history
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Tracing Your Roots: Were My Married Slave Ancestors Forced to Live Apart?
A historical document that appears to legalize a marriage formed under bondage in 1858 suggests a heartbreaking scenario for one woman’s ancestors. Professor Gates and his team of genealogy researchers address the answers she seeks. Dear Professor Gates: I am trying to learn more about my enslaved ancestors Sandy Butner and Mary Jane Powe in…
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Tracing Your Roots: Finding Emancipated Black Ancestors Just Got Easier
If you’ve heard anything about the new Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, it’s probably that the museum is the hottest ticket in Washington, D.C., resulting in long lines and the need to purchase passes three months in advance. Genealogy buffs ought to know that the museum has a hot ticket, of…
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Tracing Your Roots: Was My Black Kin’s Land a Gift from a White Man?
Dear Professor Gates: My paternal great-grandfather, Joe P. Daniels, and his mother, my great-great-grandmother Matilda Jackson, settled in a small community called New Hope in Kilgore, Texas, by way of North Carolina. The story goes that one of the main contributors of this community was an Army officer named John Holt. He fell for Matilda…
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Why Were My Freedmen Ancestors Split Between Tribes?
Dear Professor Gates: My ancestor Billy Postoak (aka Taylor and possibly Perryman) was born about 1820 in Alabama and was a slave of Taylor Postoak (Creek Indian). He married a Lizzie Smith and they had a son named Isaac Nivens (born about 1840-1842) in Alabama. A slave schedule shows Isaac was a slave of Cherokee…
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How to Hire a Professional Genealogist You Can Trust
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on January 30, 2015. For this week’s column, we decided to address an option for going forward when you have taken your family tree research efforts as far as you can take them on your own. How Do You Find a Professional Genealogist You Can Trust? Maybe you’ve…
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Can I Find the Slave Ports Through Which My Ancestors Came?
Editor’s note: This story originally ran on Nov. 21, 2014. I am an amateur genealogy enthusiast seeking help with my family tree research. How can I find records of slave trading in the U.S.? I know my grandparents on both sides of the family were born in Mississippi and Tennessee, but I’m pretty sure their…
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How Far Back Does My Free-Black Heritage Go?
The farthest I’ve been able to trace my family history in Ohio is back to my fifth great-grandparents William H. Kinney and Henrietta Mason. I know that they were in Ohio before 1840, and since they showed up so early in census records, I wondered if they were born free. All of the records that…
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Former Va. African-American Schoolhouse Honored With Historic Marker
An old school for African-American children in Albemarle County, Va., is finally getting the recognition it deserves some 93 years after it was built, WHSV reports. According to the news station, on Saturday a historic marker was dedicated in honor of the St. John School, which was built in 1923 through money from the Julius…
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Why Does My African Family Have an English Name?
Both of my parents were born and raised in Monrovia, Liberia. For much of my life I thought that I was a mix of indigenous and Americo-Liberian ancestry. This summer I did the AncestryDNA genetic test. I knew the results would come back largely African, and they, in fact, came back at 100 percent. But…