life like on these plantations today? Why haven't they left the plantations? Where are these plantations located?
Have you had your autosomal DNA tested and now you are confused? Allow Diahan Southard to explain how you can organize, analyze and understand your results.
In the year 2000 Diahan Southard found herself in the right place at the right time. As an undergraduate in Microbiology, the laboratory she had been volunteering in was headed to Egypt to collect more samples for genetic study from an abandoned cemetery just outside of Cairo. While that trip never materialized, that research study became the foundation of the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation (SMGF), for whom she would work for the next 10 years.
Her duties at SMGF and her sister companies were varied, from laboratory work to marketing to customer service. All of her knowledge and experience have culminated into her current position as Your DNA Guide. She writes for Family Tree Magazine, and is the Genetic Gem at Lisa Louise Cooke’s Genealogy Gems, blogging and podcasting about DNA and genealogy.
Diahan's lectures are always fun, upbeat, and full of energy. She has a passion for genetic genealogy, a genuine love for people, and a gift for making the technical understandable.
guide@yourDNAguide.com
www.yourDNAguide.com
Nicka Smith is a professional photographer, speaker, and documentarian with more than 16 years of experience as a genealogist. She has extensive experience in African ancestored genealogy, reverse genealogy, and family reunion planning and execution. She is also an expert in genealogical research in the Northeastern Louisiana area, sharing genealogy with youth, documenting the ancestral journey, and employing the use of new technology in genealogy and family history research.
Rebroadcast
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.
Do you know about the African American 371st Infantry of World War I that fought in France? Did you know that Sonya R. Hodges has dedicated her life to research and honor the men who fought in World War I to honor the memory of these dedicated soldiers?
Please join Sonya R. Hodges-Grantham and Douglas Culbreth for a discussion of the role played by the African American 371st Infantry Regiment in World War I to honor the memory of these dedicated soldiers.
The 371st Infantry Regiment, an African American unit of mostly South Carolinians came from small towns like Sandy Springs, Anderson, Edgefield, Ninety-six and Laurens.
The 371st was permitted to fight, after disembarking from their troop ship at a tiny French village in April of 1918 after learning that they had been transferred to the French army. The 371st was given French equipment, and had to turn in their prized Springfield rifles for French rifles. The unit was reorganized to fit the French army structure and spent the spring of 1918 training in French tactics, communicated via interpreters. That summer, the regiment was put into the line to relieve exhausted French and allied Italian units.
Sonya Renae Hodges- Grantham is a mother, grandmother, genealogist, author, graver, historian, and researcher, with a motto of "Get The Job Done and Get It Done Right". She is the Founder and President of the World War I - 371st Historical Society. She is also the Founder of Cornbread Jubilee, an annual event that is held in honor of the corn crop, agriculture, and farming and Co-Founder of the Veterans Formation (1993) Columbia, South Carolina. She is sole Restorer/Curator of Childs Cemetery in South Carolina and has also authored two books.
Have you searched for records and finally found that special person you have been looking for? So what? What does the record tell you? Is this all that you need?
Join Dr. Shelley Murphy, aka "familytreegirl" for a discussion on the "SO WHAT" concept? "So What" is a concept used in the Midwestern African American Genealogy Institute to help analyze genealogical records and resources. The goal is to question the value of the evidence and plan the path to new leads and discoveries.
Shelley Murphy, aka "familytreegirl" is a native of Michigan. Shelley has been an avid genealogist for over 25 years researching the Davis, Marsh, Goens/Goins/Goings, Roper, Boyer, Worden, Cureton, & Murphy, etc. family lines. She attends and presents at local and national conferences and currently works for a nonprofit and serves as adjunct faculty at Averett University. In addition, Shelley is a founding member and current President of the Afro-American Historical Genealogical Society Chapter of Central Virginia.
Tonya M. Hull has been researching for 30 years. She is a genealogical researcher, lecturer and writer. She was the lead researcher for the PBS series it’s A Family Reunion, Co-Author of “African Americans of Giles County”. She has served as president for a local genealogical society. She is currently studying to become a certified genealogist.
Antoinette Broussard has contributed biographies to the African American National Biography (edited by Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Oxford Press 2008) and to Harlem of the West (photographer Lewis Watts and editor Elizabeth Pepin, Chronicle Books, 2006). She is currently a writer and co-producer for the Days With Zahrah television show (ABC7), and periodically appear on the show as Ms. Etiquette. In addition, she has co-authored the forthcoming book, Days With Zahrah Travel Guide (May 2015), and has also published various articles on the accomplishments of her great aunt, Dr. Nettie Craig Asberry—a civil rights activist, and her cousin, Lulu Craig Sadler—a pioneer educator.
Explore the new Genetic Genealogy Standards ( www.geneticgenealogystandards.com), GEDmatch.com, and genetic genealogy in general with Blaine Bettinger, Ph.D., J.D.
Blaine Bettinger, Ph.D. (Biochemistry), J.D., is an intellectual property attorney in Syracuse, New York. In 2007 he started The Genetic Genealogist blog, one of the most respected and easy to understand of the blogs on this topic. He is an instructor for genetic genealogy courses at the Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research (IGHR), Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy (SLIG), Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh (GRIP), Virtual Institute of Genealogical Research, and Family Tree University. Blaine was also recently elected to the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society’s Board of Trustees.
Forgotten Black Soldiers Who Served in White Regiments During The Civil War: Volumes I and II
Dr. Juanita Patience Moss is the great granddaughter of a Civil War veteran, the granddaughter of a northeastern Pennsylvania entrepreneur who became an anthracite coal carver, and the daughter of a unique coal sculptor who was featured in the EBONY Magazine (March 1970). A former high school biology teacher, her interests unexpectedly changed after retirement and took another direction. Using her scientific background, she made a hypothesis and set out to prove it. As a result she has published two volumes concerning hundreds of Union Black soldiers whose military service was forgotten until 1998. Now they are being remembered and honored, too.
Holt Cemetery, New Orleans’ still-active potter’s field, has been a subject of concern for many groups in recent years. Families with loved ones interred there have been worried about neglect and misuse of the cemetery, even as the city has periodically discussed closing the overcrowded space to new burials. At the same time, visitors have frequently been impressed with the variety of unique votive and grave-marking techniques visible in the space; evidence of these mourning practices and decorative traditions are also being lost. Dr. Gray will discuss the historical and cultural significance of Holt Cemetery, along with plans for the creation of a digital database that will balance both the needs of those with personal connections to Holt and the interests of others concerned about its long-term
Dr. Ryan Gray is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of New Orleans specializing in historical archaeology. Before receiving his doctorate from the University of Chicago, Dr. Gray was employed for 10 years doing private sector work in cultural resource management with a focus on urban sites. His work examines race, segregation, auto-construction, and urban development in the post-Emancipation South.
http://www.uno.edu/cola/archaeology/planning-underway-for-reburial-ceremony.aspx
http://archaeologynews.uno.edu/
preservation.
James H. Commander utilized genealogical research techniques to author his book, Love At Our Roots: How Freedom Became A Force For Change.
His book has been accepted into the prestigious Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York, as well as, the Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American Culture and History in Atlanta, Georgia. His lecture focuses on using family research to uncover empowering heritage for future generations.
Commander holds a Bachelor and Master's degree in arts, entertainment and media management from Columbia College of Chicago, Full Sail University. He resides in Greenville, South Carolina with his family.
Problem Solving in Genealogical Research
(Strategies / ideas for breaking through your genealogy brick walls.)
MARY M. TEDESCO is a professional genealogist, speaker, and author. She is a Host / Genealogist on the PBS TV series Genealogy Roadshow (season 2) and the Founder of ORIGINS ITALY. Mary speaks Italian and travels often to Italy to conduct client genealogical research and visit family. Mary is the co-author of Tracing Your Italian Ancestors an 84-page Italian research guide published by Moorshead Magazines. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics from Boston University and a Certificate in Genealogical Research from Boston University’s Center for Professional Education. In addition to her Italian ancestry (Calabria, Trentino-Alto Adige, and Tuscany) on her father’s side, she also has deep American roots (German, Irish, Danish & English) on her mother’s side and is proud member of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Mary is a member of a number of local and national genealogical societies and serves on the Board of Directors of the Massachusetts Genealogical Council. She can be contacted at www.originsitaly.com
Why the New York Times is Wrong – Using Basic Genealogy Tools and Methods to Show that Your Family Name Was Not Changed At Ellis Island.
There is a common misconception, call it an old wives tale or an urban legend, that family names were often changed at Ellis Island. Such myths gain a great deal of credibility when newspapers such as the New York Times, the country’s “paper of record”, perpetuates these myths by repeating them, in this case in obituaries.
When Kenneth saw one of these obituaries a few years ago, he wrote to the Times pointing out their error and suggesting sources that they could check to verify what he was saying. When they seemed to ignore him, he did the research on the family of the person named in the obituary and was able to show what the name was when the family immigrated and how the family name changed as they adapted to life in the United States. He sent all of the proof to the Times and was still ignored. Finally the Times responded. They were not going to do anything to correct the erroneous obituary but suggested they might do a news story on the issue. The experience led him to do a search of other Times obituaries with the Ellis Island story. He located about half a dozen. After doing the research on each, he was able to show the original name for each of them.
Kenneth A. Bravo received his JD from The Ohio State University, College of Law and his B.A. degree in Economics from Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey. He is Vice President of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) and, the former president and current member of the Board of Trustees of the Jewish Genealogy Society of Cleveland. Bravo has lectured on a number of genealogical topics.
The Truth About The Lowman Family Lynchings in Aiken, South Carolina
Rennard East is a hip hop artist/ songwriter from Philadelphia, PA and one of his new passions is genealogy because he knew nothing about his ancestors when growing up. Patricia Lowman Pryor has always wondered about the truth concerning her grandmother Bertha Lowman and will share her research and discovery behind this story.
Historian Elizabeth Robeson - a leading researcher on the Lowman Family Lynchings will provide the political, and social order through which African Americans had to navigate a hostile and dangerous existence in the South. Elizabeth Robeson holds the M.Phil in American history from Columbia University where she was a fellowship doctoral candidate studying under Professor Barbara J. Fields. The Lowman Family Lynchings is the subject of her dissertation and a book manuscript in progress.
The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is the official repository of the permanently valuable records of the U.S. Government. NARA's vast holdings document the lives and experiences of persons who interacted with the Federal Government. The records created by post-Civil War Federal Agencies are perhaps some of the most important records available for the study of black family life and genealogy. This discussion will focus on NARA's Reference Information Paper 108.
This reference information paper describes three post-Civil War Federal agencies' records: the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands; the Freedman's Savings and Trust Company; and the Commissioners of Claims. Case examples will be shared to illustrate the value of researching these important records.
Reginald Washington is a retired archivist/ genealogy specialist with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). He lectures frequently on records and research procedures at the National Archives, and has served as the African-American Genealogy Subject Area Specialist at NARA. He has spoken at conferences of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society, National Genealogical Society, Federation of Genealogical Societies, National Institute on Genealogical Research, and numerous local genealogical societies and clubs.
Using Civil Rights Records to Find The Story In Your Community and Family
Please join genealogist and family historian Antoinette Harrell for a discussion of how and why researchers will want to explore the Civil Rights records to find relatives that were engaged in the Civil Rights movement throughout the South. Ms. Harrell will use a case example of Mr. Herbert Lee a Civil Rights leader from Amite County, Mississippi to illustrate what was documented in Federal Records about him.
