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African American Ancestors
Home » Genealogy » Genealogy - Difficult Searches » African American AncestorsPosted by Your Guide on July 6, 2006 9:34 PM
Searching for African American ancestors in Pre-Civil War America begins with the question of whether a person of color was a slave or if they were free. If they were free, more records will exist as they would have been allowed to transact business for themselves. They would have been allowed to marry and possibly own property. However, if your ancestor was a slave, fewer records will exist. It is hard to imagine today that a human life would have been considered property and therefore no need would ever exist to document that human's existence or travail. However, as shameful as this attitude was, it was more often than not the attitude of slave owners. Many slave owners kept records of their holdings and business dealings. These records often contained records of the slaves bought and sold by the land owner.
Military records are a good place to search for African Americans as early as the Revolutionary War. Records abound documenting slave involvement in war efforts since the formation of our country. A good place to start searching these records is the NARA (National Archives and Records Administration) in Washington D.C. Online lists of the records that are available can be found, but the records themselves are not yet available over the internet.
Census records can give us clues in our African American research. Before 1840 census records listed the land owner or head of household and a notation was made of the number of slaves he/she owned. In both 1850 and 1860 the government made an enumeration of the slaves in a separate slave census. In both 1850 and 1860 freed slaves were listed in the Federal Census and beginning in 1870 all African Americans were enumerated in the Census.
After the Civil War research records become more readily available for African American ancestors, however there are post-Civil War agencies that were created that are of immense value in African American genealogical research. They are the Southern Claims Commission or the Commissioners of Claims, the Freedman's Savings and Trust Company, and the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands (Freedmen's Bureau). The records from these agencies provide a wealth of information about African Americans in the pre to post Civil War era.
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