by AGS member Judith Rapping
The month of February 2022 opens up a whole new level of rich resources for those of us learning about and researching African American ancestry, whether just getting started or well into our discoveries.
And Albuquerque is no exception!
The Albuquerque Genealogy Society has added African American research to our “Special Interest Groups” (or SIGS, as we call them), which conduct research focused on specific areas of interest. Whether you are of African descent and learning about your family (even which tribal groups you may descend from in Africa!), or have an interest in your ancestors’ military background (with possible ties to Black Civil War units, or Buffalo Soldiers who served in the American West), or a person of European descent who may have found some newly-discovered African DNA, or who has delved into your American ancestry and discovered one of your ancestors held enslaved people, and would like to know more about who they were and how you can learn and grow from this new information, this is an important, exciting, and rapidly developing field. And the resources abound!
AGS has 1-on-1 research consultations on the 3rd Tuesday, 3rd Saturday, and last Tuesday Research Days of each month, as well as the African American Research SIG on the second Saturday of each month, all with individual researchers ready, willing and able to help you jump into your own research.
Locally, the Albuquerque Museum is sponsoring “The Rising Sun: The Journey of African American Homesteaders in New Mexico” through July 10, 2022, and KTAL Radio (101.5 FM) is running “Las Cruces Stories” – about Mr. Clarence Felder of the Department of History at NMSU. The New Mexico Public Education Department is running a very good program on the African American town of Blackdom on its Black History Month series.
In addition, there are many wonderful internet programs, including Legacy Family Tree Webinars, which has an ever-growing number of webinars focusing on African American genealogy, including topics such as . . .
- “The Trifecta: The Secret Sauce of Researching the Formerly Enslaved” by Nicka Smith;
- “Researching During the Slave Era (1817-1865)” by Dr. Shelley Viola Murphy;
- “Court Records for People of Color,” also by Nika Smith; and
- “Afro-Latinex in the Old West” by Janice Lovelace
Also, the International African American Museum Center for Family History is running a program called “Finding Your Black Roots: 29 Ways in 29 Days”.
Here is one example of a census record found on the US Federal Census, 1870 Chillicothe, Hunting Township, Ohio. Line 13: Hemings, Madison 65, m farmer, b Virginia (with the enumerator’s handwritten note carefully added : This man is The Son of Thomas Jefferson).
As Bakari Sellers so eloquently put it, “Black History didn’t start with slavery, thank you very much.”
Come join us as we learn our history together!