Antoinette Harrell, a renowned genealogist, author and blogger 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 and was appointed Honorary Attorney General in the State of Louisiana in 2003 for her studies in genealogy. She is also one of the recipients of the ASLAH Award in 2013 for her outstanding services as a humanitarian activist and film maker and has been featured in “Chronicle On Civil Rights” & Civil Rights History from the Ground Up: Local Struggles a National Movement.
The Department of Justice Records are available under the Civil Rights Division at the National Archives.
The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, created in 1957 by the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1957, works to uphold the civil and constitutional rights of all Americans, particularly some of the most vulnerable members of our society. The Division enforces federal statutes prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, disability, religion, familial status and national origin.
Using Civil Rights Records to Find The Story In Your Community and Family
Please join genealogist and family historian Antoinette Harrell for a discussion of how and why researchers will want to explore the Civil Rights records to find relatives that were engaged in the Civil Rights movement throughout the South. Ms. Harrell will use a case example of Mr. Herbert Lee a Civil Rights leader from Amite County, Mississippi to illustrate what was documented in Federal Records about him.
Antoinette Harrell, a renowned genealogist, author and blogger 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 and was appointed Honorary Attorney General in the State of Louisiana in 2003 for her studies in genealogy. She is also one of the recipients of the ASLAH Award in 2013 for her outstanding services as a humanitarian activist and film maker and has been featured in “Chronicle On Civil Rights” & Civil Rights History from the Ground Up: Local Struggles a National Movement.
The Department of Justice Records are available under the Civil Rights Division at the National Archives.
The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, created in 1957 by the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1957, works to uphold the civil and constitutional rights of all Americans, particularly some of the most vulnerable members of our society. The Division enforces federal statutes prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, disability, religion, familial status and national origin.
Gather at the Table: The Healing Journey of a Daughter of Slavery and a Son of the Slave Trade --
-- is the chronicle of a shared journey toward racial reconciliation. Informed by genealogy, it deals with race, social justice and healing from the traumatic wounds of slavery. Over a three year period, the authors traveled through 27 states, visiting ancestral towns, courthouses, cemeteries, plantations, antebellum mansions, and historic sites.
Bernice Alexander Bennett welcomes Sharon Leslie Morgan and Thomas Norman Dewolf to share this compelling journey with us.
Sharon Morgan is a marketing communications consultant and a nationally recognized pioneer in multicultural marketing. An avid genealogist, she is the webmaster for OurBlackAncestry.com and is a founder of the Black Public Relations Society.
Thomas Norman DeWolf, author of Inheriting the Trade, is featured in the Emmy-nominated documentary film Traces of the Trade, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and on the acclaimed PBS series POV. DeWolf speaks regularly about healing from the legacy of slavery and racism at conferences and colleges throughout the United States.
Prior to the Civil War, Alexandria, Virginia had a large freed African American and slave population who contributed a lot to the community and to the United States. Each one of these groups helped build Alexandria, Virginia through their skilled labor, involvement in politics, teachers, churches, businessmen and etc. The history of Alexandria, Virginia cannot be told without including these African Americans.
Char is posting blogs every two weeks on African American people in the 19th century that made a difference in the History of Alexandria, Virginia at http://theotheralexandria.com.
Char McCargo Bah is the CEO/Owner of FindingThingsforU, LLC. She has been a genealogist since 1981; appeared on numerous television interviews with CBS, FOX-5, Comcast, Public Broadcasting Services just to name a few and documentaries. She has also received numerous awards in 2014, 2013, 2010, and in 2009 for her work in genealogy. Char became a 2014 Living Legend in Alexandria, VA. She was the City of Alexandria’s genealogist on the Alexandria Freedmen and Contraband Cemetery. She is doing an advance study in genealogy at the University of Toronto and is co-author of “African Americans of Alexandria, VA: Beacons of Light in the Twentieth Century.”
"THE BLACK LOGGERS OF WALLOWA COUNTY, OR"
In 1923, the Bowman-Hicks Lumber Company of Missouri built Maxville, a logging camp in Wallowa County, Oregon and brought 40-60 African American loggers as part of the labor pool. This project uses genealogy research methods to reconstruct the social history of these workers.
Dr. Pearl Alice Marsh (Ph.D.) is a retired foreign policy expert and now spends all of her time doing genealogy and historical community research. She currently is working on her father's memoir and assisting other descendants of the original loggers to find their roots. She is an active member of the Wallowa (Oregon) Historical Society and the African American Genealogical Society of Northern California.
Many Americans of African descent have thought that connecting with their African kin was next to impossible, yet Carol Hector-Harris has done just that. Not only did she visit Ghana but she also met relatives. She is the fifth great-granddaughter of Africa-born Quock Martrick, who served in the Revolutionary War with George Washington in New York. She found Martrick's family, HER FAMILY, in Big Ada, Ghana. She also met members of her ethnic group, the Ga-Adangbe (the African lineage she discovered through DNA testing), which includes Sangmorkie Tetteh, who is with Carol in the photo.
Carol Hector-Harris earned a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and a Master of Arts in Political Science from The Ohio State University. Currently she is working toward a Ph.D. at Ohio University’s Scripps College of Communication. An eleventh generation Bostonian, she lives in Columbus, Ohio with her husband, two sons, and eight grandchildren. Ms. Hector-Harris serves as the librarian for a Columbus chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
What do you know about DNA? Have you had your DNA tested and still have questions about your results?
Join producer and host Bernice Bennett and co-host Victoria Massie for an engaging discussion with ethicist, author, and lecturer David R. Dowell on his book NextGen Genealogy: The DNA Connection.
David R. Dowell was an academic librarian for 35 years. He has 2 degrees in history and 2 in library science. He has researched family histories since the 1960s. He is an ethicist, lecturer and author whose two most recent books are Crash Course in Genealogy (2011) and NextGen Genealogy: The DNA Connection (2014). He formerly taught “Genealogy Research” and “Ethics in the Information Age” at Cuesta College and chaired the Genealogy Committee and the Committee on Professional Ethics of the American Library Association. He blogs on genealogical topics as “Dr. D Digs Up Ancestors” at http://blog.ddowell.com. He coordinates two surname and one haplogroup DNA research projects.
Dr. Dowell has taught library science courses face-to-face and online for 15 years and made presentations to local, regional and national library groups. He has taught genealogy research classes in both California and Tennessee and made presentations on genetic genealogy to community groups and local genealogy societies in California, Illinois and Tennessee. He is currently lecturing on genealogy research for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Vanderbilt University.
Solomon Northup's descendants share their insights.
Vera J. Williams - President of the Solomon Northup Foundation
Justin Gilliam - Chief Executive Officer
Clayton J. Adams - Historian and Executive Director
Eileen Jackson - Regional Director
Linsey Rae Williams - Social Media Director
http://solomonnorthupfoundation.com
Join Author Teresa R. Kemp for a discussion of her new book "Keeper Of The Fire". This book discusses her Gullah Geechie culture and includes 480 pages of heritage research done by five generations of her family documenting their journeys across Africa to enslavement in America - representing more than 187 years of history in America. They passed down documents, a culture of faith, and a tradition of service to the community.
Mrs. Teresa R. Kemp is the 5th Generation Quilter, historian and owner of Plantation Quilts and UGRR Secret Quilt Code Museum. Born in Baumholder, West Germany to the late Dr. Howard and Serena (Strother) Wilson. She graduated from Berlin American High School and attended Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. She transferred to West Virginia State University and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree. She also graduated from DeVry University in Atlanta, Georgia with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Information Systems.
In 2005, with her parents she opened the UGRR Secret Quilt Code Museum. A staunch advocate for conservation, healthier lifestyles for all and, as an Abolitionist, she fights Human Trafficking while researching international slavery & preserving the world’s cultural heritage.
www.PlantationQuilts.com
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 during Reconstruction.
Angela Walton-Raji is an author, genealogist, guest lecturer and producer of the weekly African Roots Podcast and Toni Carrier is the Founder of LowcountryAfricana, a free website dedicated to African American genealogy and history in SC, GA and FL.
www.mappingthefreedmensbureau.com
Rebroadcast
FamilySearch is a nonprofit family history organization dedicated to connecting families across generations. FamilySearch believes that families bring joy and meaning to life.
Merrill White was born and raised in Sparks, Nevada. He graduated from BYU with a BA in History and Minor in Music. Has worked for FamilySearch for 14 years and is currently a Product Manager for the FamilySearch Discovery Center initiative.
Robert Kehrer worked for 12 years as a molecular geneticist identifying disease genes by building very large family pedigrees. He has an MBA and worked for 7 years at Apple managing strategic alliances and driving market strategy in the sciences. For the last 7 years Robert has worked for FamilySearch as a product manager in the Family History Library, overseeing the public APIs, and managing the development of FamilySearch.org beta. He is currently the senior product manager of search technologies for FamilySearch.
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 words of politicians, entrepreneurs, and escaped slaves, The Half Has Never Been Told offers a radical new interpretation of American history. It forces readers to reckon with the violence at the root of American supremacy, but also with the survival and resistance that brought about slavery’s end—and created a culture that sustains America’s deepest dreams of freedom.
Edward E. Baptist is an Associate Professor in the Department of History and House Professor and Dean at the Carl Becker House at Cornell University.
Maurice A. Barboza is the founder and CEO of National Mall Liberty Fund DC, a non-profit authorized by Public Law 112-239 to establish a memorial to African American contributions to liberty during the Revolutionary War. In September 2014, Public Law 113-176 made the National Liberty Memorial eligible for a site in Washington's Monumental Core. He said, "this memorial will remind Americans that it was their vision for America that prevailed."
Mr. Barboza has written opinion pieces and spoken extensively about the 30-year quest to construct the memorial and his aunt's trail-blazing battle in the mid-1980s for membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution. A 2013 book, "Sacrificing Soldiers on the National Mall," by Kristin Haas, and a recent article in the Washington Post, "After 30 years, a site for memorial," by Tom Jackman, tell the story.
National Mall Liberty Fund DC
www.libertyfunddc.com
What role did the Irish play in the Transatlantic slave trade? Were the Irish ever enslaved or slave owners?
Join my special guest, Dr. Maurice Gleeson for a compelling overview of Ireland and the Slave Trade.
Dr. Maurice Gleeson is a psychiatrist from Dublin who works in London as a pharmaceutical physician. He is an avid genealogist and has traced his Irish family tree back to about 1800 on half of his ancestral lines. Using DNA, he was able to get back into the 1600's on one line, and this inspired his interest in Ireland's involvement with the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
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, education, and public television at WHYY in Philadelphia.
"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.
Margo Lee Williams will share her research and journey to gain designation of the first African American site (Strieby Congregational United Church of Christ), by the Randolph County North Carolina Historical Preservation Commission for Cultural Heritage Sites.
Margo Lee Williams holds an MA in Sociology and an MA in Religious Education. She developed an interest in genealogy early in life and in the 30+ years since, she has researched and written extensively on her family, including her book: Miles Lassiter (circa 1777-1850), an Early African American Quaker from Lassiter Mill, Randolph County, North Carolina: My Research Journey to Home, for which she won the 2012 Excellence in Publishing Award from the North Carolina Genealogical Society.
