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January 27, 2020

Helping African Americans Find Lost Ancestor

1864 Reciept for Shoes for Slaves
The Names of 1.8 Million Emancipated Slaves Are Now Searchable.

The Freedman’s Bureau Project and FamilySearch allows African Americans to recover their family history in a database that now includes “the names of nearly 1.8 million men, women and children” recorded by Freedman’s Bureau workers and entered by Freedman’s Bureau Project volunteers 150 years later. 

This database will give millions of people descended from both former slaves and white Civil War refugees the ability to find their ancestors.

Read more at Open Culture


2 comments:

Sue said...

Those of us that have ancestors that lived during the early years of this country and even into the 1800's may have information about slave names that were found in wills of those ancestors. I know I have several here in NJ.

Is there a place that I can send these names to add to the database? Finding my family is a wonderful experience. I would like African Americans to be able to find theirs.

sue

Linda said...

Let me know if you find of a place to share this information, my Runyon ancestors in NJ left instructions about slaves in their wills. I also have seen them mentioned in Massachusetts and Connecticut wills.