SLAVE VOYAGES ORG - TWO DATBASES : TRANS-ATLANTIC and INTRA-AMERICAN

SLAVE VOYAGES ORG  TRANSATLANTIC - era 1514-1866  - INTRA-AMERICAN

year -name of vessel - where captives were purchased - where ship landed - numbers of slaves alive on ship at arrival - name of captain.

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Slavery As It Exists In America.
Slavery As It Exists in England

source: Library of Congress -Washington DC -Prints and Photographs Division

AFRICAN AMERICAN FAMILY RECORD CIRCA 1880 SHOWING PROGRESS IN FREEDOM

I love the Before and After the Civil War of the African American farm family illustrated in this chart, which is held by the Library of Congress Collection.  It was produced by Krebs Lithographing Company, Cincinnati, Ohio.  It's a chromolithograph and is circa about 1880, about fifteen years after the slaves were freed.

NATIONAL ARCHIVES OFFERS STUDENTS GRADE 8 OR ABOVE VOLUNTEER HOURS - TRANSCRIBE HISTORICAL DOCUMENST

NARA CITIZEN ARCHIVIST PROGRAM 

Will you be the one to transcribe the records of "Colored Troops" in the Civil War?  How about Family Data Cards from the Bureau of Indian Affairs? Or the names of nurses who served in the Red Cross?

ANCESTRY GENEALOGY DATABASE - U.S. SLAVE ERA INSURANCE POLICIES 1640-1865

I check the Ancestry card catalogue to see what is new and also use it to search for databases I don't know about. I never thought that slave owners would take out insurance on their slaves. and as early as 1640!  Since using the ProQuest History Vault brought up Delaware, I thought I'd try this one for the city of Pittsburgh.  While Pittsburgh did not come up there were lists of slaves including some surnames, the place of residence, and the slave holder's name.

An example is Henry Clay a slave in Louisville Kentucky whose holder was James McDowell.

It says he was a steamboat hand and the policy on him was number 1686.

Now the links to the policy information go to the Internet, so be sure you're on a computer that will do that. Some library computers will not. This one went to the state of Illinois.

I take it that Northern insurance companies sold policies to people who held slaves in other  states even if slavery was illegal in theirs.  What an eye opener.

C 2022 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpor

USING PROQUEST HISTORY VAULT FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN GENEALOGY and HISTORY RESEARCH

SOUTHERN LIFE, SLAVERY, and the CIVIL WAR is the title of the ProQuest History Vault that I used.  I can't link to it for you, but you may find this database available at your local library. ProQuest has many databases including newspapers that can be used.

I decided to see what this database offers and thought it was pretty exciting. Records of Antebellum Southern Plantations brought up a few titles and descriptions for a PDF download.  You're thinking the South, right? Well, not necessarily. I started with the name of a city in the North.

FOLDER 008967-01209-0913 Brought up Sally Barker an infant born free in Kent Delaware in 1807 who had petitioned with the help of an adult obviously, to remain free.

FOLDER 016455-003-0458 brought up Free Black Henry Banes who seeks to emancipate his wife, Judith, who he mentions is also a midwife whose services to the community will be valuable.

FOLDER 001542-003-0612 brings up William who is actually asking to become the slave of a certain physician who he says he does not wish to removed from in Mississippi.  He says they have a good relationship. It's 1859.

You can bring up folders by putting the numbers above (but not the word FOLDER) in the search bar.  I would suggest a general search beginning with a place.  Try a state first.

There are diaries and estate records and so on in this history vault.  I like that these stand as testimonials.

C 2022 Ancestry Worship Genealogy

RAILROAD TIES: ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY FILM REVIEW

 RAILROAD TIES : ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY FILM REVIEW

A short and sweet film, Railroad Ties is the perfect film to watch in celebration of Black History Month. Six people who did not know each other were found by Ancestry TM, the genealogy database company, to come to Brooklyn, New York to learn about the abolitionist preacher, the fiery Henry Ward Beecher, at the Plymouth Church. They learned why slaves on the Underground Railroad avoided New York City. Slavery might have been illegal in the north but runaway slaves were still considered property and there were fewer slave catchers in Brooklyn. The Fugitive Slave Act meant they weren't safe till they got to Canada.

Another place on tour is the home of abolitionist Lewis S. Tappen. 

And so the reveal is that the six are connected by history and in five cases by genetics. One descends from Tappen. The others are cousins related to a woman slave he helped escape slavery.

It was touching. My only problem with the film is that we are not told how Ancestry TM found these people. Was it the traditional paper trail or DNA testing or both?

For those readers unfamiliar with The Underground Railroad, terminology like conductor and passenger and station were used but there wasn't a physical train. The terminology was suggestive. You may find archived posts by searching through this blog or clicking on the tag below.

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Quick Note  February 2025  As I recently visited the African American Cultural Center in Long Beach California, I was apprised that at one point slavery was legal in all then-existing states of the United States, however laws changed by state.

REVISITING HENRY LOUIS GATES JR. and FINDING YOUR ROOTS

PBS HENRY LOUIS GATES JR. FINDING YOUR ROOTS

I'm rewatching beginning with Season One.  LOUIS HENRY GATES Jr., who I respect, says that about ten percent of contemporary Black Americans have ancestors who were Free Persons of Color - not slaves.

I had one client whose New Orleans heritage took us to Free Persons of Color ancestors.  The reaction was a subtle disbelief at my research, as I showed them that their people had been part of a thriving crafts and tradesman community in which people lived in beautiful houses - some on tours today.

Who is or is not Black?

What is the difference between the White actress who most relates to her most recent Jewish heritage though she's got White Anglo Saxon heritage that goes back to King Henry the First of England, basically "feeling" herself Jewish" and someone whose appearance would not lead the average person to guess they have Black Heritage or someone whose DNA proves they are just a little bit African, but who most relates to contemporary Black culture?

In genealogy we search for documents.

But people often feel themselves to be most comfortable with one culture - including religion and spirituality - over another.  I sometimes think this has to do with past life memories, which I realize is controversial.  But through reincarnation we can experience what it is to live in different cultures, to be Japanese in the 14th century, or to have fought in the Civil War in this country for the Confederates.

As a result of reading hundreds if not thousands of documents as well as reading around American history,  and my belief that reincarnation is real, I may have a different feeling about my own life and that of others.

We must ask ourselves WHY are we here in this life?  What have we brought forward from the past, what have we learned, where do we want to go?


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All Rights Reserved

VOTE! VOTE! VOTE!

From NC Pedia (North Carolina) 

this image of Freedmen (ex Slaves) voting in 1867

on New Orleans after the Civil War.

I hope if you have not yet, you will go out to vote.

In California you may now register the same day as you vote.

You may also vote though you are homeless.

So please, use your RIGHT TO VOTE, speak your mind 

with your vote, your vote counts.

2020 is CELEBRATION of 100 YEARS OF WOMEN's VOTE

Whatever your political persuasion, and though many feel their vote is worthless, I hope that all my readers who are citizens of the United States will use their vote in upcoming election which I feel to be more important than ever.  

This year is 100 years since women (but for African American women in some states and Native American women) got the right to vote.  It was hard won.  Women called "suffragettes" rather than "feminists", fought for this right. It took over 40 years.

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE GOV: HISTORY OF WOMEN'S RIGHT TO VOTE

EXCERPT: Even though they were legally able to vote now, African American women were often barred from the polls. American Indian women were also not considered U.S. citizens until 1924 and could not vote.

image from Wikipedia

It was a process.

Once Women got the right to vote in 1920 when the 19th Amendment was ratified, they also got the right (and responsibility) to file for their own citizenship.  If you are doing African-American research, you want to check what state your ancestor was in and when African-American women there got the right to vote. Remember that there were local and state efforts by women to gain the vote as the momentum built over decades.  Learning the niche history of your ancestor's voting and citizenship status can be an interesting addition to your family history writing.  Before this it was assumed that the head of household - a man - voted as a representative of his family and that women's opinions ought to reflect that of their husbands.

So before women got the right to vote, they could become citizens by being included in their father's petition - also any children under the age of 18 would have been included.  And yet, there was a punishment in place for women who married men who were not citizens yet and that was that they lost their own citizenship. 

In my years as a genealogist, I have seen that some widows petitioned for their own citizenship and that of their children. So many immigrant men did dangerous work and lost their lives and there were many widows on their own until a possible remarriage. Perhaps remarriage was easy for the 20 somethings but an older widow with many children could find herself living the rest of her life without a husband to support her. 


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NEW MEXICO GENEALOGY - NATIVE AMERICAN - SPANISH - MEXICAN

A friend's son in law comes from New Mexico and says he has heritage that is in part Apache.  He is not a card carrying member of a tribe.  So I watched some videos from the New Mexico genealogy society and I learned that DNA is proving Native Americans strongly on the maternal (mother's side) of New Mexico's people.  It's estimated that 40% of those whose roots are in New Mexico have Native American ancestry.

NEW MEXICO GENEALOGY SOCIETY

You can find their educational videos on YouTube.

I have yet been asked to do any research considered to be "Hispanic" but I understand records in Spanish go way back into Spanish America and that some people are traveling to Mexico City to do research.  I don't speak Spanish, but then I don't speak German or Latin or any other language, but I find that it's not so difficult to translate, especially not with all the Internet translators available.

As for his particular Apache tribe, there's more than one possibility. 

MESCALERO APACHE TRIBE   South Central New Mexico

KRQE : FOX : THREE APACHE TRIBES OF NEW MEXICO  This article focuses on where they lived, what they are famous for and  where they live now - it's brief.  EXCERPT: "There are three Native American Apache tribes in New Mexico: the JICARILLA APACHE, located in northern N.M near the Colorado Border; the MESCALERO APACHE, located near Ruidoso, and the FORT SILL APACHE near Deming.

If I remember correctly, the NAVAJO are also an Apache nation.