Margo is a well-known lecturer for the Family History Centers of the LDS Church in the Washington, DC area, a former editor of the Journal of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society, and through her private research company, Personal Prologue, has developed expertise in identifying heirs for intestate probates. She is currently a National Veterans’ Service Officer with Vietnam Veterans of America.
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 immediately following the Civil War. So one had to prove that one had been a part of the Indian Community since 1866. For those whose ancestors were enslaved by members of the Tribes, (the Freedmen) they had to often provide proof that their former enslaver was a member of the tribe.
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 powerful men, black and white--all in an effort to solidify and expand their freedom. Never fully free, black women had to depend on their skills of negotiation in a society dedicated to upholding both slavery and patriarchy. Forging Freedom thus examines the many ways in which Charleston's black women crafted a freedom of their own design instead of accepting the limited existence imagined for them by white Southerners.
Amrita Chakrabarti Myers earned her doctorate in American History from Rutgers University. A historian of the black female experience, she is interested in race, gender, sexuality, rights, freedom, and citizenship and the ways in which these constructs intersect with one another in the lives of black women in the Old South. She is currently Associate Professor of History and Gender Studies at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.
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 groups. Some of her more recent work focuses on strategies researchers can use to analyze Louisiana’s Freedmen’s Bureau field office records for revealing, often personal information on freedmen ancestors.
Ms. Gillins is a member of the Galveston Historical Society, National Genealogical Society, and Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society. A retired Associate Professor at Riverside City College, she frequently calls upon her career background as a college educator to present workshops or deliver courses at regional and national conferences and genealogical institutes. She is also a member of the adjunct faculty at Samford Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research in Birmingham.
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, and many other types of records.
Title: Index to Records of Ante-Bellum Southern Plantations: Locations, Plantations, Surnames and Collections, 2d ed.
Author: Jean L. Cooper
Publisher: MacFarland, 2009
ISBN: 978-0786439904
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 Slaves. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, is an annual participant of MAAGI (Mid-Western African American Genealogy Institute), and member of several historical societies. The focus of Konnetta’s genealogy research is finding, documenting and personalizing slaves, whether family nor not.
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 Orleans, and a graduate of Xavier University.
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 systems and record groups. Some of her more recent work focuses on strategies researchers can use to analyze Louisiana’s Freedmen’s Bureau field office records for revealing, often personal information on freedmen ancestors.
Ms. Gillins is a member of the Galveston Historical Society, National Genealogical Society, and Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society. A retired Associate Professor at Riverside City College, she frequently calls upon her career background as a college educator to present workshops or deliver courses at regional and national conferences and genealogical institutes. She is also a member of the adjunct faculty at Samford Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research in Birmingham.
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. She was appointed Honorary Attorney General in the State of Louisiana in 2003 for her studies in genealogy. She is also one of the recipients of the ASLAH Award for her outstanding services of as a humanitarian activist and film maker. She has also been featured in “Chronicle On Civil Rights” & Civil Rights History from the Ground Up: Local Struggles a National Movement.
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 Georgetown County, SC, and was joined by a high school group from Milwaukee, WI and their chaperons. The Slave Dwelling Project's first Conference will be held in Savannah, GA, September 18 – 20, 2014.
www.slavedwellingproject.org
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 technologies for genealogy” (http://throughthetreesblog.tumblr.com/). Shannon has a special interest in harnessing the power of autosomal DNA to verify and extend pedigrees, assess the veracity of oral history, and reconstruct ancestral genomes. A trained urban planning and real estate consultant, Shannon has a Bachelor of Arts in Government from Harvard University and a Masters in City Planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Join Shannon Christmas and other experts at the 2014 International Genetic Conference - http://i4gg.org
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 than 11,000 documents to trace the lives of his ancestors, the Washington family and more than 300 other African Americans enslaved on Wessyngton Plantation, the largest tobacco plantation in America. For more than thirty years through extensive historical research, Baker has created a groundbreaking work in African American history and American history.
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 six books on such topics as constitutional law and women and the law.
The Slaves Have Names: Ancestors of my Home tells the stories of the people who were enslaved on the plantation where Cumbo-Floyd was raised in Central Virginia. It’s the story of her journey to get to know these extraordinary people and to understand her debt to them as well as our nation’s continued struggles around race and the legacy of slavery.
Andi Cumbo-Floyd is a writer, historian, and genealogist who focuses on the history and legacy of slavery in the United States. She lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, where she and her husband run a small farm with goats, chickens, and big, fluffy dogs.
Join participants of the professiolnal genealogy class of the Midwest African American Institute for an engaging and informative discussion on " Why Genealogy" with Matilda and her children.
"The Genealogy as a Profession class at MAAGI 2014 created WHY GENEALOGY? centered around a slave named Matilda asking her descendants why they were or were not trying to find their family. Sarah Cato is the producer and host. Cast members: Konnetta Alexander is the slave named Matilda from the Graham Slave Records. Myra DeShields-Moulton tells about her research findings and the family books she’s written. Camile Camille Genealogy Sista Johnson representing the X-generation’s interest or lack of interest. Flavia Frierson asks why should she research that old stuff. Roland Miller shares the migration path of ex-slaves. Audrie McRay tells why she researches her family and makes family scrapbooks.
Are you planning a family reunion and have no idea where to start? Are you integrating family history and genealogy in your family reunion activities?
Callian Jenkins is a Senior Technical Project Manager at ICF International. In 2011, she planned and managed a large family reunion in Silver Spring, MD. Currently, with her family, she's in the process of writing a Family Reunion Planning Guide to help her other family members plan family reunions
Join author, Daniel J. Sharfstein for a discussion of his book and research - The Invisible Line - Three American Families and the Secret Journey from Black to White.
Defining their identities first as people of color and later as whites, these families provide a lens for understanding how people thought about and experienced race and how these ideas and experiences evolved—how the very meaning of black and white changed—over time. Cutting through centuries of myth, amnesia, and poisonous racial politics, The Invisible Line will change the way we talk about race, racism, and civil rights.
Daniel J. Sharfstein is a professor of law at Vanderbilt University. A graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School, he has been awarded fellowships for his research on the legal history of race in the United States from Harvard, New York University, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. His book is available in paperback as The Invisible Line: A Secret History of Race in America, and it has won three prizes: the J. Anthony Lukas Prize for narrative non-fiction, the Cromwell Book Prize from the American Society for Legal History, and the Hurst Prize from the Law and Society Association. Daniel has also spent the past year as a Guggenheim Fellow, working on a new book.
Defining their identities first as people of color and later as whites, these families provide a lens for understanding how people thought about and experienced race and how these ideas and experiences evolved—how the very meaning of black and white changed—over time. Cutting through centuries of myth, amnesia, and poisonous racial politics, The Invisible Line will change the way we talk about race, racism, and civil rights.
Join author Craig Steven Wilder for a discussion of his recent book - Ebony&Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America's University. Craig Steven Wilder is a professor of American history at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has taught at Wiliams College and Dartmouth College.
Many of America's revered colleges and universities - from Harvard, Yale, and Princeton to Rutgers, Williams College, and UNC - were soaked in the sweat and the tears, and sometimes the blood of people of color. The earliest academies proclaimed their mission to Christianize the savages of North America, and played a key role in white conquest. Later, the slave economy and higher education grew up together, each nurturing the other. Slavery funded colleges, built campuses, and paid the wages of professors. Enslaved Americans waited on faculty and students; academic leaders aggressively courted the support of slave owners and slave traders. Significantly, as Wilder shows, our leading universities, dependent on human bondage, became breeding grounds for the racist ideas that sustained them.
Ebony and Ivy is a powerful and propulsive study and the first of its kind, revealing a history of oppression behind the institutions usually considered the cradle of liberal politics.
Have you searched for records and finally found that special person you have been looking for? So what? What does the record tell you? Is this all that you need?
Join Dr. Shelley Murphy, aka "familytreegirl" for a discussion on the "SO WHAT" concept? "So What" is a concept used in the Midwestern African American Genealogy Institute to help analyze genealogical records and resources. The goal is to question the value of the evidence and plan the path to new leads and discoveries.
Shelley Murphy, aka "familytreegirl" is a native of Michigan. Shelley has been an avid genealogist for over 25 years researching the Davis, Marsh, Goens/Goins/Goings, Roper, Boyer, Worden, Cureton, & Murphy, etc. family lines. She attends and presents at local and national conferences and currently works for a nonprofit and serves as adjunct faculty at Averett University. In addition, Shelley is a founding member and current President of the Afro-American Historical Genealogical Society Chapter of Central Virginia.
What role did the Irish play in the Transatlantic slave trade? Were the Irish ever enslaved or slave owners?
Join my special guest, Dr. Maurice Gleeson for a compelling overview of Ireland and the Slave Trade.
Dr. Maurice Gleeson is a psychiatrist from Dublin who works in London as a pharmaceutical physician. He is an avid genealogist and has traced his Irish family tree back to about 1800 on half of his ancestral lines. Using DNA, he was able to get back into the 1600's on one line, and this inspired his interest in Ireland's involvement with the Transatlantic Slave Trade.
Join Director, Charles Brown, Jr. and the Coordinators of the second Midwest African American Genealogical Institute of St. Louis, hosted by the historic Harris-Stowe State University for an exciting discussion of the courses offered over a three day period. The faculty consists of individuals wth genealogy expertise with special emphasis on African American research strategies. The Institute will offer courses for the beginner, intermediate and advanced researchers to enhance their genealogy skills.
Join Director, Charles Brown, Jr. and the Coordinators of the second Midwest African American Genealogical Institute of St. Louis, hosted by the historic Harris-Stowe State University for an exciting discussion of the courses offered over a three day period. The faculty consists of individuals wth genealogy expertise with special emphasis on African American research strategies. The Institute will offer courses for the beginner, intermediate and advanced researchers to enhance their genealogy skills.
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 will spend the night in a slave cabin at Hopsewee Plantation in Georgetown County, SC, he will be joined by a high school group from Milwaukee, WI and their chaperons. Join us to gain insight on the future of the Slave Dwelling Project and plans for the first Slave Dwelling Project Conference which will be held in Savannah, GA, September 18 – 20, 2014.
www.slavedwellingproject.org
Do you know about the African American 371st Infantry of World War I that fought in France? Did you know that Sonya R. Hodges has dedicated her life to research and honor the men who fought in World War I to honor the memory of these dedicated soldiers?
Please join Sonya R. Hodges- Grantham and Douglas Culbreth for a discussion of the role played by the African American 371st Infantry Regiment in World War I to honor the memory of these dedicated soldiers.
The 371st Infantry Regiment, an African American unit of mostly South Carolinians came from small towns like Sandy Springs, Anderson, Edgefield, Ninety-six and Laurens.
The 371st was permitted to fight, after disembarking from their troop ship at a tiny French village in April of 1918 after learning that they had been transferred to the French army. The 371st was given French equipment, and had to turn in their prized Springfield rifles for French rifles. The unit was reorganized to fit the French army structure and spent the spring of 1918 training in French tactics, communicated via interpreters. That summer, the regiment was put into the line to relieve exhausted French and allied Italian units.
Sonya Renae Hodges- Grantham is a mother, grandmother, genealogist, author, graver, historian, and researcher, with a motto of "Get The Job Done and Get It Done Right". She is the Founder and President of the World War I - 371st Historical Society. She is also the Founder of Cornbread Jubilee, an annual event that is held in honor of the corn crop, agriculture, and farming and Co-Founder of the Veterans Formation (1993) Columbia, South Carolina. She is sole Restorer/Curator of Childs Cemetery in South Carolina and has also authored two books.
