RELATIONS: What Can We Learn About Black History?
In this episode, I interview family historians Vance Lockett and Deloris Williams about what their research has taught them about Black History.
Vance Lockett has been a genealogist for over 20 years. About 15 years ago, family history became one of his passions. A few years later, he founded the Facebook group
"I've Traced My Enslaved Ancestors and Their Owners," a group that has achieved worldwide fame. Vance is also an active administrator and moderator of that group. The photograph on the cover of this episode is of Vance's 3rd great grandmother, Marendy Parker.
Deloris Williams has been researching her family's history in North Carolina for over 30 years. She is an administrator of the Facebook group "I've Traced My Enslaved Ancestors and Their Owners."
Basic Steps for Starting Genealogy Research, by DELORIS WILLIAMS
Start by recording what you know about yourself. Write down your own name, birth date, place of birth, parents, grandparents, husband or wife, if married, date of marriage, place of marriage, children's complete names and their dates of birth. This includes talking to relatives to find out what they may know to help fill in info about your family, as much as possible. Get as much info as you can about your family that will be of help in knowing who, when and where they lived.
2. Look for family records at home or from relatives, such as bibles, funeral home obituaries, military records, old photos, birth, marriage or death records from older family members, etc., anything that contains info that can help in your research. Write these things down in a notebook, a document on your computer, or whatever else will be handy and accessible to you to refer to at any time.
3. Now that you have Names, and hopefully some ideas of locations where they lived, it's time to start looking for your family in Census Records. Start with the 1940 Census, looking for your ancestor who was born prior to that year, using their last known location or the birth location, if you have it. Follow your ancestors back every 10 years through the Census, building a Chart for each generation you find. When using Census records, make sure you look at the actual images, record all of the info found in them, and make note of the families surrounding them for several pages both before and after your ancestors. Pay attention to what each column in the Census say, they varied each year, and there is great info to be found in them.
4. Once you've learned these basic steps, it's important that you follow-up each of the individual ancestors with additional records for each step in their lives, that is, find Birth, Marriage & Death Records, which will help identify spouses and children to further research. Keep in mind that many States, North Carolina for instance, did not have Birth & Death Certificates until 1913, and that most Southern States had similar time periods, so always read and study about the locations your ancestors lived in to see what's available for them. Read up about the Locations your ancestors lived in, learn the history of those places, the State, the County; look at maps to see where they lived, and the names of the surrounding Counties and States. Don't just go into research without some basic understanding of where and how people lived in your ancestors time.
An entire array of genealogy charts and forms can be downloaded for free here:https://www.archives.gov/research/genealogy/charts-forms
Annie Harnett began researching her family’s involvement in chattel slavery in the U.S. in the spring of 2021.
Blog: https://anniehnet.medium.com/
Twitter: @AnnieHHartnett1
Instagram: @relationskinsfolk
