 Okay, good morning. Again, my name's Damani Davis. I'm a reference archivist at the National Archives. And today I'm going to give you a very brief introduction to African-American research at the National Archives. Typically, my introduction to African-American research is one hour plus, so I'm going to try to squeeze this in as much as I can. Due to some of the popular television series of what who do you think you are? What was the other one? African-American lives. African-American lives and so forth. African-American genealogy has really skyrocketed over the past few years. We have a lot of new or beginning genealogists coming into the National Archives. Seeking to trace the African-American ancestors. A large part of what we do at the National Archives is a large aspect of what we do is basically explaining to people what the National Archives is. Much of the public doesn't have a clear idea of what distinguishes the National Archives from, say, the Library of Congress or the Schomburg local archives and so forth. So what is the National Archives? The National Archives is the repository of all the permanently valuable records, the permanently valuable non-current records of the federal government. That means all records generated by federal activity, all records generated by the host of federal agencies that you see around here in Washington, D.C. We are their archives. We're the archives of the federal government. So any of their records that are deemed permanently valuable from a legal perspective, in historical perspective, evidential perspective, if those records are deemed permanently valuable, meaning those independent agencies of the federal government are not allowed to destroy those records, they must then turn those records over to the National Archives. So that's basically what we are. We're the archives of the entire federal government. So when you're doing research at the National Archives, the basic question that you need to ask is, what potential contact may my ancestor have had with the federal government at any given point in time? So what will we not have at the National Archives? The National Archives does not have records of the slave trade. Again, slavery was a business, a private enterprise. African-American ancestors who were enslaved were basically property. And any documentation on those ancestors are no different than whatever basic property documents someone would have on their cattle or farm animals or whatever. That's basically the status of enslaved African-Americans. But then again, there were free African-Americans also. They will appear in some of the federal records. The National Archives does not have plantation records. Plantations were private property, private enterprises. There was no federal connection to plantations. So the National Archives will not have any of those records. Vital statistics, birth certificates, death certificates, marriage records, divorce records and so forth. The National Archives doesn't explicitly have many of those types of records. But there's a caveat with each of these. Although the National Archives doesn't have or has very few pre-emassipation records, the National Archives does have records that may answer some of these questions. For instance, even though we don't have vital statistics within certain records, there may be some type of document that tells when a person was born or when an individual died, when an individual got married and so forth. And if I have time, I'll try to show examples of those. As far as pre-emassipation records, the National Archives does hold records from several record groups that relate to the American, well the international slave trade or laws pertaining to slavery and certain court records mainly pertaining to Washington D.C. when Washington D.C. experienced this emancipation, the local D.C. emancipation in 1862 prior to the emancipation proclamation. Many of those records were administered by the federal courts here in D.C. Also, many of the manumission records and so forth in the surrounding areas of the D.C. area meaning rural Maryland, rural Virginia, the surrounding counties and oftentimes the district court here in D.C. was the closest court of record that people could go to in order to submit a manumission record, meaning if a person is freeing enslaved property on their own long before the local Emancipation Act. Those records are also available in the D.C. court records. Also, habeas corpus records. These are records of slaves who escaped, who ran away. Or some of these records pertain to the... Okay, with habeas corpus records, if some of these individuals were actually free, blacks who were accused of being slaves. Highlighting the fact that even if you were a free black, you had to have on your person at all times evidence of your freedom, meaning a certificate of freedom. If a person did not have that, they could risk being sold into slavery or jail and so forth. So, if they were captured in jail, they could sue for habeas corpus in order to prove that he or she was indeed a free person. Okay. We also have some slave manifests, very few that relate to customs records. After 1808, when there was no more importation of Africans from the continent, any vessel, any ship over 40 tons carrying slaves were required to file manifests at the ports of origin and destinations showing the name of the slave holder, as well as the name, age, and sex of each slave. These manifests exist for ports for the ports of Philadelphia, New Orleans, Mobile, Alabama, and Savannah, Georgia. But with these, there's not a lot of information. There are very few of these records. And as far as the names of the enslaved persons, it only gives their first names, their age, physical description, and so forth. Now, what do we have at the National Archives? The records that we have at the National Archives are primarily post-emancipation records. Of course, census records. That's the immediate federal record that anyone can go to and try to collect whatever information was presented. Military records. For African Americans, Freedmen's Bank records. Freedmen's Bureau records. Southern claims records. The records of the federal district course that I alluded to earlier, and land records. If any African American got land in what was considered a federal land state, or got land through the Homestead Act, a lot of this occurred in Kansas. Alabama had some federal land. Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and so forth. If any of them got land that was considered federal land state, we would have those land records at the National Archives. And I'll try to get into examples of those. Now, with the census records, again, before 1870, no enslaved person is counted in the census. In some of the census records there are slave schedules, but these are just documents in which under the name of the slave holder, the census is enumerating each of the slaves owned by that particular household. For the most part, no names or identifying information is given. The 1870 census is being the first census after the Civil War is going to be the first census in which all African Americans are officially counted. You know, in many of the census, African Americans are going to be missed or under counted and so forth, but the 1870 census is going to be the first one. One, some of the limitations of census records, of course, the information is not always accurate. Information is not always complete. People did not always cooperate with the census enumerator. And sometimes residents weren't home. They were traveling, moving, working and so forth, which might lead to them not being counted. Quickly, I'm going to give you some brief examples of the early census records. Here's an example of a 1790 census for Hartford County, Maryland. Just by the fact of these African Americans being counted in the census indicates that they were free if they were counted this early. But even with that, they're not, their names are not given entirely. They're just called, in this particular census, Negro Mingo, Negro Henry Brewer, Negro Ann, Negro Ned, Negro Sapia, Negro Violet, and so forth. Later census for Hartford County shows where free black households were then counted under the head of household, but it was categorized by white, free white households in this particular column and free colored households in this column. Only the head of household is given and each other member of the household is noted numerically. Okay, just a close-up version of that. Here's a free schedule for the District of Columbia and a slave schedule for Fockier County, Virginia. This one shows rare instances in which the slave is actually being named. This one, the owner is John H. Lewis. And, you know, all down the line, the names, the ages, and so forth, not the names, but the ages, sex, color, physical description, and so forth, of each slave is noted. In very rare instances, a first name may be given. Usually, it depended on something unusual or something that stood out on that particular slave. For this one, the slave is named. Slave George is written by his numbers, 50 years old, and it says idiotic from birth, indicating that he has some type of disability. Up here, the slave Tom is given under the owner Henry G. Delaney and Tom was unusual in that he was 100 years old. But those are very rare instances when any name is being given. Alright, records of the Freedmen's Bank, Freedmen's Bureau, okay? Well, Freedmen's Bank, these are very easy records to research at the National Archives. They're now available on Ancestry also. It gives really basic information that can be useful for anyone who's trying to fill in that gap, especially when you get to the 1870 census and trying to get past that roadblock there, that's where most African-Americans with enslaved ancestors reached the greatest level of difficulty. But the good thing about the Freedmen's Bank records is that they can give some information that can help clear up some of that missing information. This is an example of Henry Adams. Henry Adams was a fascinating individual from Louisiana who was involved. If anyone knows about it, it was about the exodusure movement when after the rise of violence in the South after reconstruction when white supremacists reasserted what they called redeeming the South from Negro participation, many African-Americans felt the only option they had was to try to leave the South and go somewhere where they could get their own land and have independence, create black towns, and so forth. Henry Adams was an individual who was highly involved in this process in Louisiana. So just on another project that I was working on tracing, that migration, I got some of the records that we have on Henry Adams. Here's an example of his Freedmen's Bank records where it gives just his basic information. The date is when he opened up his account, says he was born in Jasper County, Georgia, but he was raised in Louisiana. Just that tidbit of information shows migration, whether it was forced migration during slavery or voluntary migration that occurred in the early years after slavery. His residence at this time was Shreveport, Louisiana. He was aged 29 at the time. He gives us complexionist black occupation woodchopper, but for genealogical purposes, the good information is his family, the names of his family that he gives. His father was Samuel L. Carter, Mother Millie Carter, siblings James Carter who was still in Georgia, Dennis Winnie, and Nancy of Louisiana, Eli Carter of Robinson County, Texas, Squire Carter of DeSoto Parish, Louisiana, Nelson Zachariah, Catherine Collins, and Judy Peggs. So that's a lot of good information if you're a descendant of Henry Adams, for instance, who didn't have all of that information. Another example is for this person, Ruben Penel. The crucial piece of information that he gives in his Freedmen's Bank account, which is common in many of these accounts, is the name of his former master and mistress. For those researching as slave ancestors, that's the most valuable piece of information you can get because all of the records during slavery are going to be within, they're going to be the records of the slave-holding family. So once you identify the name of the slave-holding family, then you can focus on those records wherever they may be. The Library of Congress is getting some of the plantation records. Some universities have taken in some of these records, sometimes state archives, local archives, and so forth. Now, Freedmen's Bureau records, Freedmen's Bureau was a large organization that was affiliated with the Union Army during the Civil War and after. They kind of filled a range of functions throughout the South and other areas because in the post-war South, most of the institutions, law enforcement, court systems, and so forth were destroyed. So for the refugees, meaning African-Americans, but not limited to African-Americans, the Freedmen's Bureau kind of served their needs. So I'm going to hurry up because I've gotten a signal. So here's an example of a marriage record from enslaved persons from surrounding areas of Maryland and Virginia who came into Washington, D.C. to have their marriages legalized. Many of these individuals considered themselves married for years. 