African American family research begins like any other genealogy. One starts with what is known and works backwards in time, contacting relatives and collecting family information, and obtaining birth, marriage, and death certificates.

African American researchers must locate their ancestors on the 1930, 1920, 1910, 1900, 1880, and 1870 censuses. The new ProQuest/HeritageQuest Online electronic database at many public libraries is a good place to find censuses.

An important step in any genealogical research project is to locate “how-to” books and articles. Two such books are Dee Parmer Woodtor’s Finding a Place Called Home: A Guide to African American Genealogy and Historical Identity and Barbara Thompson Howell’s How to Trace Your African American Roots: Discovering Your Unique History.

Genealogists for any ethnic group should locate support groups. AfriGeneas is a site on the Internet that is devoted to African American genealogy. Here you find the AfriGeneas mail list, the AfriGeneas message boards and daily and weekly genealogy chats. The site hosts an interactive guide for beginners. URL: http://www.afrigeneas.com/

A wonderful resource for African American research is available at Family History Centers located at LDS churches. The resource is the CD, “Freedman’s Savings Bank Records.” (Note: it is also on the HeritageQuest online databases available through libraries.)

The Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company was established by Congress on March 3, 1865 for the benefit of freed slaves and former African American military personnel.

In order to provide identifying information about the depositors, bank workers recorded the names and family relationships of account holders, sometimes taking brief oral histories. The pre-printed forms asked for the depositor’s name, the date the account was opened, age, place of birth, where brought up, complexion, residence, occupation, employer, spouse, children, father, mother, siblings, remarks, and a signature or mark. Not all records contain all of the above information.

After deposits of more than $57 million were made, the bank collapsed because of mismanagement and outright fraud.

The National Archives microfilmed the records of the Bank. An employee of the Family and Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City was browsing through the Library’s set of the films and realized that the records would help millions of African American genealogists.

Volunteers at the Utah State Prison, South Point Correctional Facility read and extracted the information from the films. It was found that there were 480,000 individuals named in the records. The data was then linked and put onto the CD.

© 2002-2006

Connie Lenzen, CG