Part 2
David Wellington will share his twenty-eight years of research of discovering his roots from slavery to freedom and how this discovery has brought about a Sense of Healing, Love of Family, Education, Liberation, and Unity.
David Wellington is working with the Prince George's Afro-American Historical and Genealogy Society to celebrate the emancipation of Maryland slaves scheduled for November 1, 2014. He has been a docent for the Mary Surratt House Museum for a year. He also spoke at the first celebration of the African American Civil War Museum in Washington, DC in 1998 and lectures about his USCT Civil War Great Grandfather Pvt. Frank Worthington.
Frank Worthington was born a slave in 1842 on a plantation in Pitt County, North Carolina. He was owned by Isaac Worthington. Frank escaped from slavery and on December 13, 1864, he joined the United States Colored Troops of the Union Army in New Bern, North Carolina. Private Worthington served honorably through the remainder of the War in Companies B & E of the 14th Regiment United States Heavy Artillery.
Part I
David Wellington will share his twenty-eight years of research of discovering his roots from slavery to freedom and how this discovery has brought about a Sense of Healing, Love of Family, Education, Liberation, and Unity.
David Wellington is working with the Prince George's Afro-American Historical and Genealogy Society to celebrate the emancipation of Maryland slaves scheduled for November 1, 2014. He has been a docent for the Mary Surratt House Museum for a year. He also spoke at the first celebration of the African American Civil War Museum in Washington, DC in 1998 and lectures about his USCT Civil War Great Grandfather Pvt. Frank Worthington.
Frank Worthington was born a slave in 1842 on a plantation in Pitt County, North Carolina. He was owned by Isaac Worthington. Frank escaped from slavery and on December 13, 1864, he joined the United States Colored Troops of the Union Army in New Bern, North Carolina. Private Worthington served honorably through the remainder of the War in Companies B & E of the 14th Regiment United States Heavy Artillery.
Fathers of Conscience Mixed-Race Inheritance in the Antebellum South
Join Author Bernie D. Jones for an engaging discussion about her book - Fathers of Conscience - Mixed-Race Inheritance in the Antebellum South.
Fathers of Conscience examines high-court decisions in the antebellum South that involved wills in which white male planters bequeathed property, freedom, or both to women of color and their mixed-race children. These men, whose wills were contested by their white relatives, had used trusts and estates law to give their slave partners and children official recognition and thus circumvent the law of slavery. The will contests that followed determined whether that elevated status would be approved or denied by courts of law.
Jones is Associate Professor, Suffolk University Law School. She is a graduate of the New York University Law School and the University of Virginia Department of History.
Join Sarah Abel for a discussion of her research in genetics and identity.
EUROTAST is a Marie Curie Initial Training Network (ITN), supporting a new generation of science and humanities researchers to uncover and interpret new evidence on the history and contemporary legacies of the transatlantic slave trade. The network will be running for four years from 2012 to 2016, and will enable 13 PhD researchers in history, archaeology, social anthropology and population genetics to work collaboratively across disciplines to provide new perspectives on this history. The research will focus on three themes: Origins, Life Cycles, and Legacies, which they hope will not only lead them to further detail the slave trading system, but also help demonstrate how slavery fundamentally shaped the cultural and biological experiences of people of African descent around the world.
Sarah Abel is a British PhD researcher, based at the International Centre for Research on Slaveries (Centre international de recherches sur les esclavages, CIRESC) in Paris, France. Abel specializes in the history of slave resistance and race relations in Latin American and Caribbean. Overall, her research aims to look at how the rise in public access to genetic technologies and data is changing the ways in which we think about personal identity, ancestry, and 'race' in different parts of the Atlantic world today.
Are you struggling to get your book written and published?
Let Anita Paul, better known as “The Author’s Midwife”, get you moving on the right track. Through her Write Your Life program, new authors overcome the struggles of writing, publishing, and marketing a book ... and learn how to leverage that book to achieve success.
Known as "The Author's Midwife," Anita Paul coaches and mentors corporate professionals and successful entrepreneurs to become published authors. Through her Write Your Life program, she shares strategies for writing, publishing, and marketing a book ... and then leveraging it to upsell your expertise.
A 20-year veteran of the marketing communications industry, Anita started The Write Image in 1997. A corporate communications company, The Write Image develops marketing and public relations programs for mid-size businesses and organizations. She uses her extensive planning, organizing, and strategic marketing skills to help clients develop effective communications strategies and public relations campaigns throughout the U.S.
FamilySearch is a nonprofit family history organization dedicated to connecting families across generations. FamilySearch believes that families bring joy and meaning to life.
Merrill White was born and raised in Sparks, Nevada. He graduated from BYU with a BA in History and Minor in Music. Has worked for FamilySearch for 14 years and is currently a Product Manager for the FamilySearch Discovery Center initiative.
Robert Kehrer worked for 12 years as a molecular geneticist identifying disease genes by building very large family pedigrees. He has an MBA and worked for 7 years at Apple managing strategic alliances and driving market strategy in the sciences. For the last 7 years Robert has worked for FamilySearch as a product manager in the Family History Library, overseeing the public APIs, and managing the development of FamilySearch.org beta. He is currently the senior product manager of search technologies for FamilySearch.
Genealogists tend to think of slavery as a southern issue only. Not so: slavery existed for decades in northern states as well. And freedom didn't come easy -- the law often provided for only for gradual manumission, and freedmen themselves were often unwelcome in the north.
Judy G. Russell, JD, CG, CGL The Legal Genealogist
"The Robbins Family at War" - it is about a Native American family who lived through colonial wars of the 17th and 18th centuries, and finally emerged victorious in the Civil War as a part of the mixed-race community. Five members served in the U.S. Colored Troops. Three fought from Suffolk, VA to Richmond and helped enforce Juneteenth. Two served in Florida and South Carolina. After the war, they served in NC legislature, invented and founded schools and churches.
"Marvin T. Jones is the executive director of the Chowan Discovery Group, whose mission is to research, document, preserve and present the history of the mixed-race land-owning people of the Hertford County area in northeast North Carolina. The CDG has produced many articles, lectures, historical markers, a stage production and several video documentaries. Marvin lives in Washington, DC and is a native of Cofield, NC. Our website is www.chowandiscovery.org."
Join a group of African American co-authors (The Memory Keepers), Harris Bailey, Jr., Bernice Bennett, Ellen Butler, Ethel Dailey and Vincent Sheppard to discuss a collaborate book about their ancestors in Edgefield, South Carolina.
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 five unique stories depicting the discovery of the African American experience. Through these stories, the rich value of using primary and secondary sources will become evident as each discovery examines relationships in the home, the neighborhood and the community.
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 outlaws 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. She was appointed Honorary Attorney General in the State of Louisiana in 2003 for her studies in genealogy. She is also one of the recipients of the ASLAH Award for her outstanding services of as a humanitarian activist and film maker. She has also been featured in “Chronicle On Civil Rights” & Civil Rights History from the Ground Up: Local Struggles a National Movement.
Flight to Freedom: "The Fields Family and Freedom’s Fortress”
What would you risk to gain freedom for your family?
Martha Ann Fields, her children, and her husband Washington Fields risked all to escape enslavement in Hanover County, VA to reach freedom at Fort Monroe – known as “Freedom’s Fortress” – in Hampton, Va. during the Civil War. “Flight to Freedom” is a dramatic interpretation of their journey, told through dramatic reading, song, and multimedia clips. Presented by Ajena Rogers, historical interpreter and a Fields family descendant and Drusilla Pair, genealogical researcher.
Ajena Cason Rogers, a native of Roanoke, VA, has been an impassioned interpreter of the African American experience her entire National Park Service career and is a proud descendant of Washington Fields (1815-1868) and his wife Martha Ann Fields (1813-1891) and their son James A. Fields (1844-1903). She now lives in Hanover County, where the family originated.
Drusilla Pair, a native of Newport News, VA, has been tracing her family history since 1994. She is not a descendant of the Fields family but became interested in researching the history of the Fields family after attending a presentation by Gregory Cherry (1955-2007) who shared how he acquired and restored the James A. Fields House. She is a member of the Hampton Roads Afro American Historical and Genealogical Society (AAHGS) and the Hampton Roads Association for the Study African American Life and History (ASALH).
Visit the Fields House Blog for more information about the James A. Fields House at
www.jamesafieldshouse.blogspot.com
Robyn Smith has been researching her family and others for 17 years. An engineer by day, Robyn makes good use of those research and problem-solving skills in the field of genealogy. She specializes in Maryland research, African-American and slave research and court records. Robyn has a strong interest in promoting the documentation of families and communities, and emphasizing the use of proper genealogical standards in our research, such as using original records and source citations. Robyn teaches an Advanced African-American Genealogy class part-time at Howard Community College in Columbia, MD, lectures locally and has published several genealogy articles in local journals. Her two newest lectures are on using land records and cluster research. She is also the author of a genealogy blog called "Reclaiming Kin" which can be viewed athttp://msualumni.wordpress.com.
It is an African American tradition to hold on to and treasure certain Funeral Programs because they represent a final and public tribute to the life of family members, friends and associates. Ms.Sutton began actively collecting Funeral Programs and Newspaper Obituaries in1986. Today she has a 15 volume collection of 2" loose-leaf binders full of them consisting of at least 1000 people. She will share with you how to decipher the clues provided therein to help with your genealogical research.
Karen E. Sutton is a Family Historian, specializing in African-American research in Maryland,Virginia, & Washington, DC,Medical, and Lineage Societies in general, and the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR) research in particular. She joined NSDAR based on the service of her free black ancestor from Virginia. Karen also served as National membership chair for the Afro-American Historical & Genealogical Society, Inc.(AAHGS), is a charter member of the Baltimore Chapter of AAHGS, and is the first Black “National Vice-Chairperson -- African American” -- for the“National Lineage Research Committee,” NSDAR. She holds a B.S. in Nursing and a Master's degree in Historical Studies. After receiving her MA,Karen worked at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in colonial costume, and is currently employed as a Registered Nurse in Long Term Care. She has also taught "African American History" and "Introduction to the African American Experience" courses in the Africana Studies Department at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, and is seeking similar employment at a Baltimore Area Community College or University.
Finding Your Ancestors in the Freedmen Bureau Records between 1865-1872.
Selma Stewart will discuss and provide examples of what is available and how to use Virginia Freedmen Bureau Records that are digitized and available on-line at www. FamilySearch.org.
Selma Stewart is an avid family researcher and genealogist. She is the current President of the Afro American Historical and Genealogical Society Hampton Roads Chapter and serves on the Board of the Virginia Genealogical Society. In addition, she is the former National 2000-2002 Corresponding Secretary for Afro American Historical and Genealogical Society. Her work on numerous transcription projects include the Brantley Association Southampton County Virginia Project and Whispers from the Dust - Virginia Freedmen's Project Freedmen Bureau Record Group 105.
Theme music - Sweet Mello Spice by composer / producer Alvin K. Alexander. (Pianist Ayako Higuchi)
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 than 11,000 documents to trace the lives of his ancestors, the Washington family and more than 300 other African Americans enslaved on Wessyngton Plantation, the largest tobacco plantation in America. For more than thirty years through extensive historical research, Baker has created a groundbreaking work in African American history and American history.
Robyn Smith has been researching her family and others for 17 years. An engineer by day, Robyn makes good use of those research and problem-solving skills in the field of genealogy. She specializes in Maryland research, African-American and slave research and court records. Robyn has a strong interest in promoting the documentation of families and communities, and emphasizing the use of proper genealogical standards in our research, such as using original records and source citations. Robyn teaches an Advanced African-American Genealogy class part-time at Howard Community College in Columbia, MD, lectures locally and has published several genealogy articles in local journals. Her two newest lectures are on using land records and cluster research. She is also the author of a genealogy blog called "Reclaiming Kin" which can be viewed at http://msualumni.wordpress.com.
Located in Sandy Spring, Maryland, the Theatre Ministry of the Olive Branch Community Church developed “Stories on the Way to Sandy Spring” in honor of the 2011 observance for Maryland Emancipation Day. This vignette, based on three fictional characters, was written by Sophonia Simms and directed by Adam Simms.
Like those in the Stories, many escaped to freedom – found gainful employment and higher education. We must never forget their courage, fortitude, and ingenuity. Despite the dangers on the road to freedom, they were guided by their faith in God and vision for a better life.
For more information, contact the Olive Branch Community Church, www.obcchurch.orgor Simms City Productions, SimmsCityProductions.com.
The Genetic Genealogy Handbook: The Basics and Beyond by Emily D. Aulicino
Finally, in the rapidly evolving field of genetic genealogy an up-to-date resource is here! Born out of necessity to update the available information in this rapidly evolving field, author Emily D. Aulicino wrote Genetic Genealogy: The Basics and Beyond to provide genealogists, both budding and experienced, with the knowledge and confidence to use DNA testing for their family research. The book guides genealogists through the introductory level of understanding various tests to a more advance level of determining what DNA segments came from which ancestor.
Genetic Genealogy explains how DNA testing helps when written records stop and discusses how testing can prove or disprove oral family history. The book describes which tests can help adoptees find their biological families and mentions a website that offers free assistance for testing and locating adoption information.
Genetic Genealogy: The Basics and Beyond will help both the experienced and the fledgling researchers become genetic genealogists able to use DNA testing to resolve their genealogical roadblocks.
Emily D. Aulicino, a genealogist since 1970 and the Northwest speaker and regional coordinator of the International Society of Genealogy (ISOGG), has given presentations on genetic genealogy for a large variety of audiences both nationally and internationally. Aulicino has been interviewed for television and newspapers and has had articles published in the U.S. and abroad. She remains current in her knowledge by attending genetic genealogy conferences yearly and runs several DNA projects.
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 immediately following the Civil War. So one had to prove that one had been a part of the Indian Community since 1866. For those whose ancestors were enslaved by members of the Tribes, (the Freedmen) they had to often provide proof that their former enslaver was a member of the tribe.
Janis Forté is a genealogist, writer and lecturer who has received awards and citations for her research achievements. She the Chair of the Afro- American Genealogical and Historical Society of Chicago (AAGHSC).
In 2009 – 2011, she chaired the publication committee of the Chicago based AAGHSC’s book, “30th Anniversary Our Heritage Family Stories”. This 386 page hard cover book is a fully indexed compilation of African American genealogies, family stories, pedigree charts and family group sheets. It is shelved in many county and state libraries, major genealogy libraries and archives and the Library of Congress. This book has been digitized by the Family History Library of the LDS and is now searchable online.
She is a graduate of the University of Chicago with a Masters Degree in Social Service Administration.
Bernice Bennett welcomes archivist Claire Kluskens - a specialist in immigration, census, and other records of high genealogical value at the National Archives in Washington, DC for a discussion of the Microfilm Publication M1895, Slave Manifests of Coastwise Vessels filed at New Orleans, Louisiana, 1807-1860 (thirty rolls). These records are part of Record group 36, Records of the U.S. Customs Services.
Claire Kluskens has spearheaded the completion of more than 300 National Archives microfilm publications. She lectures frequently and has published extensively in national, state, and local genealogical publications. Claire has been a National Archives staff member since 1992 and has done genealogical research since 1976.
Theme music - Sweet Mello Spice by composer / producer Alvin K. Alexander.
As a genealogist specializing in the use of technology and social media to improve genealogical research and to interact with others in the family history community, Thomas MacEntee relies upon his 25 years of experience in the information technology field.
Thomas now shares his knowledge of technology and experience as a genealogist with others through various forms of social media and speaking engagements. Through his business High-Definition Genealogy, he provides consulting services in the genealogy industry covering such areas as market research, education, technology and more.
As the creator of GeneaBloggers.com, Thomas has organized and engaged a community of over 2,800 bloggers to document their own journeys in the search for ancestors.
Happy New Year - 2014!
Are you doing too much and unable to do it all? Are you stressed out, not exercising, sleeping or eating the right foods? Is your career, hobby, volunteer work and social media consuming your life? What about your family, community and spiritual life?
Remember, you are only as good as you are balanced!
Life/work balance is a barometer for personal, professional, family and community well being. To maintain that delicate life/work balance, Sharon Weinstein - author of B is for Balance, will share 10 tips that you can implement quickly to help keep you on target.
Sharon Weinstein is an energetic, motivating and highly skilled consultant specializing in workplace wellness, corporate training programs and motivational speaking presentations. As an author, Sharon draws on her own life experiences to help others gain control of their life purpose. Her publications include B is for Balance...a guide to creating balance at home and at work (December '08), and Nursing without Borders: values, wisdom, success markers, and numerous peer-review manuscripts
Join retired attorney, genealogist and tour provider Sarah Cato for a discussion of the 56th United States Colored Infantry recognition program
The St. Louis African American History and Geneaology Society spearheaded the recognition of the 56th United States Colored Troops, and an Ad Hoc Committe is working to have memorial stones placed at the Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery.
175 soldiers of the 56th USCI died of cholera in August 1866. The 56th Regiment was originally organized at St. Louis as the 3d Arkansas Infantry Regiment (African Descent). The 3d Arkansas was ordered from St. Louis to Helena, Arkansas and served on post duty there. The unit was mustered out of the service on September 15, 1866, but before then, the tragedy occurred that contributed to the reason a monument was built in their honor in St. Louis. The 56th was traveling aboard 2 steamers to be mustered out. During the trip several soldiers died of an undiagnosed illness. A surgeon inspected the men and reported no cholera among them. The men arrived in St. Louis at night and were kept onboard until the next morning, rather than being allowed to roam the town. The next morning, it was clear that the 56th Regiment had cholera. Ordered back to Quarantine Station, the unit lost 178 enlisted men and one officer in the next few weeks. During its service the 56th Regiment lost a total of 674 men. Four officers and 21 enlisted men were killed in action or of wounds. Two officers and 647 enlisted men were killed by disease, 96 percent of their regiment's losses. (source: information adapted from Save A Grave).
Redicovering Your Kinship Village through documentation and DNA testing.
9pm eastern, 8pm central, 7pm mountain, 6pm pacific
Motivational speaker and genealogist Michael Williams will share his epic 17-year adoption search and reunion experience plus his DNA breakthroughs to Rediscover his Kinship Village. As a motivational keynote speaker, Michael shares his journey to verify family lore through DNA testing. Michael's inspirational story empowers families to follow clues shared in oral histories, family documents and DNA analysis. As an experienced motivational speaker and genealogist, Michael emphasizes the invaluable use of personal genetics as a medium to bridge the genealogical gaps that may be due to a historic diasporic family experience, and lost records.
The Reverend Peter W. Clark: Sweet Preacher and Steadfast Reformer with Elaine Parker Adams This book tells the story of the Reverend Peter W. Clark, a black Methodist minister during the post-Reconstruction period and early 20 century of Louisiana. Clark’s early life in Louisiana and his struggle for literacy during the time of the Civil War and its aftermath are discussed in the opening chapter. He pursues religious life. Traits and behaviors of John Wesley and Peter Clark are compared and contrasted. The Methodist Episcopal Church’s influence on the black community as an anti-slavery institution and its role in educating newly freed blacks are noted. Clark worked in both rural and urban churches, often building the first church and/or parsonage for a congregation. Wherever he was assigned, he played a leading role in the church and the community. He defended the people of his church and community against discriminatory practices, natural calamities, and criminal victimization. Elaine Parker Adams is the great-granddaughter of the Reverend Peter W. Clark. The New Orleans native followed family tradition and forged a career in public service. In 1991, she was the founding president of Houston Community College-Northeast. She also served the State of Texas as assistant commissioner for educational opportunity planning, coordinating statewide efforts to diversify enrollment in higher education. She continues to engage in genealogical and historical research and hopes to share more information on the contributions of the African American community.
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 systems and record groups. Some of her more recent work focuses on strategies researchers can use to analyze Louisiana’s Freedmen’s Bureau field office records for revealing, often personal information on freedmen ancestors.
Ms. Gillins is a member of the Galveston Historical Society, National Genealogical Society, and Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society. A retired Associate Professor at Riverside City College, she frequently calls upon her career background as a college educator to present workshops or deliver courses at regional and national conferences and genealogical institutes. She is also a member of the adjunct faculty at Samford Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research in Birmingham.
Join my special guests April Hynes and Reverend Fred Morton for a discussion of the Wanderer Project. This project is important to anyone interested in American history, and especially the African American experience. The Wanderer is the last documented ship to bring a cargo of slaves from Africa to the United States on November 28, 1858.
April Hynes’ grandfather discovered an African Face Jug on a construction site in Philadelphia in 1950. It took some literal and figurative digging but eventually April, a devoted amateur genealogist, traced the jug’s origins back to Edgefield County, South Carolina. The area is home to amazingly high quality clay and pottery operations where many slaves, including Wanderer survivors, toiled making stoneware. The link discovered between April Hynes’ Face Jug and the Wanderer Africans helped to break down the so-called brick wall that frequently thwarts those trying to unmask the personal side of the slavery story.
April Hynes is a Principal Researcher of the “Wanderer Project” and has presented at the National Smithsonian Museum, Boston University, and has received grants from the Chipstone Foundation and Ancestry.com to further her research.
Historian Rev. Fred Morton is a descendant of Yango Lanham a survivor of the Wanderer slave ship.
Join Queen Quet Marquetta L. Goodwine, a published author, computer scientist, lecturer, mathematician, historian, columnist, preservationist, environmental justice advocate, environmentlist, film consultant, and the " The Art-ivist for a discussion on the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition.
The Gullah/Geechee Nation exist from Jacksonville, NC to Jacksonville, FL. It encompasses all of the Sea Islands and thirty to thirty-five miles inland to the St. John’s River. On these islands, people from numerous African ethnic groups linked with indigenous Americans and created the unique Gullah language and traditions from which later came “Geechee.” The Gullah/Geechee people have been considered “a nation within a nation” from the time of chattel enslavement in the United States until they officially became an internationally recognized nation on July 2, 2000. At the time of their declaration as a nation, they confirmed the election of their first “head pun de boddee”-head of state and official spokesperson and queen mother. They elected Queen Quet, Chieftess and Head-of-State for the Gullah/Geechee Nation.
Join members of the African American Genealogy Bloggers Circle for a discussion of the PBS Special - The African Americans - Many Rivers to Cross with Henry Louis Gates.