40 years, 50 years, 30 years, and they considered themselves married when they married their spouses on the plantation. But the Freedmen's Bureau was the first time they could have their marriages officially and legally recognized because under slavery, there was no legal recognition of marriage. For instance, this Andrew Smith, and the good thing is it gives the maiden names of the wives. Andrew Smith and Matilda Miles, they say they joined in Holy Matrimony in 1826, and it's now in the late 1860s now when this was made. So they had been married for decades, but they're now getting, and they had nine children. Their residence at the time is Prince George's County, Maryland, and they're now officially getting their marriage recognized. Here's another example of marriage certificate from the D.C. Field Office. Here's Freedmen's Bureau transportation records. During slavery, many enslaved persons were sold, for instance, from this region, Virginia, Maryland, to Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and so forth. After slavery, many of these individuals attempted to get back to their home states. Sometimes the Freedmen's Bureau could provide transportation records. And I'm going to hurry up and give this last example of records. This is Zachary T. Fletcher and Jenny Smith Fletcher. I actually got their images from the Library of Congress. On something that they were doing on westward migration. And I wanted to see what federal records we had at the National Archives in which I could trace them. I found their land records within Zachary Fletcher's land records. He indicated that he was a veteran, but he had lost his personnel records. So just from him saying he was a veteran within his land records, I wanted to see if I could find his military records. Here are his compiled military service records. These just give really basic information when a person enlisted, when they discharged physical description, any medical issues, but for genealogical purposes, the most important records are the pension records. Because with the pension records, the person had to prove that he had indeed served or if he had passed away and the widow was trying to get the pension, she had to prove that she was indeed married to this individual. So it gives a lot of good information. And I'm just going to read this real quick and bring it to a net. So basically with this letter within his pension file, he was explaining to the pension bureau who he was and why he didn't have all information on himself. So he's given all of the information that he knows about himself. Your honor, my dear sir, I've been raised a slave. I have no record of my age. And if there is any, I do not know anything of it. My first master was a bachelor and he died when I was a baby. And will all of his slaves to his sister marry who had married a man by the name of Anthony Robb. She died in a few years and we were all divvied out with her children. And we never all got together again until after the war, speaking of the Civil War. In the year 1856 or 57, I was bound out to a man by the name of Isaac Davis as a race rider. Initially, I didn't know what a race rider was. I learned that in these years, African-Americans were actually used as the jockeys and horse racers. So he was a horse racer. He died in 1863. I stayed with his family until June 1864 at which time I joined the army. And two days later, my mistress, meaning his lady slave owner, Mrs. Ellen Davis, came into my camp and tried to get me out on the grounds that I would not be 19 years old until the 12th of August of the same year. But as I had on my uniform and had been sworn in, she could not get me out. Next, I went to see my father just before he died in 1913. He told me that I was born August 12, 1845, the same year that Zachary Teller fought the Mexican War and that my master, Robert Fletcher, being of the same political party named me after him, Zachary Teller Fletcher. The above is the best mostly that I can give of my age all of my old white people and all of my brothers and sisters out of ten are dead. Mother died when I was nine years old and my father died three years ago at the age of 93. We colored slaves, knew nothing of the census and all of the above acts was in McCracken County, Kentucky, five miles west of Paducah, Kentucky. So that's just a brief introduction to a range of records that we have at the National Archives. The main thing to keep in mind, again, is that most of the records at the National Archives are going to be outside of three blacks who were counted in the census. Most of them are going to be at that point where the federal government becomes involved in the lives of African-Americans around the time of emancipation and the Civil War and so forth. So it's mostly post-emancipation records. Once you get to that point, hopefully it can give you information on any potential slave owners, plantations and so forth, but then you can go to the local level or perhaps at the Library of Congress to try to go and you work your way back farther. Thank you. Thank you, Damani. Our final speaker is Stephen Fullwood as the Assistant Curator in the Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Book Division of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Stephen counsels researchers to think broadly and pay attention to historical and cultural context as well as all those lines on genealogical family charts. And so, Stephen. Thank you. Thank you very much.