Research at the National Archives&Beyond

Join genealogist, Sharon Batiste Gillins for a discussion of Record Group 105 of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. She will share her experiences in locating records in this rich genealogical resource available at the National Archives. The Freedmen's Bureau was established in the War Department by an act of Congress on March 3, 1865. The life of the Bureau was extended twice by acts of July 16, 1866 and July 6, 1868. The Bureau was responsible for the supervision and management of all matters relating to refugees and freedmen, and of lands abandoned or seized during the Civil War. Sharon Batiste Gillins is a native of Galveston, Texas with paternal ancestral roots in St. Mary Parish, Louisiana and maternal roots in Fort Bend County, Texas. A life-long interest in her family's history led to an active involvement in researching African American family history over the past 25 years. While researching her own family, she developed an in interest in unique and under-utilized record systems and record groups.  Some of her more recent work focuses on strategies researchers can use to analyze Louisiana’s Freedmen’s Bureau field office records for revealing, often personal information on freedmen ancestors. Ms. Gillins is a member of the Galveston Historical Society, National Genealogical Society, and Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society.  A retired Associate Professor at Riverside City College, she frequently calls upon her career background as a college educator to present workshops or deliver courses at regional and national conferences and genealogical institutes.   She is also a member of the adjunct faculty at Samford Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research in Birmingham.  

Join my special guests April Hynes and Reverend Fred Morton for a discussion of the Wanderer Project. This project is important to anyone interested in American history, and especially the African American experience. The Wanderer is the last documented ship to bring a cargo of slaves from Africa to the United States on November 28, 1858. April Hynes’ grandfather discovered an African Face Jug on a construction site in Philadelphia in 1950. It took some literal and figurative digging but eventually April, a devoted amateur genealogist, traced the jug’s origins back to Edgefield County, South Carolina. The area is home to amazingly high quality clay and  pottery operations where many slaves, including Wanderer survivors, toiled making stoneware. The link discovered between April Hynes’ Face Jug and the Wanderer Africans helped to break down the so-called brick wall that frequently thwarts those trying to unmask the personal side of the slavery story.  April Hynes is a Principal Researcher of the “Wanderer Project” and has presented at the National Smithsonian Museum, Boston University,  and has received grants from the Chipstone Foundation and Ancestry.com to further her research. Historian Rev. Fred Morton is a descendant of Yango Lanham a survivor of the Wanderer slave ship.

Join Queen Quet Marquetta L. Goodwine, a published author, computer scientist, lecturer, mathematician, historian, columnist, preservationist, environmental justice advocate, environmentlist, film consultant, and the " The Art-ivist for a discussion on the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition. The Gullah/Geechee Nation exist from Jacksonville, NC to Jacksonville, FL.  It encompasses all of the Sea Islands and thirty to thirty-five miles inland to the St. John’s River.  On these islands, people from numerous African ethnic groups linked with indigenous Americans and created the unique Gullah language and traditions from which later came “Geechee.”   The Gullah/Geechee people have been considered “a nation within a nation” from the time of chattel enslavement in the United States until they officially became an internationally recognized nation on July 2, 2000.   At the time of their declaration as a nation, they confirmed the election of their first “head pun de boddee”-head of state and official spokesperson and queen mother.  They elected Queen Quet, Chieftess and Head-of-State for the Gullah/Geechee Nation.

Join members of the African American Genealogy Bloggers Circle for a discussion of the PBS Special - The African Americans - Many Rivers to Cross with Henry Louis Gates. Join host, Angela Walton-Raji for a dynamic discussion of  the African American Genealogy Bloggers reaction to the new PBS series. Ms. Walton-Raji is an author, genealogist, producer  of the weekly African Roots Podcast and prolific blogger of the Native American blog - http://african nativeamerican.blogspot.com, and My Ancestors Name - http://myancestorsname.blogspot.com Melvin J. Collier is a genealogist and author of 150 Years Later Broken Ties Mended and Mississippi to Africa- A Journey of Discovery.  His blog Roots Reveals examines the many ancestral discoveries based upon new DNA results. http://www.http://rootsrevealed.blogspot.com George Geder  is a strong advocate for having all cultures and family lifestyles being heard and represented in the genealogy community. He is also an Evangelist for the African Ancestored Genealogy. Nicka Smith's is a genealogist, family historian, lecturer, photographer and her blog can be found at http://blog.atlasfamily.org. Terry Ligon, researcher specializing in Choctaw and Chickasaw Freedmen history and genealogy. Terry has given presentations on researching the history of the Indian Territory Freedmen, the Congressional Record as well as how to create video presentations of family history. His blog, Black and Red Journal is another opportunity to inform the general public about the unique history of the Indian Territory Freedmen and their descendants.  

