Discover Freedman

You can still see the systemic ripples of slavery and racism even in the seemingly benign world of genealogy. Nameless for generations and only recently have some of the richest records been made more widely accessible. As was said at the dedication ceremony on December 6th, 2016, “For the first time in history, African Americans can now bridge the gap between freedom and slavery and reunite their families — on paper — that were once torn apart by slavery.” From June 2015 to June 2016 over 25,000 volunteers indexed 1.8 million names of formerly enslaved people. You can search these fantastic records at http://www.discoverfreedmen.org/ and even sign up to contribute to the ongoing word-for-word transcription project.