Join host, Angela Walton-Raji for a dynamic discussion of the African American Genealogy Bloggers reaction to the new PBS series. Ms. Walton-Raji is an author, genealogist, producer of the weekly African Roots Podcast and prolific blogger of the Native American blog - http://african nativeamerican.blogspot.com, and My Ancestors Name - http://myancestorsname.blogspot.com
Melvin J. Collier is a genealogist and author of 150 Years Later Broken Ties Mended and Mississippi to Africa- A Journey of Discovery. His blog Roots Reveals examines the many ancestral discoveries based upon new DNA results. http://www.http://rootsrevealed.blogspot.com
George Geder is a strong advocate for having all cultures and family lifestyles being heard and represented in the genealogy community. He is also an Evangelist for the African Ancestored Genealogy.
Nicka Smith's is a genealogist, family historian, lecturer, photographer and her blog can be found at http://blog.atlasfamily.org.
Terry Ligon, researcher specializing in Choctaw and Chickasaw Freedmen history and genealogy. Terry has given presentations on researching the history of the Indian Territory Freedmen, the Congressional Record as well as how to create video presentations of family history. His blog, Black and Red Journal is another opportunity to inform the general public about the unique history of the Indian Territory Freedmen and their descendants.
Join author, genealogist, community activist, television and blogtalkradio show host Antoinette Harrell for a discussion of her dedication to family, preservation of records, genealogical research and social justice. Ms. Harrell brings over 20 years of genealogical experiences that has resulted in the Antoinette Harrell Collections located at the Armistad Research Center in New Orleans and the South Eastern Louisiana State University. She is also the host of her own blogtalkradio show Nurturing Our Roots and a TV show - African Roots. She is the founder and editor of the Tangipahoa African -American News. Ms. Harrell is a leader in community activism and does not just talk about what should be done, she does it! Her most recent advocacy work has resulted in assisting the Black Boy's of the Dozier Reform School to tell their story.
CeCe Moore and Shannon Christmas will discuss strategies for using autosomal DNA to resolve your genealogical problems. CeCe Moore is a professional genetic genealogist and writes the popular blog Your Genetic Genealogist, where she covers the developments in the field of DNA genealogy as an independent, unbiased authority. She is the Southern California Regional Coordinator for the International Society of Genetic Genealogy and the administrator of the organization’s DNA Newbie Mailing List. CeCe is also the genetic genealogy consultant for Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr. Season Two and Genealogy Roadshow and she also ls the administrator of the Hemings-Jefferson Autosomal DNA Project. 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, an Ancestry.com Ace, administrator of The Captain Thomas Graves of Jamestown Autosomal DNA Project, and a co-administrator of The Hemings-Jefferson-Wayles-Eppes Autosomal DNA Project.
The Barbados and Carolinas Connection with Rhoda Green Most Barbadians today are unaware or disinterested about their linkages to the Carolinas. However, Rhoda Green recognizes that the past impacts the present each day. The present, however, can promote forgetfulness, ignorance and sometimes denial. This reality motivates her to provide a vehicle for sharing, collaboration and an opportunity to better understand this shared history and the lessons learned from it. This inspiration and passion influenced her decision to become the Founder and Chair of Development for The Barbados and Carolina Legacy Foundation. http://www.barbadoscarolinas.org Mrs. Green was born in Bardados, West Indies and resides in Charleston, SC with her husband and children. She currently serves as the honorary Consul for Barbados in South Carolina. Her work with the Barbados Carolina Connection led to the Twinning of Speightostown, Barbados and Charleston, South Carolina in 1998. That was followed with bringing the Barbados Tourism Authority and SCETV together to produce a documentary that is shown on ETV and is entitled, ”From Barbados to Carolina”.
African Americans of Alexandria, Virginia Beacons of Light in the Twentieth Century Char McCargo Bah, Christa Watters, Audrey P. Davis, Gwendolyn Brown-Henderson and James E. Henson Sr. This show will explore a new book written about Alexandria’s twentieth-century African American community. Experience the harrowing narratives of trials and triumph as Alexandria’s African Americans helped to shape not only their hometown but also the world around them. Rutherford Adkins became one of the first black fighter pilots as a Tuskegee Airman. Samuel Tucker, a twenty-six-year-old lawyer, organized and fought for Alexandria to share its wealth of knowledge with the African American community by opening its libraries to all colors and creeds. Discover a vibrant past that, through this record, will be remembered Char McCargo Bah is a professional genealogist for the Alexandria Legacies—Freedmen’s Cemetery Descendants Project of the City of Alexandria, an author and a public speaker. Audrey P. Davis is currently the acting director of the Alexandria Black History Museum and has been employed by the City of Alexandria for over 20 years. Gwendolyn Brown-Henderson is a native Alexandrian and retired United States government worker. James E. Henson Sr. is a retired attorney who grew up in Alexandria. Christa Watters is a freelance writer and editor who has lived in Alexandria for thirty years. This group came together to document the history of African Americans who were agents of change and served as Beacons of Light in Alexandria in the twentieth century.
The Black Russian with Vladimir Alexandrov Bernice Bennett host welcomes Vladimir Alexandrov, Ph.D., for an engaging discussion of his book, The Black Russian. He will explore the process of researching and writing this compelling story. The Black Russian tells the story of Frederick Bruce Thomas, who was born in 1872 to former slaves and spent his youth on his family’s farm in Mississippi. After leaving the South and working as a waiter and valet in Chicago and Brooklyn, he went to London in 1894, then traveled throughout Europe, and decided to go to Russia in 1899, all of which was highly unusual for a black American at the time. He chose Moscow as his home, and during the next nineteen years renamed himself “Fyodor Fyodorovich Tomas,” married twice, acquired a mistress, took Russian citizenship, and by dint of his talents, hard work, charm, and guile became one of the city’s richest and most famous owners of variety theaters and restaurants. The Bolshevik Revolution ruined him and he barely escaped with his life and family to Turkey in 1919. Starting with just a handful of dollars out of the millions he had lost, Thomas made a second fortune in Constantinople by opening a series of celebrated nightclubs that introduced jazz to Turkey. However, because of the long arm of American racism, the xenophobia of the new Turkish Republic, and his own extravagance, he fell on hard times, was thrown into debtor's prison and died in Constantinople in 1928. Dr. Alexandrov is the B. E. Bensinger Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures and Acting Chair, Slavic Department at Yale University. www.valexandrov.com
"Slavery, Freedom and Reunion in a Colonial Connecticut Town" with Grant Hayter-Menzies, Daryl D'Angelo and Donald Roddy
In June 1759, Norwich, Connecticut businessman Benajah Bushnell sold Guy Drock, a slave of African ancestry, to Sarah Powers, the Caucasian woman Drock had possibly married. Ironically, this deed freed Drock from Bushnell’s control but not from slavery. In March 2012, descendants of Guy and Sarah Drock and of Benajah Bushnell came together in Norwich for the first time in over two centuries. Drock descendants Daryl D’Angelo and Donald Roddy—who when they began their research years earlier did not know they had African ancestry, and Bushnell descendant Grant Hayter-Menzies—who thought only his Southern ancestors were slave owners—met to try to understand a legacy they did not know they shared. In the town where their past began, they sought to explore the personal impact of their ancestors’ intertwined histories, how the past has shaped them, their research and their interactions with one another today, and the relatively unknown institution of slavery in early New England. Grant Hayter-Menzies is an internationally published biographer and journalist . Daryl D’Angelo is a wife and mother, photographer and writer, and lives in a small town in southern New Hampshire. Donald Roddy is a 78 year old retired Airline Pilot.
Black Slaves, Indian Masters: Slavery, Emancipation, and Citizenship in the Native American South with Barbara Krauthamer. Bernice Bennett welcomes Barbara Krauthamer, Associate Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. She is the author of Black Slaves, Indian Masters: Slavery, Emancipation, and Citizenship in the Native American South. She is co-author, with Deborah Willis (Tisch School of the Arts, New York University), of Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans and the End of Slavery. Professor Krauthamer has also written many articles and book chapters on the subjects of: chattel slavery in Indian Territory, African American/Native American intersections, and African American women’s lives in slavery. In 2007, she received the Letitia Brown Memorial Prize from the Association of Black Women Historians. She has also received awards and funding from: the National Endowment for the Humanities; Stanford University; Yale University; the Institute for Historical Studies at the University of Texas at Austin; and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
Join host Bernice Bennett and special guest Char McCargo Bah for a discussion on researching roomers and others documented in the household. When you are using the U.S. Census, you will see several large families. In some cases, you might see extended families and roomers. Hence, if you research everyone in the house, you might find answers to a lot of your questions. Knowing "Whose In The House.," could even reveal pre civil war ancestors. Char McCargo Bah has been a genealogist since 1981; she has appeared in numerous television interviews and documentaries and has researched genealogies of well-known individuals. She currently works as a part-time genealogist on African American families in the City of Alexandria, Virginia. Char is a 2010 recipient of Virginia Genealogical Society Volunteer Award and a 2009 recipient of the Alexandria History Award from the Alexandria Historical Society. Char has her own genealogy column “Char’s Corner” in the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society Newsletter. She is also pursuing her advance studies in genealogy at the University of Toronto. Please feel free to contact Char McCargo Bah through her web site www.theotheralexandria.com.
GHOSTS AND SHADOWS OF ANDERSONVILLE Bernice Bennett host welcomes Robert Scott Davis for a discussion of how slaves helped to liberate imprisoned Union soldiers from behind the Confederate lines. He will also share his new project on the lost history of the international significance of free blacks in slave Georgia. Robert Scott Davis is senior professor of History at Wallace State College in Hanceville, Alabama. He runs a program of continuing education classes in genealogy. His more than 1,000 publications include GHOSTS AND SHADOWS OF ANDERSONVILLE, a book that explores mysteries of the Confederate prison for black, red, and white inmates. He is currently working on biographical essays on free African Americans in Georgia from colonial times to final emancipation in the 1860s including Fenda Lawrence, George Liele, Austin Dabney, Joseph Nunez, Thomas Sims, and Hubbard Prior.
Slave Life in Documents: Primary Sources regarding Edgefield's Enslaved Laborers with Dr. Maggi Morehouse Where are the records located and how can they be utilized to give meaning to African Diaspora life in the Edgefield District? What methodological issues do researchers face when attempting to craft the historical narrative? How does the researcher go back in time and utilize records that occluded ordinary voices? What sorts of non-exploitative techniques can the present day researcher employ in regards to creating an empathetic and “true” historical narrative? Join Dr. Maggi M. Morehouse for a discussion on uncovering primary sources that reveal the interior lives of enslaved people, specifically highlighting data from Edgefield, SC, laborers. Questions of access and understanding will be explored through examples from her African Diaspora fieldwork. In addition, the archeological excavation under way in Edgefield is revealing material artifacts about the community of potters who labored in the area. Archival data, particularly oral histories, reveal a more nuanced and complicated story, and Morehouse will highlight how to collect and analyze all of the sources for the most thorough understanding. Dr. Morehouse is the first graduate of the African Diaspora Studies program at the University of California Berkeley, completing her Ph.D. in May 2001. Today, she teaches Southern History at Coastal Carolina University, with a focus on connecting the American South to global diasporas and migrations. She has been working with media providing historical consultation and crafting oral histories into visual short stories on topics ranging from enslaved potters, to southern women, to African Diaspora migration. She is a board member of the statewide NEH program, the SC Humanities Council.
Natonne Elaine Kemp welcomes author Sydney Nathans, Ph.D. for a discussion of his book TO FREE A FAMILY!