Join author, genealogist, community activist, television and blogtalkradio show host Antoinette Harrell for a discussion of her dedication to family, preservation of records, genealogical research and social justice. Ms. Harrell brings over 20 years of genealogical experiences that has resulted in the Antoinette Harrell Collections located at the Armistad Research Center in New Orleans and the South Eastern Louisiana State University.  She is also the host of her own blogtalkradio show Nurturing Our Roots and a TV show - African Roots.  She is the founder and editor of the Tangipahoa African -American News. Ms. Harrell is a leader in community activism and does not just talk about what should be done, she does it!  Her most recent advocacy work has resulted in assisting the Black Boy's of the Dozier Reform School to tell their story.

CeCe Moore and Shannon Christmas will discuss strategies for using autosomal DNA to resolve your genealogical problems. CeCe Moore is a professional genetic genealogist and writes the popular blog Your Genetic Genealogist, where she covers the developments in the field of DNA genealogy as an independent, unbiased authority. She is the Southern California Regional Coordinator for the International Society of Genetic Genealogy and the administrator of the organization’s DNA Newbie Mailing List.  CeCe is also the genetic genealogy consultant for Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr. Season Two and Genealogy Roadshow and she also ls the administrator of the Hemings-Jefferson Autosomal DNA Project. Shannon Christmas is an experienced genealogist specializing in genetic, colonial American, and African-American genealogy in Virginia and the Carolinas. He serves as a 23andMe Ancestry Ambassador, an Ancestry.com Ace, administrator of The Captain Thomas Graves of Jamestown Autosomal DNA Project, and a co-administrator of The Hemings-Jefferson-Wayles-Eppes Autosomal DNA Project. 

 The Barbados and Carolinas Connection with Rhoda Green Most Barbadians today are unaware or disinterested about their linkages to the Carolinas. However, Rhoda Green recognizes that the past impacts the present each day.  The present, however, can promote forgetfulness, ignorance and sometimes denial.  This reality motivates her to provide a vehicle for sharing, collaboration and an opportunity to better understand this shared history and the lessons learned from it.  This inspiration and passion influenced her decision to become the Founder and Chair of Development for The Barbados and Carolina Legacy Foundation. http://www.barbadoscarolinas.org Mrs. Green was born in Bardados, West Indies and resides in Charleston, SC with her husband and children. She currently serves as the honorary Consul for Barbados in South Carolina. Her work with the Barbados Carolina Connection led to the Twinning of Speightostown, Barbados and Charleston, South Carolina in 1998.  That was followed with bringing the Barbados Tourism Authority and SCETV together to produce a documentary that is shown on ETV and is entitled, ”From Barbados to Carolina”.

African Americans of Alexandria, Virginia Beacons of Light in the Twentieth Century  Char McCargo Bah, Christa Watters, Audrey P. Davis, Gwendolyn Brown-Henderson and James E. Henson Sr.     This show will explore a new book written about Alexandria’s twentieth-century African American community. Experience the harrowing narratives of trials and triumph as Alexandria’s African Americans helped to shape not only their hometown but also the world around them. Rutherford Adkins became one of the first black fighter pilots as a Tuskegee Airman. Samuel Tucker, a twenty-six-year-old lawyer, organized and fought for Alexandria to share its wealth of knowledge with the African American community by opening its libraries to all colors and creeds. Discover a vibrant past that, through this record, will be remembered Char McCargo Bah is a professional genealogist for the Alexandria Legacies—Freedmen’s Cemetery Descendants Project of the City of Alexandria, an author and a public speaker. Audrey P. Davis is currently the acting director of the Alexandria Black History Museum and has been employed by the City of Alexandria for over 20 years. Gwendolyn Brown-Henderson is a native Alexandrian and retired United States government worker. James E. Henson Sr. is a retired attorney who grew up in Alexandria. Christa Watters is a freelance writer and editor who has lived in Alexandria for thirty years. This group came together to document the history of African Americans who were agents of change and served as Beacons of Light in Alexandria in the twentieth century.

