Historian
I remember when the original Roots first came out on TV, and it suddenly seemed as if everyone—black and white—was interested in genealogy. Those were pre-internet days, of course. Today companies like Ancestry.com put …
Continue Reading about Twelve Easy Family History Projects for Beginners
Slave names are a topic that most people seem to know something about. It’s common knowledge that enslaved people frequently had the same family names (surnames) as their enslavers. Not all the time, of course… but fairly …
African Americans living in Washington County had to face the Confederate invasion of Maryland in 1862, including the battles of South Mountain and Antietam. Below is an excerpt about the invasion, from my forthcoming book, …
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Traditional African American healers go by many names in history and today, but in the slave era “root doctor” was the most common term.[1] Today I’m looking at some western Maryland men who practiced this folk medicine, and …
Christiana Kerfoot, known as “Annie” to her family, was born around 1846. Her father was the Reverend John Barrett Kerfoot, Episcopal priest and rector (headmaster) of the College of St. James, in Washington County, Maryland. …
Continue Reading about Annie Kerfoot at Smoketown Hospital: A Civil War New Year’s Eve
On this day in 1862, five days after the Battle of Antietam, Lincoln issued the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. Below is a short piece about it, excerpted from my forthcoming book, Black Antietam: African American …
Continue Reading about Hearing the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation
