Denise Dennis' ancestors were among the first farmers who settled in northeast Pennsylvania, in 1793. They were free African Americans, extraordinary because they became integrated in a largely white community, 70 years before emancipation.

Their 153-acre farm has remained in the family for seven generations. The Smithsonian Institution has taken an interest. The National Trust for Historic Preservation called it "a rare and highly significant African American cultural landscape."

But as Dennis strolled last week through the snowy burial grounds that include the remains of her great-great-great-great-grandfather, a black Revolutionary War veteran, her mind was on something buried much deeper: the Marcellus Shale. Read More

For many African-Americans, family history can be difficult -- in some cases nearly impossible -- to trace.

Now, new technology allows people of African descent to trace their ancestry by analyzing their DNA.

Our own Judi Gatson was curious about her own history beyond her immediate family.

Judi's parents were married in 1964. She says she spent plenty of time with both sets of grandparents. On her mother's side, there was Emily and Jim from Daphne, Alabama. On her dad's side, there was Dorothy and Charles lived in St. Louis, Missouri.

Through family research, we've discovered some surprising South Carolina connections. Read More

In recognition of Black History Month, today Nationwide Insurance is providing African American families with a unique online experience that helps them connect with their ancestry, celebrate their past and work together to honor the present, while at the same time support the United Negro College Fund (UNCF).

It's all part of Nationwide's ongoing effort to reach African American consumers. This particular campaign created by McKinney, Nationwide's advertising agency of record, includes the Family Heritage Tree website (http://www.nationwide.com/familytree) where visitors can create their family tree.

In Snellville, Ga., a city about 25 miles east of Atlanta racial strives are being made by a prominent family mending their historic roots. White and Black Livseys becomes One Family...

Its our purpose to promote the heritage of Gwinnett County, Georgia. We feel its our duty to educate its citizens, students,and visitors of the influences and effects of the Civil War.

While history books illustrate grand battlefields, like Gettysburg, Vicksburg or even Chicamauga, where fathers and brothers fought to the death against each other. The bloody and the dead were left to rot where they laid.

For better or worse, today's history is left for the living. We must question our past in order to determine our own future...

This is the story of the racial divide and a reunion 187 years ago, of a proud American family that settled in Gwinnett County, Georgia in 1840.

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A Virginia archaeologist is using modern technology to locate and mark gravesites in the older half of Old Plateau Cemetery.

The cemetery is at Bay Bridge Road and Cut-Off Road, near the Cochrane-Africatown Bridge.

Often known as Africatown Cemetery, it is the final resting place for Cudjoe Lewis and 109 other surviving African slaves from the slave ship Clotilde.

On a Sunday in July 1859, the Clotilde, also known as the Clotilda, struck a sandbar the Mobile River. The federal government had outlawed slave importations since 1808, but slavery still was legal in Southern states. The Clotilde was the last ship known to have carried African slaves to the United States.

After the ship's slaves were freed, they founded Africatown in what is now Plateau and Magazine Point. Read More

Evelyn Hood of Decatur began researching her family history some years ago, realizing how hard it is for African-Americans because landowners usually did not include surnames of their slaves in their records. Surnames would tell people their tribes. That families were divided at auction provides another hindrance.

“I was having a difficult time,” Hood says. “I had to educate myself about genealogy and African-American history.” Out of her experience, in August 1993 Hood created the African-American Cultural and Genealogical Society of Illinois Museum in downtown Decatur. Read More