Presenter Sharon Leslie Morgan TEACH basics of family research -- - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Presenter Sharon Leslie Morgan

• TEACH basics of family research -- special focus on

African American research techniques

• DISCUSS how genealogy contributes to healing from

America’s legacy of slavery

• Genealogy = record of your ancestors
• when they were born
• where they lived
• who they married
• who their children were
• where you fit in your family tree
• Terms “genealogy” & “family history”

are interchangeable

• Genealogists need to be historians as

well as genealogists!

• HELPS understand who you are
• TEACHES research skills & discipline
• HELPS find & embrace lost family
• BRINGS people to life by humanizing

them with names & faces

• ENHANCES self esteem
• HELPS heal wounds of our past

• Slavery = systematic

exploitation of labor

"Throughout history, slavery and the slave trade have existed in diverse forms and in many

• societies. In view of its duration, scope, and

consequences, the transatlantic slave trade is widely regarded as one of the most appalling tragedies in the history of humanity.”

Koïchiro Matsuura Director-General, UNESCO International Day for the Commemoration Slavery PRIMARY driver of American economic development PRIMARY source of American wealth ALL of America -- North & South complicit in building/sharing wealth generated by slavery

• 500,000 Africans transported

via “Triangular Trade”

• 250,000 African Americans

“free” in 1860

• 4 million emancipated in

1865 after Civil War

• 42+ million descendants

alive today

• Slaves defined as “chattel” = property not human beings
• Slaves held against will from time of capture, purchase, or birth
• Deprived of right to leave, refuse to work, or receive compensation for their labor
• Enslavement was permanent
• Children enslaved based on status of mother
• Slavery dehumanized entire race of people based on color of their skin
• Slavery severed & obscured family connections

• 1860 -- 394,000 people held 4 million

people in bondage

• 1 in 70 were slaveholders
• Average slaveholding was 10 people
• Owners of 200+ slaves less than 1% of total

but held 20-30% of all slaves

• 80% of free adult males in South did

not own slaves

• Most slaveholders were Scotch-Irish

49% of 55 delegates to Constitutional Convention

• wned slaves

12 of first 18 American presidents

• wned slaves

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.”

~ Thomas Jefferson

“Triangular trade” connected economies of four continents Europe, Africa, North and South America + islands in between

• Continued for 4 centuries (15th-19th)
• 12+ million people stolen from Africa
• 3+ million perished in Middle Passage
• 500,000+ enslaved in North America

• 1.2 million enslaved people displaced from Atlantic states to deep South

due to westward expansion & explosion of cotton as cash crop

• Richmond VA = center of domestic slave trade (1830-1860)

To be “sold down the river” was a fate worse than death

Civil War recovery effort after Emancipation (1865-1877) Goal to redress political, social and economic inequities of slavery

• Freedman’s Bureau of Refugees,

Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands created

• Black people allowed to vote & elected to

political offices throughout the South

• Schools like Tuskegee Institute established

to address illiteracy & provide training

• Serious discussions about reparations

• After Emancipation, former

slaveholders divided plantations into plots suitable for single family farming

• Former slaves worked subsistence

farms on same land & for same “masters” who had enslaved them

• In exchange for land, living

quarters & supplies, sharecroppers raised cash crops (usually cotton) & gave half to their landlord

• It was a new form of economic

dependence & poverty

Racial segregation laws circumscribed lives & ambitions of African Americans for 100+ years

• 4,730 people lynched (1882-1951)
• 3,437 Negroes
• 1,293 whites
• Men, women & children included
• Anti-lynching crusade led by African

American organizations (1890s-1930s)

• Many instances of lynching recorded to

1988… and beyond

1877-1940 countless black men, women & children victims of “debt slavery.”

1916-1930

7+ million African Americans migrated out of South > North, Midwest & West 1940-1970 Another 1.6 million people changed location from South > North ❖ Reverse migration in progress ❖ 300,000+ black people returned South from 2005-2010

• EUROPE & AMERICA
• Enriched
• Wealth of western world built on slavery
• AFRICA
• Impoverished & devastated
• Removal of able-bodied people 18-40

impaired ability to reproduce economically, socially & culturally

• Without slavery, 1850 population of Africa

would have doubled

• Today’s poorest African countries are those

from which most slaves were taken

Continued disparities in every indicator of social well being

• Economics
• wealth gap
• unemployment
• poverty
• Health
• lifespan 5½ years shorter
• infant mortality 146% higher
• Education
• College degree+ 59% lower
• Incarceration
• 13% of population/65% of prisoners

• Tom LESLIE & Rhoda REEVES

born into slavery circa 1850

• Upon emancipation, Tom, Rhoda &

her mother, Easter, departed plantation @ Lowndes County AL

• Moved to Opelika AL -- married in

1871 & started a family

• By 1890, living @ Montgomery AL,

where my father was born in 1914

GAVIN Bettie Owen Catherine Seborn HUGHES Alsey LESLIE Tom MORASS Harriet NICHOLSON Samuel Count Lucy Virgil OWEN Alsey REEVES Easter Rhoda WILLIAMS Jem Susie

• Bettie sold as 9-year-old child
• Transported to MS
• Had 17 children with nephew of

her owner Allen GAVIN = Robert GAVIN

• GAVIN family arrived in America

in 1695 as indentured servants

• Migrated SC > MS
• Descendants collectively enslaved

125+ people @ AL & MS

• Family trees grow exponentially
• Numbers double in each generation

= 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64…

• After 10 generations, there should be

1,024 great grandparents

• 10 generations LOST for

African Americans!