TO FREE A FAMILY is the story of Mary Walker, an enslaved woman from North Carolina who escaped bondage in 1848, left her children and mother behind, and spent seventeen years seeking to recover them through ransom, ruse, or rescue. Using the records of her one-time owners, the vast and vivid letters of the white antislavery couple who befriended and helped her, and an arsenal of social history sources, the book reconstructs her experience in bondage and brings to life the anguished but unrelenting quest to liberate her family. Her story illustrates a hidden epic of emancipation--the secret striving of refugees from slavery to redeem one family at a time--which paralleled the great social movement to end slavery altogether.
TO FREE A FAMILY is the 2013 recipient of the Darlene Clark Hine Award of the Organization of American Historians as the best book in African-American Women's and Gender History. The Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery,Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University jury for the Center’s Frederick Douglass Book Prize has selected To Free a Family: The Journey of Mary Walker, as one of three finalists for this year’s award. Sydney Nathans, Ph.D. is the Professor Emeritus of History at Duke University and a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations.
Slaves in the Family with Edward Ball If you knew that you were a descendant of a slave- owner, would you tell anyone? If you had an opportunity to apologize to descendants of those enslaved by your family, would you? Edward Ball is a writer of narrative nonfiction and the author of five books, including The Inventor and the Tycoon (Doubleday, 2013), about the birth of moving pictures. The book tells the story of Edward Muybridge, the pioneering 19-century photographer (and admitted murderer), and Leland Stanford, the Western railroad baron, whose partnership, in California during the 1870s, gave rise to the visual media. Edward Ball’s first book, Slaves in the Family (1998), told the story of his family’s history as slave-owners in South Carolina, and of the families they once enslaved. Slaves in the Family won the National Book Award for nonfiction, was a New York Times bestseller, was translated into five languages, and was featured on Oprah. Edward Ball was born in Savannah, raised in Louisiana and South Carolina, and graduated from Brown University in 1982. He worked for ten years as freelance journalist in New York, writing about art and film, and becoming a columnist for The Village Voice. His other books, all nonfiction, include The Sweet Hell Inside (2001), the story of an African-American family that rose from the ashes of the Civil War to build lives in music and in art during the Jazz Age; Peninsula of Lies (2004), the story of English writer Gordon Hall, who underwent one of the first sex reassignments—in the South during the 1960s—creating an outrage; and The Genetic Strand, about the process of using DNA to investigate family history. Edward Ball lives in Connecticut and teaches at Yale University.
From Family History to Community History - the Chowan Discovery Group Story with Marvin T. Jones, Executive Director of the Chowan Discovery Group(CDG). The mission of the Chowan Discovery Group is to research, document, preserve and present the 400+ year-old history of the landowning tri-racial people of color of the Winton Triangle, an area centered in Hertford County, North Carolina. Founded in 2007, the Chowan Discovery Group (www.chowandiscovery.org) co-produced in 2009 its first major presentation, a stage production, scripted by Jones, called The Winton Triangle. The book, Carolina Genesis: Beyond the Color Line, features Jones’ summary of the Triangle’s history. In addition to writing articles, Jones has made numerous presentations about the Winton Triangle’s history on national and regional radio, at colleges and universities, museums and to civic groups. The North Carolina Office of Archives and History accepted four of his nominations for highway historical markers. A native of Cofield, a village in the Winton Triangle, Marvin Jones began this project a decade ago by scanning the photograph collection of relatives and neighbors. The Winton Triangle digital collection now has over 7000 files of photographs, documents, maps, audio and video recordings. Jones is the owner of Marvin T. Jones & Associates, a professional photography company in Washington, DC. He has published in well-known magazines and has worked in South America, the Caribbean and Africa. Howard University and Roanoke-Chowan Community College hosted Jones’ exhibit on Somalia.
Bernice Bennett welcomes Joanne Abel for a discussion of the Jeanes Teachers and their community organizing work to build Rosenwald Schools. Joanne Abel, adult programming and humanities librarian at Durham County Library, earned her bachelor of science degree in education from Georgia Southern College, her master of library science from North Carolina Central University, and her master of arts in liberal studies from Duke University. Joanne Abel’s master’s thesis was Persistence and Sacrifice: Durham County's African American Community and Durham's Jeanes Teachers Build Community Schools, 1900-1930. In 1907 Miss Anna T. Jeanes, a Quaker woman, donated $1,000,000, “for the furthering and fostering of rudimentary education” in small rural Negro schools. Though this fund was incorporated as the Negro Rural School Fund, it was usually referred to as the Jeanes Fund. Rosenwald devised a matching grant program to help build black schools in the South. If a rural black community raised a contribution and the white school board agreed to operate the facility, Rosenwald would contribute cash – usually about one fifth of the total project.
“To Do The Next Needed Thing”: Jeanes Teachers and the Freedom Struggle Do you know who the Jeanes Teachers are and their role in the education of African American children in rural America? Bernice Bennett welcomes Dr. Valinda W. Littlefield, the Director of African American Studies and Associate Professor of History, College of Arts and Sciences, University of South Carolina. Dr. Littlefield’s research focuses on Southern African American women educators during the Jim Crow era. She earned dual degrees, BA in History and Political Science from North Carolina Central University and her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. In 1907 Miss Anna T. Jeanes, a Quaker woman, donated $1,000,000, “for the furthering and fostering of rudimentary education” in small rural Negro schools. Though this fund was incorporated as the Negro Rural School Fund, it was usually referred to as the Jeanes Fund. Rosenwald devised a matching grant program to help build black schools in the South. If a rural black community raised a contribution and the white school board agreed to operate the facility, Rosenwald would contribute cash – usually about one fifth of the total project.
“My experience in the military was certainly an important inspiration and foundation in researching the history of the Black Military. It is story of a people who in spite of injustice, continue to be the most patriotic of Americans.” Bennie J. McRae Jr. Do you know or understand the role played by individuals of African descent in the American Civil War? Bennie J. McRae a military history researcher, native of Louisville, Alabama who served in the United States Air Force during the Korean War from August 1951 to July 1955, and presently resides in Trotwood, Ohio, will discuss the chronology of events of people of African descent prior to, during and after the American Civil War. For the past twenty-three years, Bennie has focused his research on the African American Military Experience. He owns and manages a number of websites including “Lest We Forget”, “Making of the United States of America”, “African American Military History” and “Resting Places of United States Colored Civil War Soldiers and Sailors”. He is the co-author of "Nineteenth Century Freedom Fighters" centered on Lieutenant Colonel Charles Tyler Trowbridge, commander of South Carolina’s 33 Regiment, United States Colored Infantry. The book was published in January 2007. Bennie J. McRae is committed to supporting educational programs that include the history of the US Colored Troops. In collaboration with Paul LaRue, history instructor of Washington Senior High School, Washington Courthouse, Ohio, he is proud of the School’s website maintained by its students. “ Freedom Fighters: UNITED STATES COLORED TROOPS IN THE CIVIL WAR”.
Learn how Cluster Research helped to unravel the history of a family in 19th Century New York!
Black Gotham: A Family History of African Americans in Nineteenth-Century New York City Yale UP, 2011- is a social and cultural history of African Americans in nineteenth-century New York City as seen through the lens of family history. It was awarded the 2011 NYC Book Award in History from the New York Society Library and was a finalist for the 2012 Gilder-Lerhman Institute Frederick Douglass Prize. In connection with the publication of Black Gotham, Peterson has appeared on C-SPAN Book TV.
Part detective tale, part social and cultural narrative, Black Gotham is Carla L. Peterson’s riveting account of her quest to reconstruct the lives of her nineteenth-century ancestors from youth to adulthood. Her book challenges many of the accepted “truths” about African American history, including the assumption that the phrase “19-century black Americans” means enslaved people, that “New York State before the Civil War” refers to a place of freedom, and that a black elite did not exist until the 20th century. Peterson demonstrates that despite the rise of scientific racism, the trauma of the Civil War draft riots, and the advent of Jim Crow, members of New York’s 19-century elite achieved remarkable success in their public activism, trades, and professions.
Peterson is a professor in the department of English at the University of Maryland, and affiliate faculty of the departments of Women’s Studies, American Studies, and African-American Studies.
Bernice Bennett welcomes a live re-enactment from the auction block and the dangers of the Underground Railroad, two brave women and one child escaped the bonds of slavery. The Religious Society of Friends or Quakers founded Sandy Spring, Maryland in 1724. This area became a prosperous farming community. The Maryland Quakers outlawed the owning of slaves in 1776-77 although slavery was not abolished in Maryland until 1864. In Sandy Spring, former slaves owned their homes, organized churches, and schools in spite of the fact that slave catchers stalked the fields and woods. Many Quakers and former slaves provided assistance to escaping slaves via the secret “Underground Railroad”. Located in Sandy Spring, Maryland, the Theatre Ministry of the Olive Branch Community Church developed “Stories on the Way to Sandy Spring” in honor of the 2011 observance for Maryland Emancipation Day. This vignette, based on three fictional characters, was written by Sophonia Simms and directed by Adam Simms. Like those in the Stories, many escaped to freedom – found gainful employment and higher education. We must never forget their courage, fortitude, and ingenuity. Despite the dangers on the road to freedom, they were guided by their faith in God and vision for a better life. For more information, contact the Olive Branch Community Church, www.obcchurch.org or Simms City Productions, SimmsCityProductions.com.
Have you ever traced your family through a maze of intriguing documents and discovered politicians, land owners, socialites, and key decision makers in the community? What about family members who are both free people of color and white? Bernice Bennett, host with Natonne Elaine Kemp, co-host welcome Genealogist and Family Historian Gwendolyn Olson for an exciting discussion of her genealogy journey from Baltimore to Louisiana. In keeping with the vision of researching and sharing “hidden” information and stories about the communities of south Louisiana and the Gulf Coast, Family Historian Gwenn Olson offer stories of the people and places outside of New Orleans. Her discussion of the Carr/Kelso Family is an effort to provide stories and pictures that can possibly offer new information to those researching their family histories.
Have you attempted to prove oral history shared by family members and friends? Join author, book publisher and family historian Denise I. Griggs as she describes the research process she went through to find documents to prove and/or disprove the oral family history given by her grandfather, Wilbert Hunt, and his sister, Julia Hunt-Richardson. Ms. Griggs is a native of California whose parental ancestry is from Mississippi and Arkansas. She has written several books: A Mulatto Slave, the Events in the Life of Peter Hunt, 1844-1915, a comical book, Look What Shook from the Family Tree!, and a children’s beginning genealogy pamphlet, IKnow Who I Am On the Family Tree.
Through her research, she has traced her mother’s family from Mississippi to County Tipperary, Ireland. Her forefathers were in the American Revolution, and the War of 1812. Another one of her maternal ancestor’s was a former slave who joined the United States Colored Troops during the Civil War in 1864, and mustered out from the 6th Heavy Artillery, serving in 1866.