The Black Russian with Vladimir Alexandrov Bernice Bennett host welcomes Vladimir Alexandrov, Ph.D.,  for an engaging discussion of his book, The Black Russian. He will explore the process of researching and writing this compelling story.   The Black Russian tells the story of Frederick Bruce Thomas, who was born in 1872 to former slaves and spent his youth on his family’s farm in Mississippi.  After leaving the South and working as a waiter and valet in Chicago and Brooklyn, he went to London in 1894, then traveled throughout Europe, and decided to go to Russia in 1899, all of which was highly unusual for a black American at the time.  He chose Moscow as his home, and during the next nineteen years renamed himself “Fyodor Fyodorovich Tomas,” married twice, acquired a mistress, took Russian citizenship, and by dint of his talents, hard work, charm, and guile became one of the city’s richest and most famous owners of variety theaters and restaurants.  The Bolshevik Revolution ruined him and he barely escaped with his life and family to Turkey in 1919.  Starting with just a handful of dollars out of the millions he had lost, Thomas made a second fortune in Constantinople by opening a series of celebrated nightclubs that introduced jazz to Turkey.  However, because of the long arm of American racism, the xenophobia of the new Turkish Republic, and his own extravagance, he fell on hard times, was thrown into debtor's prison and died in Constantinople in 1928. Dr. Alexandrov is the B. E. Bensinger Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures and Acting Chair, Slavic Department at Yale University. www.valexandrov.com  

"Slavery, Freedom and Reunion in a Colonial Connecticut Town" with Grant Hayter-Menzies, Daryl D'Angelo and Donald Roddy In June 1759, Norwich, Connecticut businessman Benajah Bushnell sold Guy Drock, a slave of African ancestry, to Sarah Powers, the  Caucasian woman Drock had possibly married. Ironically, this deed freed Drock from Bushnell’s control but not from slavery. In March 2012, descendants of Guy and Sarah Drock and of Benajah Bushnell came together in Norwich for the first time in over two centuries. Drock descendants Daryl D’Angelo and Donald Roddy—who when they began their research years earlier did not know they had African ancestry, and Bushnell descendant Grant Hayter-Menzies—who thought only his Southern ancestors were slave owners—met to try to understand a legacy they did not know they shared. In the town where their past began, they sought to explore the personal impact of their ancestors’ intertwined histories, how the past has shaped them, their research and their interactions with one another today, and the relatively unknown institution of slavery in early New England. Grant Hayter-Menzies is an internationally published biographer and journalist .  Daryl D’Angelo is a wife and mother, photographer and writer, and lives in a small town in southern New Hampshire. Donald Roddy is a 78 year old retired Airline Pilot.

Black Slaves, Indian Masters: Slavery, Emancipation, and Citizenship in the Native American South with Barbara Krauthamer. Bernice Bennett welcomes Barbara Krauthamer,  Associate Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. She is the author of Black Slaves, Indian Masters: Slavery, Emancipation, and Citizenship in the Native American South.  She is co-author, with Deborah Willis (Tisch School of the Arts, New York University), of Envisioning Emancipation: Black Americans and the End of Slavery.  Professor Krauthamer has also written many articles and book chapters on the subjects of: chattel slavery in Indian Territory, African American/Native American intersections, and African American women’s lives in slavery.  In 2007, she received the Letitia Brown Memorial Prize from the Association of Black Women Historians.  She has also received awards and funding from: the National Endowment for the Humanities; Stanford University; Yale University; the Institute for Historical Studies at the University of Texas at Austin; and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. 

