Elvie Barlow was rummaging through some of his grandmother’s belongings some 20 years ago when he came upon a document that would change his life forever...
Read moreMississippi rebel’s descendants seek family facts
One hundred and fifty years have passed since the Civil War, but in Mississippi, the descendants of a legendary rebel are still separating the facts of his life from...
Read moreWHS presents African-American genealogy conference: Looking For A Home June 21 & 22
African-American Genealogy Conference: Looking for a Home Experience a two-day adventure into African-American genealogy, featuring internationally known genealogist...
Read moreMy granddad, the Bengali peddler: An African-American writer finds her roots
In 1896, almost a century before Mira Nair’s Mississippi Masala caused a stir by daring to show a romance between a black man and an Indian woman in the American...
Read moreFordham to Launch Burial Database Project of Enslaved African Americans
They lie underground, often with no marks to identify them. They’re often interred in out-of-the-way places, hidden from the public. In some cases, their neighbors...
Read moreAfrican-American repatriates tribal treasures through eBay diplomacy
When family researcher William Holland flies back to his ancestral homeland in Cameroon next week, he’ll be bearing gifts: ceremonial masks that were taken out...
Read moreAfrican-American descendants sue to save Revilletown cemetery
Former residents of Revilletown—an African-American community torn down 25 years ago in Iberville Parish—are trying to preserve a cemetery founded by ancestors there...
Read moreAsheville’s Sasha Mitchell helps families find their roots
Sasha Mitchell was a fourth-grader in New Jersey when her class did a family history project and she innocently contributed photos of her white mother and...
Read moreAfrican American history buried in unusual places
Katie Brown Bennett was whirling through reel after reel of microfilm when she found her great-great-grandfather Squire Cheshier. It was not a birth certificate that...
Read moreWhen Family Trees Are Gnarled by Race
My paternal grandfather, Marshall Staples (1898-1969), was one of the millions of black Southerners who moved north in the Great Migration. Those of us in the family...
Read moreRelatives come from across nation to pay respects at black cemetery
In a once-forgotten cemetery, surrounded by family, both living and dead, 91-year-old Leon Lewis spoke of his heritage. “This is the starting place of my ancestors,”...
Read moreLibrary makes available ‘African American Newspapers, 1827-1998’
The University of Delaware Library announces the online access to a much acclaimed new database, African American Newspapers, 1827-1998, which will provide online...
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