Presenter Sharon Leslie Morgan
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Presenter Sharon Leslie Morgan
• TEACH basics of family research -- special focus on
African American research techniques
• DISCUSS how genealogy contributes to healing from
America’s legacy of slavery
• Genealogy = record of your ancestors
• when they were born
• where they lived
• who they married
• who their children were
• where you fit in your family tree
• Terms “genealogy” & “family history”
are interchangeable
• Genealogists need to be historians as
well as genealogists!
• HELPS understand who you are
• TEACHES research skills & discipline
• HELPS find & embrace lost family
• BRINGS people to life by humanizing
them with names & faces
• ENHANCES self esteem
• HELPS heal wounds of our past
• Slavery = systematic
exploitation of labor
"Throughout history, slavery and the slave trade PRIMARY driver of American economic development
PRIMARY source of American wealth
have existed in diverse forms and in many
societies. In view of its duration, scope, and
consequences, the transatlantic slave trade is
widely regarded as one of the most appalling
tragedies in the history of humanity.”
Koïchiro Matsuura
Director-General, UNESCO
International Day for the Commemoration Slavery
ALL of America -- North & South
complicit in building/sharing wealth generated by slavery
• 500,000 Africans transported via “Triangular Trade” • 250,000 African Americans “free” in 1860 • 4 million emancipated in 1865 after Civil War • 42+ million descendants alive today
• Slaves defined as “chattel” = property not human beings
• Slaves held against will from time of capture, purchase, or birth
• Deprived of right to leave, refuse to work, or receive compensation for their labor
• Enslavement was permanent
• Children enslaved based on status of mother
• Slavery dehumanized entire race of people based on color of their skin
• Slavery severed & obscured family connections
• 1860 -- 394,000 people held 4 million
people in bondage
• 1 in 70 were slaveholders
• Average slaveholding was 10 people
• Owners of 200+ slaves less than 1% of total
but held 20-30% of all slaves
• 80% of free adult males in South did
49% of 55 delegates to not own slaves
Constitutional Convention
owned slaves • Most slaveholders were Scotch-Irish
12 of first 18
American presidents
owned slavesI tremble for my country when I
reflect that God is just; that his
justice cannot sleep forever.”
~ Thomas Jefferson• Continued for 4 centuries (15th-19th)
• 12+ million people stolen from Africa
• 3+ million perished in Middle Passage
• 500,000+ enslaved in North America
“Triangular trade”
connected economies of four continents
Europe, Africa, North and South America
+ islands in between• 1.2 million enslaved people displaced from Atlantic states to deep South
due to westward expansion & explosion of cotton as cash crop
• Richmond VA = center of domestic slave trade (1830-1860)
To be “sold down the river” was a fate worse than deathCivil War recovery effort after Emancipation (1865-1877)
Goal to redress political, social and economic inequities of slavery
• Freedman’s Bureau of Refugees,
Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands created
• Black people allowed to vote & elected to
political offices throughout the South
• Schools like Tuskegee Institute established
to address illiteracy & provide training
• Serious discussions about reparations• After Emancipation, former
slaveholders divided plantations
into plots suitable for single family
farming
• Former slaves worked subsistence
farms on same land & for same
“masters” who had enslaved them
• In exchange for land, living
quarters & supplies, sharecroppers
raised cash crops (usually cotton)
& gave half to their landlord
• It was a new form of economic
dependence & povertyRacial segregation laws circumscribed lives & ambitions of African
Americans for 100+ years• 4,730 people lynched (1882-1951)
• 3,437 Negroes
• 1,293 whites
• Men, women & children included
• Anti-lynching crusade led by African
American organizations (1890s-1930s)
• Many instances of lynching recorded to
1988… and beyond1877-1940
countless black men, women & children
victims of “debt slavery.”1916-1930
7+ million African Americans
migrated out of South
> North, Midwest & West
1940-1970
Another 1.6 million people changed
location from South > North
❖ Reverse migration in progress
❖ 300,000+ black people returned
South from 2005-2010• EUROPE & AMERICA
Continued disparities
in every indicator of social well being
• Enriched
• Wealth of western world built on slavery
• Economics
• AFRICA • wealth gap
• unemployment
• Impoverished & devastated • poverty
• Removal of able-bodied people 18-40 • Health
impaired ability to reproduce economically,
• lifespan 5½ years shorter
socially & culturally
• infant mortality 146% higher
• Without slavery, 1850 population of Africa
would have doubled
• Education
• College degree+ 59% lower
• Today’s poorest African countries are those
from which most slaves were taken • Incarceration
• 13% of population/65% of prisonersGAVIN
Bettie
Owen
Catherine
Seborn
HUGHES
• Tom LESLIE & Rhoda REEVES Alsey
born into slavery circa 1850
LESLIE
• Upon emancipation, Tom, Rhoda &
Tom
her mother, Easter, departed
plantation @ Lowndes County AL MORASS
• Moved to Opelika AL -- married in Harriet
1871 & started a family
NICHOLSON
• By 1890, living @ Montgomery AL, Samuel
where my father was born in 1914 Count
Lucy
Virgil
OWEN
Alsey
REEVES
Easter
Rhoda
WILLIAMS
Jem
Susie• Bettie sold as 9-year-old child • GAVIN family arrived in America
• Transported to MS in 1695 as indentured servants
• Had 17 children with nephew of • Migrated SC > MS
her owner Allen GAVIN = • Descendants collectively enslaved
Robert GAVIN 125+ people @ AL & MS• Family trees grow exponentially
• Numbers double in each generation
= 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64…
• After 10 generations, there should be
1,024 great grandparents
• 10 generations LOST for
African Americans!
