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 …
AARCH African American Family & Community History Fair
I'll be at this event to share my research on western Maryland's African-American families. My table will also feature how Hood College students have been working with AARCH to preserve its archives. AARCH sponsors this …
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Using Census Records for Black Family History before 1865
If you do African American genealogy, you’ve no doubt heard about the “brick wall” of 1870. That’s the year of the first post-Emancipation U.S. federal Census. Before 1870, we have to rely on records from the era of slavery, …
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Finding Otho, a New Book about Local African-American Genealogy
Finding Otho: The Search for Our Enslaved Williams Ancestors, by Kathy Lynne Marshall, officially hits the bookstores today. I wrote the foreword for this book, which is a rare work on black family history in Washington …
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Finding Local Black Ancestors: A Genealogy Road Map
Recently a colleague of mine emailed to ask me, “Do you have any advice re. the request below? Not asking you to do the research, just wondering if you have any tricks?” She was working with a researcher who knew when her …
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