I am often asked about the difficulty of researching African American family
history. Many seem to believe, mistakenly I might add, that it is next to
impossible to trace African American ancestry prior to the mid-1800's. The
best response I have seen to this thought was made by Alva Griffith on the
AfriGeneas Mail List:
"It is not a lost cause!!!...
The first and foremost thing to keep in mind is that Slaves Were Money !!!
And people ALWAYS keep track of their money !!! If your people were slaves,
they will be found, I said WILL BE FOUND, in the slave owner's family
records, treated as PROPERTY, so you will need to look at their family's
deeds, wills, mortgages, wedding gifts, court records about property, etc. And, yes, they often even have lists of slave births at the back of their
Bibles!
The biggest initial problem will probably be determining just who the owner
was, and there are methods for doing that... it just takes time, research and
patience, sometimes with a little luck thrown in for good measure... after
that, your people will be there, in their owner's records. If your people
were not slaves, they will be found in the normal records in the normal
places... a fair number of us were not slaves... perhaps your people were
free and moved to a new location, and that is why you have not found them
where you expected them to be living.
Also MANY slaves had more than one name, and had different last names from
their owners... even BEFORE the end of slavery! A fair amount of them had
3-word-names as well: my husband's grandfather was Frank Thomas LOGAN- born
in 1859, and he was a slave until he was 7 years old, just as his mother,
Mary Louisa LOGAN, had been all her life; my own grandfather was born just
after slavery in 1867, and his name was Aaron Mitchell RHODES.
There are a number of resource books that you can get to read about how to
do this, the best (and latest) I know of being: Finding A Place Called Home,
by Dee Parmer Woodtor, publ[ished] by Random House. Much help is also
available HERE at Afrigeneas, where you can share the combined knowledge of
numerous researchers by email. I note that you are also at AOL, where we have
3 chat rooms devoted to African American genealogy discussion live, and a
Resource Area for your use. Please don't hesitate to take advantage of the
many kinds of assistance available to help you find your people."
reprinted with the permission of Alva Griffith
AfriGeneas Mailing List
