Trace Your African American Ancestry Free eBook

While African American genealogy can bring with it some real challenges, the rewards make it well worth the effort. If you have African American ancestry, whether slaves or freedmen, there’s a good chance that with the right approach and a bit of patience, you can find documentation of their lives.

In this ebook, we’ve compiled six articles from Family Tree Magazine that provide plenty of search strategies for finding your African American family history. With these techniques and tools in hand, you can craft a strong research plan that will put you on the road to success.

Each of these articles lays out specific approaches to find your African American ancestry, ranging from researching both your ancestors’ and the owner’s family to running searches in the Freedmens’ Bureau Records. You’ll also discover strategies for following those African American ancestors who moved north during the Great Migration and 11 ways the black press can give you the scoop on your family history.

What’s inside the Trace Your African American Ancestry ebook?

Guide #1: Trace Your African American Roots

Your ancestors didn’t work in a vacuum, and neither should you. The first strategy the author suggests is joining genealogical groups and societies related to researching your African American ancestry.

Guide #2: Invisible Ancestors

Slavery may have obscured the name of your African American ancestors, but you can begin to rediscover them. In this article, you’ll discover 4 strategies that will lead you to researching 12 different types of records.

Guide #3: Tracing Slave Ancestors

Kenyatta Berry’s techniques will help you push past those barriers that obscured your ancestor’s identity, and the helpful timeline in the article provides a quick overview of the major historical events affecting slaves, right up until 1865.

Guide #4: Finding Freedom

The records of the Freedmen’s Bureau can help you discover freed slaves in your family tree. This article outlines the strategies for searching those records.

Guide #5: Moving On

Were your African American ancestors part of the massive migration to Northern cities in the early 20th Century? If so, this article will provide your roadmap to retracing their steps.

Guide #6: Answers in African American Newspapers

Get the scoop on your African American ancestry with these 11 approaches to African-American newspapers.

Finally, you’ll get a sense of some of the historically significant events that affected your African American ancestors and may have generated records. With plenty of links, resources and examples, this 40-page ebook is packed with information!