If you’re an African-American, tracing your roots back to the ancestral continent is hard enough — but tracing them back to the ancestral family? That requires...
Read moreUNL profs digitize slave filings
Slave owner John Little wrote in June 1862 that his young slave Lucy “is perfectly sound and healthy, good tempered, honest, willing and industrious, a good...
Read moreProject helps African-Americans identify with ancestors
Ever wondered where you get some of your habits, traits or cultural practices from? For instance, what made the girl serving your $5 extra-hot latte place what appear...
Read moreFinding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., a New 10-part PBS Series That Explores Race, Culture and Identity Through Genealogy and Genetics
Finding Your Roots builds on the success of African American Lives 1 and 2 and Faces of America, journeying deep into the ancestry of remarkable individuals Harry...
Read moreMayor Hits Genealogy Lottery
Cory Booker, the Mayor of Newark, today calls New Jersey home. But in the first episode of the new PBS series, “Finding Your Roots,” Mr. Booker explores...
Read moreFamily Tree’s Startling Roots
Thirty-nine lashes “well laid” on her bare back and an extension of her indentured servitude was Elizabeth Banks’s punishment for “fornication & Bastardy with a...
Read moreFor African Americans Seeking to Reclaim Family History, University of Buffalo Workshop Offers Hope
BUFFALO, N.Y. — Because so many of their ancestors were slaves, African Americans have often had a difficult time tracking down documentation of their early...
Read more‘It gives me gooseflesh’: Remarkable find in South Side attic
It wasn’t much more than a ghost house by the time Rufus McDonald got the call. The front door of the abandoned home near 75th and Sangamon was unlocked and swinging...
Read moreMajor find shows cruel life – and death – of slaves
As Professor Mark Horton tells me as he opens the lids, these boxes represent almost the entire sum of the physical relics of the Middle Passage. These personal...
Read moreMary Walker’s Descendants Realize Their Rich Family History
Mary Walker was a former slave who escaped her owner, fled north, and came to owna Cambridge landmark. Recent celebrations at the Blacksmith House have brought...
Read moreSouth Jersey history is all in the family
Sisters Marion Buck and Elizabeth Johnston are determined to make sure their family’s historic legacy is preserved. The nonagenarian members of the Still family —...
Read moreAfrican-Americans unearth family histories via new technology
Like so many others, Patricia Watts longed to find out more about her family history. For several years, she searched databases and made numerous trips to local...
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