Did you ever wonder about the enslaved people in your ancestry? Have you asked the oldest living relative what they remember? Do you know what to do next? I was able to find my second great grandfather, Beverly Vance (1832-1899), in 1880 and 1870 on the census along with his mother, his wife, and his children. Have you located your formerly enslaved ancestor in the 1880 and 1870 censuses? This book, entitled My Best Genealogy Tips: Finding Formerly Enslaved Ancestors, will lead to discovering ancestors who had been enslaved. My move to South Carolina When I first moved to South Carolina in 2005, I no longer had to research my ancestors from afar. I lived in the same town as the South Carolina Department of Archives and History. I went regularly to Richland Library where I learned about my family in Richland County, and I identified Abbeville County as the place where they were enslaved. After going through and documenting everything I had, I reached out to the community where Beverly was enslaved in Abbeville County, South Carolina. Originally, I was puzzled because I could not find them in 1880. Greenwood County was redistricted in 1897. They did not move, but Greenwood County did not exist before 1897. It was Abbeville County, SC before 1897. Digging a little deeper I moved to Greenwood County, SC and spent two years trying to uncover what I could. The research included in this book is for those of you who would like to take my examples and use them to find burials for those who were formerly enslaved. I documented formerly enslaved ancestors and worked with the descendants of enslavers to discover what they knew. I did not take the advice given to me by other people while I was researching. It is so important to have a clear head when you are looking for family. I was told that I would not be able to document my ancestors before 1870. I was told that I would not find them married after enslavement. I was told that I did not need to search for them on land deeds or even in newspapers. These are the things that I was told. Let me say that if I had entertained any of what I was told, I would not have had the findings presented in this book. I did not listen, and I have found all but one of my ancestors married after enslavement. So, just remember when you have become a little down because you have made that overwhelming discovery and grandma just does not want to talk or people with the best intentions give the wrong advice. For these reasons, I have a habit of visiting courthouses, libraries, historical societies, and archives to see their resources in-person after I have exhausted researching online. Even with all that has been put online, I notice parts of collections. All the original documentation is kept at the repository. Do not get me wrong though. Databases such as familysearch.org and Ancestry.com are vital. FamilySearch Books, WorldCat.org, Internet Archive, and Amazon.com are places I have found my ancestors. Louisiana In 2016, Ellis and I went on an adventure to discover more about his family in Louisiana. We started out in New Orleans and discovered his Grandmother Louise’s parents after searching among the clerk of court records in East Feliciano Parish. Alabama Ellis and I also visited the Jefferson County, Alabama where Ellis found a plat map which showed his grandparents' property. Mississippi and North Carolina I will share my recent findings with you. They are a much harder group of people to research involving Buck Nelms (B. 1830) and his family from Mississippi and North Carolina back to 1841. For me oral history has played an integral part in my finding documentation. I have gathered many examples of historical records that you will want to know about so that you too can find your formerly enslaved ancestor.

I assist beginners and researchers who feel they need to start over. This is the second book, but there is no need to buy the first book. I have added the principles from the first book and added a ton more to My Best Genealogy Tips: Quick Keys to Research Ancestry, Book 2. I include some of the top questions asked by my Genealogy! Just Ask! Group. I walk you through getting an oral history interview, using historical records rather than family trees, and making sure you remember to include the things expert researchers have admittedly forgotten. You will avoid the common pitfalls many seasoned researchers have fallen into, such as what to do when you find a photo that you would like to use. We encourage you to tell us the most important family history - your own! Become proficient with the Research Wiki where you look for resources that match where your ancestors lived. I have answered thousands of questions from researchers around the globe. The things you learn in this book will enable you to help yourself.

The forgotten stories of America maroons—wilderness settlers evading discovery after escaping slavery Over more than two centuries men, women, and children escaped from slavery to make the Southern wilderness their home. They hid in the mountains of Virginia and the low swamps of South Carolina; they stayed in the neighborhood or paddled their way to secluded places; they buried themselves underground or built comfortable settlements. Known as maroons, they lived on their own or set up communities in swamps or other areas where they were not likely to be discovered. Although well-known, feared, celebrated or demonized at the time, the maroons whose stories are the subject of this book have been forgotten, overlooked by academic research that has focused on the Caribbean and Latin America. Who the American maroons were, what led them to choose this way of life over alternatives, what forms of marronage they created, what their individual and collective lives were like, how they organized themselves to survive, and how their particular story fits into the larger narrative of slave resistance are questions that this book seeks to answer. To survive, the American maroons reinvented themselves, defied slave society, enforced their own definition of freedom and dared create their own alternative to what the country had delineated as being black men and women’s proper place. Audacious, self-confident, autonomous, sometimes self-sufficient, always self-governing; their very existence was a repudiation of the basic tenets of slavery.

Designed for both professional and amateur genealogists and other researchers, this index provides a detailed guide to materials available in the extensive Records of Ante-Bellum Southern Plantations microfilm set. By using this index to identify specific collections in which materials pertinent to a specific family name, plantation name, or location may be found, and then reviewing the details in the appropriate Guides (see Preface), the researcher may pinpoint the location of desired materials. The items indexed include deeds, wills, estate papers, genealogies, personal and business correspondence, account books, slave lists, and many other types of records. This new edition also includes a list of all of the manuscript collections included in the microfilm set.

The Southern Claims Commission was the agency established to process more than 20,000 claims by pro-Union Southerners for reimbursement of their losses during the Civil War. The present work is a "master index" to the case files of the Commission. The index gives, in tabular form, the name of the claimant, his county and state, the Commission number, office number and report number, and the year and the status of the claim.

