Studying African American Genealogy

There are millions of African Americans in the country today. These are people who have descended from Africa, usually from blacks who lived in Africa and were shipped in the United States to be slaves before the Civil War. Since the people were considered to have no rights because they were slaves it can be especially difficult to study African American genealogy. But you can trace your African American genealogy by following a couple of steps.

The first step for tracing African American genealogy is to check what you already know about your family history. Look for pictures of your ancestors, diaries and other materials that may help you out. Talking with family members can be useful, as you can get some more information from them about your African American genealogy.

The next part of tracing African American genealogy is to go back to the year 1870. This is the first year in which names of blacks were listed in the United States census. You can find information on people in your African American genealogy by checking this census. It can help you to check other records like tax information and where the person is buried.

Checking to see who the last slave owner of your African American genealogy can help. Of course, there were some people of African ancestry that were free before the Civil War, so your African American genealogy may not have been involved in slavery. This is where the 1860 census can help, as you can check it to see if your ancestry was free or not at the time.

Studying the information on the previous slave owner that your African American genealogy worked under is the fourth part of studying African American genealogy. Since the slaves were part of the owner’s property there will be information available on plantation records, bills of sale and advertisements of slaves that have run off that can be used to help get information.

The fifth part of studying your African American genealogy is to check for records from Africa. Records on slave advertisements and sales of slaves from Africa can be used to help.

The last part of studying African American genealogy is to check the Caribbean. Many people of African ancestry left to the Caribbean from the United States after World War II, and there were considered to be slaves in many parts of the area. If you can find that your ancestors were from the Caribbean then further research on the area will be needed.

It can be difficult to trace African American genealogy, especially since those of African descent were not always treated as regular American citizens. By following these steps you can make it easier to do.