Historian
An 1832 Maryland census, taken specifically to count free African Americans across the state, is among the sources that historians use in researching Maryland’s black history. This census was not part of the U.S. Census; …
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One of the most useful sources to use when doing local African American genealogy or history is the class of courthouse records known as “Land Records.” In this blog post I’m going to discuss using the online database of …
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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 …
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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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: 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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