    Join host Bernice Bennett and special guest Char McCargo Bah for a discussion on researching roomers and others  documented in the household.   When you are using the U.S. Census, you will see several large families.  In some cases, you might see extended families and roomers.  Hence, if you research everyone in the house, you might find answers to a lot of your questions.  Knowing "Whose In The House.," could even reveal pre civil war ancestors.     Char McCargo Bah has been a genealogist since 1981; she has appeared in numerous television interviews and documentaries and has researched genealogies of well-known individuals.  She currently works as a part-time genealogist on African American families in the City of Alexandria, Virginia.  Char is a 2010 recipient of Virginia Genealogical Society Volunteer Award and a 2009 recipient of the Alexandria History Award from the Alexandria Historical Society.  Char has her own genealogy column “Char’s Corner” in the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society Newsletter.  She is also pursuing her advance studies in genealogy at the University of Toronto. Please feel free to contact Char McCargo Bah through her web site www.theotheralexandria.com.  

  GHOSTS AND SHADOWS OF ANDERSONVILLE Bernice Bennett host welcomes Robert Scott Davis for a discussion of how slaves helped to liberate imprisoned Union soldiers from behind the Confederate lines. He will also share his new project on the lost history of the international significance of free blacks in slave Georgia. Robert Scott Davis is senior professor of History at Wallace State College in Hanceville, Alabama. He runs a program of continuing education classes in genealogy. His more than 1,000 publications include GHOSTS AND SHADOWS OF ANDERSONVILLE, a book that explores mysteries of the Confederate prison for black, red, and white inmates. He is currently working on biographical essays on free African Americans in Georgia from colonial times to final emancipation in the 1860s including Fenda Lawrence, George Liele, Austin Dabney, Joseph Nunez, Thomas Sims, and Hubbard Prior.

Black Coral: A Daughter's Apology To Her Asian Island Mother with Clergywoman, Theologian, Communications Designer and author, The Rt. Reverend Dr. Cheryl D. Holmes-Miller aka Bishop Miller, M.S., MDiv.   She tells of her tumultuous, emotional teen agony of trying to accept her multiracial, multiethnic family as they struggle to fit in a "one box, one drop" racial category of being Negroes. Her coming of age story during the Civil Rights Movement leads to her back to the future 21st century revelations of her true heritage. Once taboo, her story is vogue and trending...her memoir is  a genuine catalyst for talking about race and culture, and those discussions start within the context of our families. She is the Senior Minister of The North Stamford Congregational Church in Stamford, Connecticut.

Slave Life in Documents: Primary Sources regarding Edgefield's Enslaved Laborers with Dr. Maggi Morehouse Where are the records located and how can they be utilized to give meaning to African Diaspora life in the Edgefield District?  What methodological issues do researchers face when attempting to craft the historical narrative? How does the researcher go back in time and utilize records that occluded ordinary voices? What sorts of non-exploitative techniques can the present day researcher employ in regards to creating an empathetic and “true” historical narrative? Join Dr. Maggi M. Morehouse for a discussion on uncovering primary sources that reveal the interior lives of enslaved people, specifically highlighting data from Edgefield, SC, laborers. Questions of access and understanding will be explored through examples from her African Diaspora fieldwork. In addition, the archeological excavation under way in Edgefield is revealing material artifacts about the community of potters who labored in the area. Archival data, particularly oral histories, reveal a more nuanced and complicated story, and Morehouse will highlight how to collect and analyze all of the sources for the most thorough understanding.   Dr. Morehouse is the first graduate of the African Diaspora Studies program at the University of California Berkeley, completing her Ph.D. in May 2001. Today, she teaches Southern History at Coastal Carolina University, with a focus on connecting the American South to global diasporas and migrations. She has been working with media providing historical consultation and crafting oral histories into visual short stories on topics ranging from enslaved potters, to southern women, to African Diaspora migration. She is a board member of the statewide NEH program, the SC Humanities Council.