African American Research

African American Research

When we, (Julie, Wade & Anne), research our own ancestors, we also research the whole community, not just our direct ancestral lines. We love to share all of the things we’ve learned and want to remember everyone in the communities, including those enslaved. All the information we have found will be shared exactly as it was written, in the original records, with links to the original sources wherever possible. Words and phrases such as “The colored marriage book”, or “The Free Negro Register”, or the person described as “yellow” or references to the enslaved “gifted” in deeds, and also sometimes “mortgaged” are words and phrases actually used in the records. We share this information because it shows where enslaved individuals moved to, which is critical information necessary to connect to earlier generations. We show the names of the enslaved next to their owners’ names, because knowing the owner’s name is essential to learning each persons ancestry and roots. Our only intention is to show descendants how and where to find information about their ancestors.

The index page for enslaved individuals is a list of names of slaves, with links to pages about their slave owner’s family and a link to the county where they lived. Each slave has his or her own page stating what we have found and how to access this information. Each slave owner also has a page listing the names of all of their slaves. Also listed is anything we have found about a slave, even if their name was not written on a record; such as their age range from the census slave schedules. We hope this format will make it easier to find family members living at the same plantation.

African American Historical Societies

AAHGS – Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society

MPAAGHS – Middle Peninsula African-American Genealogical and Historical Society of Virginia

OCAAHS – Orange County African American Historical Society (website)

OCAAHS – Facebook

African American resources: Virginia

Mapping the Freedmen’s Bureau

Finding Family After Slavery project of newspaper articles of people searching for their family.

Freedmen: Smithsonian record project

National Museum of African American History and Culture

FamilySearch wiki: African American genealogy

LVA (Library of Virginia) African American research guide to 1870