What are the best African-American Genealogy Websites?

I’m looking for the family of an ancestor past 1877, he was born that year in Texas, his father in Texas and his mother in S. Carolina, I believe either they or their parents were slaves, because they were born in the south. How do I find that out?

I am not African-American but having 22 years of genealogical experience, in the last 2 years I have significantly helped three different African-American families trace their ancestry. And in all three cases, the lines led to slavery.

To your great credit, it appears that you have done a significant amout of work already, having your family traced back to 1877.

Since you have information back to 1877, it is possible you can extend this back to 1860 – if only using the 1870 and 1860 census. Of course, nothing is guaranteed. If the records aren’t there, they aren’t there.

But prior to 1860 there are two different scenarios you can face.

The first is that your ancestors could be Freedmen. That is, they were granted their freedom from slavery at some point. If this is the case, then you are facing traditional genealogical research. As IF records exist, they will exist with surnames. We all hit brick walls, and even if they were Freedmen, that doesn’t ensure that there are any records or that the records have survived. Just as for any of us. One source you might check is the Freedman’s Bank records. Sometimes you get lucky and find a hit which provides some information. Other times, you might just find a name as the person was “signed up” but there were never any transactions made.

The more difficult scenario, emotionally and genealogically, is slavery. If you are facing slave ancestors, you are in for a very rough road. After the Civil War, former slaves adopted surnames. Many took the names of Presidents or famous historical Americans (Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, etc.) If your ancestors have one of those surnames, then the surname itself will not be of any use in subsequent research. However, some former slaves took the surname of their former owner (sometimes their favorite owner who may not have been their last owner). This also happened when a former slave considered their owner to be benevolent. [this shows an important point in researching slavery - you have to put yourself in the position of the former slave, not the position of today. Just the term "benevolent slaveowner" is almost oxymoronic today, yet something a former slave at that time could feel].

Unfortunately, the only real records of slaves come from the slave owners themselves. Finding the slaveowner is a formidable task. So formidable that many African-Americans having traced their family back to 1860 realize that’s as far as they can reasonably go. Slave records, when they exist at all, are almost exclusively either just by number of slaves or sometimes giving slave names (but only FIRST names as the slaves did not have surnames). Also, there is rarely any indication of slave relationship – as in a mother and son. It is very, very, very difficult. Another brick wall is that contrary to some popular opinion, slaves didn’t necessarily come from plantations or even major slave owners. For example, in Richmond, Va, many, many city households had one, two, or sometimes three slaves. These were household servants.

If you are facing slavery and really have the drive, desire and time to pursue this, I would strongly suggest looking up specific sites and organizations DEVOTED to such research. And there are some. But slavery research is one of the most formidable tasks there is in genealogy. I’ve been doing this for 22 years. But once I hit slavery in those families I helped, I clearly realized I was totally out of my league.

Clearing section “G” within the Brick Mill Cemetery

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