Discover how Ancestry’s new resource, Articles of Enslavement, is helping African Americans research and connect with their family history, despite the challenges posed by our nation’s history of slavery.
Sample page from Ancestry’s Articles of Enslavement platform.PHOTO CREDIT: ANCESTRY
Originally published on Forbes
According to the New York Public Library, knowing one’s family history brings people closer, creates both a sense of humility and pride, and provides a powerful sense of memory for families and individuals. Due to our nation’s history of slavery and lack of respect for Black lives, African Americans have found it more difficult to piece together their family histories. A new resource from Ancestry is working to make connections for Black families searching for parts of their history. The resource is called Articles of Enslavement, and it is a collection of 38,000 newspaper articles related to enslaved people in the United States before 1870. It is available at no cost to anyone. The collection contains important information such as “names, ages, physical descriptions, locations, and more – of over 185,000 formerly enslaved people, which can help millions of descendants discover more about their families.”
This new resource is part of Ancestry’s interest in preserving the histories of all people and making the information available free to the public. Currently there are “more than 18 million records already available for free on Ancestry, such as Freedmen’s Bureau and Freedman’s Bank records, U.S. Federal Census records, and other records of the enslaved.” These resources, curated by Ancestry, complement those in the Library of Congress, and those brought together by researchers such as Herb Boyd (Autobiography of a People) and Anthony Appiah and Henry Lewis Gates (Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience).
During the time of U.S. slavery, census data and records of births, deaths, and marriages were not always available for those who were enslaved. According to Nicka Sewell-Smith, Ancestry’s Senior Story Producer and a genealogist, “The truth is, family history research can be challenging for African Americans because of U.S. slavery and the varied levels of documentation that’s been available before now. The magnitude of identifying 183,000 formerly enslaved people within the collection that can help millions of descendants discover family histories and details like names, descriptions, and locations for their long sought-after ancestors is incredibly significant.” Many of these original newspaper articles contain information about enslaved individuals before 1870 in communities where courthouse and other records were destroyed or lost.
Sewell-Smith noted that in addition to family history research, the ability to explore the articles “in the context of their original publications – existing alongside other information such as legal notices and crop sales – can help researchers and the broader public understand more about how slavery was normalized by institutions like the news media and shaped everyday life in the United States.”
Having more resources available to families and researchers alike will help to create a richer history that is nuanced in its treatment of African Americans. In the words of the late historian John Hope Franklin, ““In discussing the history of a people one must distinguish between what has actually happened and what those who have written the history have said has happened.”
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