Sharon Antonia Leslie
(1951 – living)• Family stories are essential • They always contain a grain of truth • Interview oldest relatives before they pass away
Recommended software Authoritative guide by America’s #1 African American genealogist
• ONLINE • OFFLINE
• FREE • State archives
• FamilySearch.org • County courthouses
• SUBSCRIPTION
• Libraries
• Ancestry.com
• Historical societies
• Fold3.com• US government census every
10 years
• First census taken in 1790
• 1870 first census to record
African Americans as
PEOPLE with surnames
• By 1880, many moved and/or
changed surnames
• Many African Americans did
not participate in census, either
because of rural locations or
fear of being identified
• 1940 most recent census
released to public
1880 Census
LESLIE family @ Opelika AL• Slaves counted on US
censuses from 1790
• 1850 & 1860 schedules
most useful to African
American researchers
GAVIN family collectively owned
125+ people @ Noxubee in 1860• Local enumerations
conducted in Southern
states in 1866 after
Civil War
• Many states conduct
censuses in interim
years between Federal
counts
Tom LESLIE & Easter REEVES
@ Lowndes County AL• BMD records kept at
county level
• Not required in most
states until 1912
• Many people born
before 1900 do not
have birth certificates
because they were
born at home by
midwife
Arthur LESLIE - 1914 @ Montgomery ALTom & Rhoda LESLIE - 1871 @ Opelika AL
Tom LESLIE - 1939 @ Montgomery AL Rhoda LESLIE - 1954 @ Chicago IL
WWI Draft Registration – Robert LESLIE Sr. WWII Draft Registration – Robert LESLIE Jr.
African Americans must
research slaveholder records!
• Enslaved people bequeathed
in wills, gifted to relatives,
mortgaged & sold to satisfy
debts
• County courthouses maintain
estate files that include annual
“distribution reports”
Thomas RIVES Estate Inventory
Tom & Harriett - 1864 @ Dallas County AL• Newspapers • Family Bibles • Cemetery cards • Social Security files • Employment records • Southern Claims Commission • Freedmen’s Bureau • WPA slave narratives • Peonage files • City directories • Tax records • Insurance records • Criminal records • School records • Church records • Associations & clubs
• Not commonly available until 1850s • Luxury for poor people
• 5 Civilized Tribes
• Cherokee
• Choctaw
• Chickasaw
• Creek
• Seminole
• MelungeonsPROVE who you are related to & where your family originated
• Y-DNA = father > son
• mtDNA = mother > daughter
• Autosomal DNA = both sides
Makua Mandinka Scotsman
East Africa West Africa Scotland• Traumatic experiences leave molecular
scars that adhere to DNA
• Africans who survived slavery
• Jews who endured Holocaust
• Chinese whose grandparents
experienced Cultural Revolution
• Our experiences and those of our
forbears are never gone, even if they
have been forgotten• 1870 = first census to record African
Americans as people w/surnames
• Prior records document “property”
rather than “people”
• Research issues to consider
• Geographic movement
• Fluid surnames
• Non-married partnerships
• Fictive relationships
• Lost siblings & other family members
• Unmarked graves
Bettie WARFE/GAVIN
1870 Farmhand @ Noxubee MS
Next door to father of her children• 15% of African Americans
• Before 1870 most enslaved kept surname of last slave
people did not have public owner
surnames • Others chose names of
• They were identified by • previous owner
surnames of owners & these • first owner
names often changed • someone they admired
• Related family members often • skill they possessed
took different names
• Some simply made up a
name they liked
One thing for sure….
African Americans did not depart Africa with European names – first or last!• Find ancestor in 1870 census
• Search slaveholder records to
prove connection
• Wills
• Deeds
• Court cases
• Insurance records
NETTIE RULE
Search 1870 census
– 10 up & 10 down –
In doing so, you are likely to find
most recent slaveholder• WORK from known to unknown
• SEARCH ALL records
• CONNECT name, date & location
• DO line-by-line census reads
• Look for family groups
• Look at neighbors
• Check neighboring counties
• DO NOT blindly accept online references
• DOCUMENT all sources
• DO NOT lose faith (ancestors will guide you)• RACISM
• Belief in European
superiority fueled
Native American
genocide & African
slavery
• Engendered a SYSTEM
that enduresCumulative emotional harm
caused by traumatic experiences over generations
• Black people endured
• Kidnapping
• Enslavement
• Family destruction
• Cruelty
• Medical experimentation
• Sterilization
• Lynching
• Criminalization
• Discrimination
• DisenfranchismentVictims ~ Perpetrators ~ Witnesses
Black People White People
Adaptive behaviors enabled African Adaptive behaviors enabled white
Americans to survive centuries of people to build a system based on
abuse racism & inequityRESOURCE: www.gatheratthetable.net
• Transform “done wrong” to “done right”
• Resolution transforms people, relationships &
communities
• Who was harmed?
• What was the harm?
• How can harm be repaired?
• How can BOTH sides contribute to justice process?
Truth HURTS before it HEALS!• Visit “home places” to obtain documents &
gain appreciation for your family history
• There is nothing like walking in the footsteps of
ancestors upon whose shoulders we stand“We are not dead as long as someone remembers our name.”
~ African Proverb• Genealogy challenges are
called “brick walls”
• Primary one is deciding to do
the research
• After that, there are many
obstacles to overcome
• You never know what is
insurmountable until you
TRY!You can also read
