Researching Your African American Ancestors

The names of enslaved people in the United States were rarely recorded. This can make researching your African American ancestors hard. It is not impossible though because there are many resources available to help you in your search at the BPL and beyond.

Books at the BPL

Census Records

Census records are often a useful resource in researching ancestors. While information for slaves was not fully recorded, information for free black Americans was included in the Census prior to the end of the Civil War.

The 1870 Census was the first U.S. Census to include the names of all African Americans recorded by the census takers. It is also an important link between pre- and post-Civil War records.

List of Free Black Heads of Families in 1st Census of United States, 1790 - Available upon request in the Washington Room at the Central Library in Copley Square
United States Census, 1870 - From FamilySearch.org

The Freedmen's Bureau

The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, more commonly known as the Freedmen's Bureau, was in operation from 1865 to 1872. Its purpose was to provide assistance to the recently freed slaves and their families in the U.S. Freedmen’s Bureau records can help to provide a link between the pre- and post-Civil War records of African American ancestors.

Freedmen's Bureau Records - From FamilySearch.org, a database produced as a result of the Freedmen's Bureau Project
African American Records: Freedmen's Bureau - From the National Archives
Freedmen's Bureau Search Portal - From the National Museum of African American History & Culture

General Resources

International African American Museum Center for Family History - Includes photos, videos, articles, a helpful blog, and a growing collection of funeral programs, obituaries, historical documents, and family histories.
Lowcountry Africana: African American Genealogy in SC, GA and FL - Free website dedicated to African American genealogy and history in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.
Umbra Search- African American History - 794,792 items from more than 1,000 U.S. archives, libraries, and museums.

Government Resources

Enslaved Bostonians - From the City of Boston's Archaeology Department, a list of known enslaved people living in Boston from 1641-1789
National Archives
- African American Heritage - Highlights resources available online, in programs, and through traditional and social media
- African Americans - Reference Reports - Describes research strategies for some of the most frequently used records relating to African American genealogy, including service in the United States Colored Troops (USCT), Buffalo soldiers, District of Columbia emancipation records, the Freedmen's Bureau, Freedman's Bank, and WPA Slave Narratives.

Research Guides

African American Genealogy - From the New England Historic Genealogical Society
African American Genealogy - From Family Search
African American Genealogy - From the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore
Roots Revealed: Viewing African American History Through a Genealogical Lens - From genealogist and author Melvin Collier, a blog with guidance on researching African American family history

Slavery

Digital Library on American Slavery - From University of North Carolina Greensboro, includes include court and legislative documents, information on 35,000 slave-trade voyages, and North Carolina runaway-slave advertisements and deeds.
Enslaved: Peoples of the Historical Slave Trade - Includes more than 950,000 searchable records relating to those who were enslaved, owned slaves, or participated in the slave trade
Freedom on the Move - A database of "runaway ads," advertisements placed in newspapers by enslavers trying to find self-liberating people.
Northeast Slavery Records Index (NESRI) - A searchable compilation of records that identify individual enslaved persons and enslavers in the states of New York, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Jersey.
Slave Voyages - Includes databases charting Trans-Atlantic and Intra-American slave trades.

Societies

Center for Family History - Part of the International African American Museum
Genealogy 101- Resources from the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society
Our Black Ancestry - A nonprofit organization dedicated to providing resources for African American genealogical research, preserving historic materials and properties, and promoting healing of wounds that are the legacy of slavery.
Resources - From the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society – New England Chapter