Are you searching for your family? Are you German, Brown and want to learn more about your American or German heritage? Join Henriette Cain Genealogist, Search Consultant and Secretary of the Black German Cultural Society (BGCS), Inc. Mrs. Cain - a brown baby adoptee successfully found all members of her birth family. She is now helping others with their searches through her company S.U.N. Public Records Research. She offers family history research and strives to reunite families and friends. She is prominently featured in the documentary - "Brown Babies: Deutschlands verlorene Kinder. Mrs. Cain is also a Founding Member, co-founder and former Vice President of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society of the Northen Illinois Southern Wisconsin Chapter; a member of the Noxubee County (MS) Historical Society, and a former volunteer Librarian for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints Family History Library. http://www.planet-schule.de/sf/php/02_sen01.php?sendung=8704
Rebroadcast Gather at the Table: The Healing Journey of a Daughter of Slavery and a Son of the Slave Trade -- -- is the chronicle of a shared journey toward racial reconciliation. Informed by genealogy, it deals with race, social justice and healing from the traumatic wounds of slavery. Over a three year period, the authors traveled through 27 states, visiting ancestral towns, courthouses, cemeteries, plantations, antebellum mansions, and historic sites. Bernice Alexander Bennett welcomes Sharon Leslie Morgan and Thomas Norman Dewolf to share this compelling journey with us. Sharon Morgan is a marketing communications consultant and a nationally recognized pioneer in multicultural marketing. An avid genealogist, she is the webmaster for OurBlackAncestry.com and is a founder of the Black Public Relations Society.
Thomas Norman DeWolf, author of Inheriting the Trade, is featured in the Emmy-nominated documentary film Traces of the Trade, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and on the acclaimed PBS series POV. DeWolf speaks regularly about healing from the legacy of slavery and racism at conferences and colleges throughout the United States.
Property Rights and Wrongs: African-Americans at the Courthouse with The Legal Genealogist From being treated as property to having their property stolen by those who used the law against the freedmen, African Americans' experience at the courthouse had only one bright spot: it created records for the genealogist-descendants. A Certified Genealogist with a law degree, The Legal Genealogist Judy G. Russell examines the interplay between genealogy and the law. She is a lecturer, educator and writer who enjoys helping others understand a variety of issues, ranging from using DNA in family history to the effect the law had on our ancestors’ lives and the records they left behind. A graduate of George Washington University and Rutgers School of Law-Newark, Judy is a Colorado native with roots deep in the American south on her mother’s side and entirely in Germany on her father’s side. She's a member of the National Genealogical Society, the Association of Professional Genealogists, and, among others, the state genealogical societies of New Jersey, North Carolina, Virginia, Texas and Illinois. She has written for the National Genealogical Society Quarterly and the National Genealogical Society Magazine .
Rebroadcast 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.
Rebroadcast
Fathers of Conscience Mixed-Race Inheritance in the Antebellum South
Bernice Bennett and Natonne Elaine Kemp welcome author Bernie D. Jones for an engaging discussion about her book - Fathers of Conscience - Mixed-Race Inheritance in the Antebellum South.
Fathers of Conscience examines high-court decisions in the antebellum South that involved wills in which white male planters bequeathed property, freedom, or both to women of color and their mixed-race children. These men, whose wills were contested by their white relatives, had used trusts and estates law to give their slave partners and children official recognition and thus circumvent the law of slavery. The will contests that followed determined whether that elevated status would be approved or denied by courts of law.
Jones is Associate Professor, Suffolk University Law School. She is a graduate of the New York University Law School and the University of Virginia Department of History.
Rebroadcast Regina E. Mason the great great great granddaugther of William Grimes will share a moving discussion of her research and discovery of the first fugitive slave narrative.
Bernice Bennett welcomes archivist Claire Kluskens - a specialist in immigration, census, and other records of high genealogical value at the National Archives in Washington, DC for a discussion of the Microfilm Publication M1895, Slave Manifests of Coastwise Vessels filed at New Orleans, Louisiana, 1807-1860 (thirty rolls). These records are part of Record group 36, Records of the U.S. Customs Services. Claire Kluskens has spearheaded the completion of more than 300 National Archives microfilm publications. She lectures frequently and has published extensively in national, state, and local genealogical publications. Claire has been a National Archives staff member since 1992 and has done genealogical research since 1976. Theme music - Sweet Mello Spice by composer / producer Alvin K. Alexander.
FEATURED ON THE BLOGTALKRADIO HOMEPAGE Join host Bernice Bennett and special guest Char McCargo Bah for a discussion on researching roomers and others documented in the household. When you are using the U.S. Census, you will see several large families. In some cases, you might see extended families and roomers. Hence, if you research everyone in the house, you might find answers to a lot of your questions. Knowing "Whose In The House.," could even reveal pre civil war ancestors. Char McCargo Bah has been a genealogist since 1981; she has appeared in numerous television interviews and documentaries and has researched genealogies of well-known individuals. She currently works as a part-time genealogist on African American families in the City of Alexandria, Virginia. Char is a 2010 recipient of Virginia Genealogical Society Volunteer Award and a 2009 recipient of the Alexandria History Award from the Alexandria Historical Society. Char has her own genealogy column “Char’s Corner” in the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society Newsletter. She is also pursuing her advance studies in genealogy at the University of Toronto. Please feel free to contact Char McCargo Bah through her web site www.theotheralexandria.com.
9pm Est, 8pm Central, 7pm Mountain, 6pm Pacific Is genealogy just documenting your blood line or is it telling a larger story about the time and place your family lived?
Dr. Pearl-Alice Marsh will answer this question and others as she explores why understanding history is significant to your genealogy research.
Dr. Pearl-Alice Marsh began her genealogical research 20 years ago and she currently serves as the Global Health Policy Director for ONE and is responsible for developing and coordinating the global health strategy.
She was also instrumental in getting legislation passed and signed by President William Clinton to preserve the Freedmen's Bureau Records. The records are microfilmed, and available for genealogical researchers. The bill, The Freedmen's Bureau Preservation Act of 2000 (HR 5157) was signed into law during the 106th Congress.
Dr. Marsh holds a Ph.D. in political Science and Master of Public Health from the University of California at Berkeley, and B.A. in Social Welfare from Sacramento State College.
Join host Bernice Bennett , co-host Natonne Elaine Kemp and special guest Dr. Pearl-Alice Marsh for an enlightening discussion of genealogy and history.
9pm Eastern, 8pm Central, 7pm Mountain, 6 pm Pacific If you had the opportunity to collaborate with a descendant of a slave owner or the enslaved, would you? Do you have information in your family records or research that would open the door for collaboration? Join family historian Gwendolyn Olson for a fascinating discussion of her genealogical journey to find her Harris ancestors enslaved in North Carolina and beyond. She traces her Harris family roots back to her 4x great grandmother Lydia 'Roberts' who was born around 1770. She is successful in locating her by collaborating with the great great great grand daughter of the descendant of the slave owner. This family journey also uncovers wonderful surprises! Researchers and family historians will learn how following clues, asking questions and staying the course will result in a miraculous discovery for both the descendants of the enslaved and the enslaver. Theme music - Sweet Mello Spice by composer / producer Alvin K. Alexander.
Join guest host Natonne Elaine Kemp for an engaging interview and discussion with Mrs. Gloria Ramsey Lucas concerning the Slave Records of Edgefield County, South Carolina. Gloria Ramsey Lucas followed her dreams and had a 30 year career teaching in N.Y.C. Relocation to Georgia opened up a new pastime in the search of her roots. The trail led to Edgefield, South Carolina where a wealth of slave records were uncovered. Gloria transcribed all the records pertaining to slaves in an 87 year period. The book- Slave Records of Edgefield County, SC was published by the Edgefield Historical Society. Gloria is a member of The Old Edgefield District Genealogical Society and The Augusta Genealogical Society where she served as President (2008-2010), Friends of the National Archives (Eastern Branch) and Friends of the Ga. State Archives. Theme music - Sweet Mello Spice by composer / producer Alvin K. Alexander.
The African American Odyssey of John Kizell
(A South Carolina Slave Returns to Fight the Slave Trade in His African Homeland)
Join host Bernice Bennett and co-host Natonne Elaine Kemp for an engaging conversation with author and historian Kevin G. Lowther about the the life of a Sierra Leonean who survived slavery in Charleston, South Carolina, and served with British forces during the American Revolution. He eventually returned to his homeland, where he campaigned among his people to end slave trading.
Lowther majored in history at Dartmouth College before joining the Peace Corps and teaching, in 1963-65, at the Sierra Leone Grammar School in Freetown. In 1971 he helped to found the non-governmental organization, Africare, and later managed its humanitarian programs in Southern Africa for 29 years.
Theme music - Sweet Mello Spice by composer / producer Alvin K. Alexander.
RECLAIMING GRIMES: THE FIRST FUGITIVE SLAVE NARRATIVE WITH REGINA E. MASON! Join Regina E. Mason the great great great granddaugther of William Grimes for a moving discussion of her research and discovery of the first fugitive slave narrative.
Oakland, California native, REGINA E. MASON, has spent fifteen years authenticating the pioneering narrative of her direct ancestor William Grimes—author of the first fugitive slave narrative in American history.
Not only is she the gate-keeper of her family’s history, she is also coeditor of the new edition of her forefather’s book Life of William Grimes, the Runaway Slave.
In recognition of her work, the San Francisco African American Historical and Cultural Society presented her the 2009 Herndon Lecturer award. She is currently working on the documentary Gina’s Journey: The Search for William Grimes.
Lynne M. Jackson, Dred Scott's Great-great granddaughter, shares what family research has revealed in the last five years that amazed living family members. The famous slave's goal, whose freedom suit was a major catalyst for the civil war, was all about family. Lynne M. Jackson is the Founder and President of The Dred Scott Foundation. www.thedredscottfoundation.org. Theme music - Sweet Mello Spice by composer / producer Alvin K. Alexander. (Pianist Ayako Higuchi)
Join Gwendolyn Olson as she describes the process of identifying and documenting the slaves on the Lipscomb Plantation in Durham, NC. Gwendolyn Olson is a Registered Nurse at Stanford Hospital in the California Bay Area. Her family roots have fascinated her as long as she can remember. Her father was an only child, and the youngest grandchild of a proud Spokane, Washington family. His mother, who belonged to an old respected Spokane African American family, died when he was very young. Raised by his widowed father, he was told stories about his family’s Durham, North Carolina roots by his doting maternal aunts and cousins, and he shared these stories with his daughter. Gwendolyn’s research has led her to document the Slaves on the Lipscomb Plantation in Durham, NC and to meet many slave descendants of these families. She is also actively looking for more photographs of the former slaves, and their first generation descendants. She has complied a short history, of the slave history of the Lipscomb Plantation, which is made available to the guests of the Inn, and has turned out to be a very popular read. Music - Sweet Mello Spice by Alvin K. Alexander
Join Mark Engler and Blake Bell to explore the rich history of the Homestead Act of 1862 and the impact it has had on land acquisitions throughout the United States. Mark Engler is the Superintendent for the Homestead National Monument of America, Beatrice, Nebraska. Mark has been at Homestead since the summer of 1997. Following a seven-year assignment at Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, or commonly known as the Gateway Arch, Mark returned to Beatrice, Nebraska. During Mark’s career with the National Park Service he has been involved in numerous special programs, detail assignments and has worked in a variety of different disciplines. Mark attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln where he obtained a Bachelors of Science in Education focusing on both Political Science and History. Blake Bell is the Historian at Homestead National Monument of America. He is interested in how the Homestead Act of 1862 and subsequent land laws fit into a broader historical context of U.S. Western development. His background is in transnational history and he is interested in understanding the global implications of Western development. He enjoys historiography with a special emphasis on the methodology employed by historians. His research interests are 19th century legislative history, U.S. immigration and post-reconstruction migration patterns. Theme music - Sweet Mello Spice by composer / producer Alvin K. Alexander. (Pianist Ayako Higuchi).