Family History and Genealogy Links

African American

  • Afrigeneas (100+ databases)
  • African American DNA Tests
  • Free African Americans
  • Freedman’s Bank Records, 1865-1874 (FamilySearch.org)
  • Lost Friends Advertisements from the Southwestern Christian Advocate – Search by name, year, location. Published in Advocate papers from Nov 1879 to December 1900.
  • Last Seen – Finding Family after Slavery  – Recovering stories of families separated in the domestic slave trade. Formerly enslaved people placed these ads in Black newspapers hoping to reconnect with family and loved ones for decades following emancipation. Includes interactive map of locations of where the ads were originally placed. Search by name, location or specific term.
  • Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade – Database – Trans-Atlantic, Intra-American, People of the Atlantic Slave Trade, both enslavers and enslaved. Categorized by year, vessel name, beginning and ending place of voyage, number of captives, captain’s name.
  • African American Slavery and Bondage – Page in FamilySearch Wiki listing online resources, Plantation Records, registers of slave and freedmen, manumission papers, slave trade registers, manifests, etc. Several links to sites.
  • African American Resources for Virginia – Page in FamilySearch Wiki specifically focused on African American Resources for the state of Virginia, online resource links, strategies for research.
  • No Land – Only Slaves by Edith Smith and Vivian Lehman – Slave conveyances abstracted from deed books, Louisiana and Texas. Names both parties in conveyances and lists enslaved individuals deeded.

  • African Ancestry – DNA testing site. This group claims world leadership in tracing maternal and paternal lineages of African descent.

  • AfroRoots DNA – DNA testing site. Providing possible coverage of genetic diversity on African continent and in many cases are able to determine country and at times as specific as tribe.

  • International African American Museum – Located on Gadsden’s Wharf, the site where an estimated 100,000 West African enslaved individuals landed in Charleston, South Carolina between 1783 and 1807. The museum is devoted to sharing stories, connections to Africa and the African diaspora, programs, events and a place to do actual genealogical research. Official name: International African American Museum.

  • National Museum of African American History and Culture – Museum located in Washington, D. C. devoted exclusively to documentation of African American life, History, and culture. Official name: National Museum of African American History and Culture.

  • Our Black Ancestry - a foundation dedicated to providing resources for African American research.
  • Enslaved – Peoples of the History Slave Trade.
  • Digital Black History - a free, searchable directory for online history projects that can help further Black History research.
  • Beyond Kin – devoted to those who descend from slaveholders, with a way to document enslaved persons.
  • Slave Narratives – a collection of narratives of those who were born in slavery, interviewed and recorded as a part of the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1938. Library of Congress.
  • Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy – a way to locate enslaved individuals who lived in Louisiana between the years of 1718 & 1820. Public database.
  • Confederate Slave Payroll – from the National Archives Catalog, African Americans who served as confederates in the Civil War. Several digitized documents.
  • BlackPast – a multifaceted website, the genealogical interests are discovered by selecting African American History and then Digital Archives, which has many subheadings to choose from that are very useful to genealogists.

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