Sharon Antonia Leslie (1951 – living)

• Family stories are essential
• They always contain a grain of truth
• Interview oldest relatives before they pass away

Recommended software

Authoritative guide by America’s #1 African American genealogist

• ONLINE
• FREE
• FamilySearch.org
• SUBSCRIPTION
• Ancestry.com
• Fold3.com
• OFFLINE
• State archives
• County courthouses
• Libraries
• Historical societies

• US government census every

10 years

• First census taken in 1790
• 1870 first census to record

African Americans as PEOPLE with surnames

• By 1880, many moved and/or

changed surnames

• Many African Americans did

not participate in census, either because of rural locations or fear of being identified

• 1940 most recent census

released to public

1880 Census LESLIE family @ Opelika AL

• Slaves counted on US

censuses from 1790

• 1850 & 1860 schedules

most useful to African American researchers

GAVIN family collectively owned 125+ people @ Noxubee in 1860

• Local enumerations

conducted in Southern states in 1866 after Civil War

• Many states conduct

censuses in interim years between Federal counts

Tom LESLIE & Easter REEVES @ Lowndes County AL

Arthur LESLIE - 1914 @ Montgomery AL

• BMD records kept at

county level

• Not required in most

states until 1912

• Many people born

before 1900 do not have birth certificates because they were born at home by midwife

Tom & Rhoda LESLIE - 1871 @ Opelika AL

Tom LESLIE - 1939 @ Montgomery AL Rhoda LESLIE - 1954 @ Chicago IL

WWI Draft Registration – Robert LESLIE Sr. WWII Draft Registration – Robert LESLIE Jr.

Thomas RIVES Estate Inventory Tom & Harriett - 1864 @ Dallas County AL

• Enslaved people bequeathed

in wills, gifted to relatives, mortgaged & sold to satisfy debts

• County courthouses maintain

estate files that include annual “distribution reports”

African Americans must research slaveholder records!

• Newspapers
• Family Bibles
• Cemetery cards
• Social Security files
• Employment records
• Southern Claims Commission
• Freedmen’s Bureau
• WPA slave narratives
• Peonage files
• City directories
• Tax records
• Insurance records
• Criminal records
• School records
• Church records
• Associations & clubs

• Not commonly available until 1850s
• Luxury for poor people

• 5 Civilized Tribes
• Cherokee
• Choctaw
• Chickasaw
• Creek
• Seminole
• Melungeons

PROVE who you are related to & where your family originated

Makua East Africa Scotsman Scotland Mandinka West Africa

• Y-DNA = father > son
• mtDNA = mother > daughter
• Autosomal DNA = both sides

• Traumatic experiences leave molecular

scars that adhere to DNA

• Africans who survived slavery
• Jews who endured Holocaust
• Chinese whose grandparents

experienced Cultural Revolution

• Our experiences and those of our

forbears are never gone, even if they have been forgotten

• 1870 = first census to record African

Americans as people w/surnames

• Prior records document “property”

rather than “people”

• Research issues to consider
• Geographic movement
• Fluid surnames
• Non-married partnerships
• Fictive relationships
• Lost siblings & other family members
• Unmarked graves

Bettie WARFE/GAVIN 1870 Farmhand @ Noxubee MS Next door to father of her children

• 15% of African Americans

kept surname of last slave

• wner
• Others chose names of
• previous owner
• first owner
• someone they admired
• skill they possessed
• Some simply made up a

name they liked

• Before 1870 most enslaved

people did not have public surnames

• They were identified by

surnames of owners & these names often changed

• Related family members often

took different names One thing for sure…. African Americans did not depart Africa with European names – first or last!

NETTIE RULE Search 1870 census – 10 up & 10 down – In doing so, you are likely to find most recent slaveholder

• Find ancestor in 1870 census
• Search slaveholder records to

prove connection

• Wills
• Deeds
• Court cases
• Insurance records

• WORK from known to unknown
• SEARCH ALL records
• CONNECT name, date & location
• DO line-by-line census reads
• Look for family groups
• Look at neighbors
• Check neighboring counties
• DO NOT blindly accept online references
• DOCUMENT all sources
• DO NOT lose faith (ancestors will guide you)

• RACISM
• Belief in European

superiority fueled Native American genocide & African slavery

• Engendered a SYSTEM

that endures

• Black people endured
• Kidnapping
• Enslavement
• Family destruction
• Cruelty
• Medical experimentation
• Sterilization
• Lynching
• Criminalization
• Discrimination
• Disenfranchisment

Cumulative emotional harm caused by traumatic experiences over generations

Adaptive behaviors enabled African Americans to survive centuries of abuse

White People

Adaptive behaviors enabled white people to build a system based on racism & inequity

Black People Victims ~ Perpetrators ~ Witnesses

RESOURCE: www.gatheratthetable.net

• Transform “done wrong” to “done right”
• Resolution transforms people, relationships &

communities

• Who was harmed?
• What was the harm?
• How can harm be repaired?
• How can BOTH sides contribute to justice process?

Truth HURTS before it HEALS!

• Visit “home places” to obtain documents &

gain appreciation for your family history

• There is nothing like walking in the footsteps of

ancestors upon whose shoulders we stand

“We are not dead as long as someone remembers our name.”

~ African Proverb

• Genealogy challenges are

called “brick walls”

• Primary one is deciding to do

the research

• After that, there are many
• bstacles to overcome
• You never know what is

insurmountable until you TRY!