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How to Hire a Professional Genealogist You Can Trust
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on January 30, 2015. For this week’s column, we decided to address an option for going forward when you have taken your family tree research efforts as far as you can take them on your own. How Do You Find a Professional Genealogist You Can Trust? Maybe you’ve…
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Can I Find the Slave Ports Through Which My Ancestors Came?
Editor’s note: This story originally ran on Nov. 21, 2014. I am an amateur genealogy enthusiast seeking help with my family tree research. How can I find records of slave trading in the U.S.? I know my grandparents on both sides of the family were born in Mississippi and Tennessee, but I’m pretty sure their…
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How Far Back Does My Free-Black Heritage Go?
The farthest I’ve been able to trace my family history in Ohio is back to my fifth great-grandparents William H. Kinney and Henrietta Mason. I know that they were in Ohio before 1840, and since they showed up so early in census records, I wondered if they were born free. All of the records that…
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Why Does My African Family Have an English Name?
Both of my parents were born and raised in Monrovia, Liberia. For much of my life I thought that I was a mix of indigenous and Americo-Liberian ancestry. This summer I did the AncestryDNA genetic test. I knew the results would come back largely African, and they, in fact, came back at 100 percent. But…
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What’s the Story of a Portrait of My Slave Ancestor?
I am seeking help to learn more about my third great-grandmother Elizabeth Bettie Lane Dickey. She was raised on Orchard Pond Plantation in Tallahassee, Fla. Her husband’s name was Hanover Dickey, and her mother’s name was Maria Lane. Richard Keith Call (who served twice as governor of Florida) was the plantation owner of Orchard Pond…
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How Far Back Can You Trace My Black Family?
I have a lot of questions regarding my family’s history. With my grandfather’s recent passing, I was compelled to finally write in. My maternal grandparents, Woodrow Kimble Jr. and Martha Belle Kimble, were born and raised in Shreveport, La. My grandfather was born on Dec. 30, 1943, and died on Nov. 7 of this year.…
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Do Freedmen’s Bureau Records Show the Marriage of My Kin?
Many years ago, I located my maternal great-great-grandparents, Lucy Hoffman and Ben Hoffman, in census records for Mount Sterling, Ky. They are both listed in the 1870 census, with Lucy listed as being born circa 1803 in Georgia and Ben being born circa 1815 in Virginia. In the 1880 Mount Sterling census, only my great-great-grandmother…
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Can You Help My Dad Find His Father?
I’ve been trying to help my dad, Samuel D. Jones, locate his father. His mother, Amolene Hughes Jackson, passed in 2000; however, she wouldn’t provide any information on who his father is. His aunt also has been reluctant in providing information, though she said my dad’s grandfather is Eutah/Utah Jones and his father is Alious or Delious…
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Did My Black Ancestor Move Farther South During Slavery?
I am trying to trace the roots of my paternal great-great-grandfather, Lucien Joshua. He relayed to the census taker in 1900 that his parents were born in South Carolina. At the time of the census, he lived in Ascension Parish. According to oral history accounts given by older relatives in my family, Lucien changed his name…
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I Know Who Owned My Ancestors. What Now?
I’ve managed to trace my family ancestry back to an Adalin and Alex Vinson. The records I have state that Adalin (the spellings of her name vary) was born around 1825 and died around 1915. Alex was born around 1820 and died around 1878. They had quite a few children, including my great-great-grandmother Sabre. I…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