Drawing on the federal census, wills, mortgage bills of sale, tax returns, and newspaper advertisements, this authoritative study describes the nature of African-American slaveholding, its complexity, and its rationales. It reveals how some African-American slave masters had earned their freedom and how some free Blacks purchased slaves for their own use. The book provides a fresh perspective on slavery in the antebellum South and underscores the importance of African Americans in the history of American slavery. The book also paints a picture of the complex social dynamics between free and enslaved Blacks, and between Black and white slaveowners. It illuminates the motivations behind African-American slaveholding--including attempts to create or maintain independence, to accumulate wealth, and to protect family members--and sheds light on the harsh realities of slavery for both Black masters and Black slaves. • BLACK SLAVEOWNERS--Shows how some African Americans became slave masters • MOTIVATIONS FOR SLAVEHOLDING--Highlights the motivations behind African-American slaveholding • SOCIAL DYNAMICS--Sheds light on the complex social dynamics between free and enslaved Blacks • ANEBELLUM SOUTH--Provides a perspective on slavery in the antebellum South

Proven Solutions for Your Research Challenges Has your family history research hit a brick wall? Marsha Hoffman Rising's bestselling book The Family Tree Problem Solver has the solutions to help you find the answers you seek. Inside you'll find: · Work-arounds for lost or destroyed records · Techniques for finding ancestors with common names · Ideas on how to find vital records before civil registration began · Advice for how to interpret and use your DNA results · Tips for finding individuals “missing” from censuses · Methods for finding ancestors who lived before 1850 · Strategies for analyzing your research problem and putting together a practical research plan This revised edition also includes new guides to record hints from companies like AncestryDNA. Plus you'll find a glossary of genealogy terms and case studies that put the book’s advice into action.

"I teach the kings of their ancestors so that the lives of the ancients might serve them as an example, for the world is old but the future springs from the past." Mamadou Kouyate "Sundiata", An Epic of Old Mali, a.d. 1217-1257 Two major questions of the ages are: Who am I? and Where am I going? From the moment the first African slaves were dragged onto these shores, these questions have become increasingly harder for African-Americans to answer. To find the answers, you first must discover where you have been, you must go back to your family tree--but you must dig through rocky layers of lost information, of slavery--to find your roots. During the Great Migration in the 1940s, when African-Americans fled the strangling hands of Jim Crow for the relative freedoms of the North, many tossed away or buried the painful memories of their past. As we approach the new millennium, African-Americans are reaching back to uncover where we have been, to help us determine where we are going. Finding a Place Called Homeis a comprehensive guide to finding your African-American roots and tracing your family tree. Written in a clear, conversational, and accessible style, this book shows you, step-by-step, how to find out who your family was and where they came from. Beginning with your immediate family, Dr. Dee Parmer Woodtor gives you all the necessary tools to dig up your past: how to interview family members; how to research your past using census reports, slave schedules, property deeds, and courthouse records; and how to find these records. Using the Internet for genealogical research is also discussed in this timely and necessary book. Finding a Place Called Home helps you find your family tree, and helps place it in the context of the garden of African-American people. As you learn how to find your own history, you learn the history of all Africans in the Americas, including the Caribbean, and how to benefit from a new understanding of your family's history, and your people's. Finding a Place Called Home also discusses the growing family reunion movement and other ways to clebrate newly discovered family history. Tomorrow will always lie ahead of us if we don't forget yesterday. Finding a Place Called Home shows how to retrieve yesterday to free you for all of your tomorrows. Finding a Place Called Home: An African-American Guide to Genealogy and Historical Identitytakes us back, step-by-step, including: Methods of searching and interpreting records, such as marriage, birth, and death certificates, census reports, slave schedules, church records, and Freedmen's Bureau information. Interviewing and taking inventory of family members Using the Internet for genealogical purposes Information on tracing Caribbean ancestry

America’s top cleaning expert and star of the hit series Legacy List with Matt Paxton distills his fail-proof approach to decluttering and downsizing. Your boxes of photos, family’s china, and even the kids' height charts aren’t just stuff; they’re attached to a lifetime of memories--and letting them go can be scary. With empathy, expertise, and humor, Keep the Memories, Lose the Stuff, written in collaboration with AARP, helps you sift through years of clutter, let go of what no longer serves you, and identify the items worth keeping so that you can focus on living in the present. For over 20 years, Matt Paxton has helped people from all walks of life who want to live more simply declutter and downsize. As a featured cleaner on Hoarders and host of the Emmy-nominated Legacy List with Matt Paxton on PBS, he has identified the psychological roadblocks that most organizational experts routinely miss but that prevent so many of us from lightening our material load. Using poignant stories from the thousands of individuals and families he has worked with, Paxton brings his signature insight to a necessary task. Whether you’re tired of living with clutter, making space for a loved one, or moving to a smaller home or retirement community, this book is for you. Paxton’s unique, step-by-step process gives you the tools you need to get the job done.

Mississippi to Africa captures Collier's fourteen-year journey in unearthing the buried history of his maternal grandmother's family - a journey that took him back seven generations, from northern Mississippi to the Piedmont hills of South Carolina, and even back to a specific people and region in West Africa where his ancestry undoubtedly began. Trekking the paths of his ancestors and their displaced relatives before Emancipation (1863), this emotion-filled journey traversed down an intricate paper trail of federal, state, and local records, other public records, and oral histories, presented in a narrative style to inspire, entice, and propel readers into the fascinating world of genealogy and historical discoveries. Collier also uncovered the ways in which his ancestors ingeniously retained aspects of their African heritage. DNA technology confirmed his research findings and verified ancestral ties. The reader will gain many research tips and techniques along the journey.