21 November 2013

African American Researchers Must Dig Deeper, guest post by Sharon Leslie Morgan


It is easy for a family historian to get lazy these days. One can sit in front of a computer and travel the world, not to mention visit the neighborhood in which your ancestors were born.

Online research can take you a long way and you should absolutely take advantage of all that exists through digitization, which enables you to view, search, and print all sorts of documents. But everything is NOT digitized. 

Those of us who have been researching for a long time know that, at some point, you have to get off your butt and go – either to your family “home place” or to a geographically related repository of historical documents. Because so much about African American families was not recorded in public documents, offline resources may be the only way you will ever identify your ancestors and make connections with living relatives.

Here are some offline sources where you can dig deeper:

COURTHOUSES

In the past, the local courthouse was the center of legal activity for the county in which it operated. Many records of genealogical interest will be found in these locations. They are a goldmine of documents that verify births, marriages, land transactions, mortgages, wills, estate records, company and bank records, tax records, civil court records, minutes of town meetings, etc. Bear in mind that many old courthouses (especially in the southern states) suffered fires, with a resulting loss of documents. In recent years, many courthouse records have been transferred to archives.

ARCHIVES

At the state level, archives are the place to go. They are the cumulative repository of documents from all of the courthouses around the state. You will find many of the same records you would find in a courthouse plus much more. There is generally a library full of books on community and state history, political activity, biographies and special collections (like family papers). When you are uncertain about the specific county in which your ancestor lived, archives are a “one-stop shop” where you can research several different counties all in one place. Additionally, there is a collection of materials on neighboring states as well.

LIBRARIES

Local libraries used to be the heart of their communities, not only a place to read books but to partake in communal activities. Librarians, especially in small communities, tend to be very knowledgeable about local history. You will find family genealogies, indexes to public records, community history books, newspapers, maps and other materials that never found their way into an archive. Many universities maintain libraries as well.

In visiting any of these repositories, the key records to look for are estate files, family papers, sharecropper accounts and bibles. Enslaved people are frequently named in these documents and nowhere else.

Even if you do not succeed in finding your specific ancestors, you can gain perspective on the times and conditions in which they lived by visiting home communities and institutions that preserve community memory. These include historical societies, historic sites, museums, churches and cemeteries. 


Sharon Leslie Morgan is the founder of OurBlackAncestry.com, a website dedicated to African American family research. She is co-author of Gather at the Table: The Healing Journey of a Daughter of Slavery and a Son of the Slave Trade (Beacon Press, 2012). This blog expresses the views of the author and should not be attributed to the National Genealogical Society.











Editor's Note: This is the second in a sequence of four posts by Sharon on researching African American roots. If you missed the first post, The Last Slaveholder, you will find it here.






~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Want to learn more about interacting with the blog, please read Hyperlinks, Subscribing and Comments -- How to Interact with Upfront with NGS Blog posts!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NGS does not imply endorsement of any outside advertiser or other vendors appearing in this blog.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 
Republication of UpFront articles is permitted and encouraged for non-commercial purposes without express permission from NGS. Please drop us a note telling us where and when you are using the article. Express written permission is required if you wish to republish UpFront articles for commercial purposes. You may send a request for express written permission to [email protected]. All republished articles may not be edited or reworded and must contain the copyright statement found at the bottom of each UpFront article.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Follow NGS via Facebook, YouTube, Google+, Twitter
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Think your friends, colleagues, or fellow genealogy researchers would find this blog post interesting? If so, please let them know that anyone can read past UpFront with NGS posts or subscribe!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Suggestions for topics for future UpFront with NGS posts are always welcome. Please send any suggested topics to [email protected]

No comments:

Post a Comment