Researching African American ancestors can be a complex and rewarding process. Due to the legacy of slavery and historical injustices, finding complete records for all your records can be difficult. However, with persistence and effective research strategies, it's possible to uncover your African American ancestor's story.
Learn From Your Living Relatives
Make sure to speak with any living relatives that you are in contact with including people like aunts and uncles. These individuals may have vital clues that will help you to build your family tree. It's a good idea to write down everything they tell you or even to record your conversation.
Keep an open mind about what they may tell you however. Sometimes things they tell you may be family stories and not completely true. Verify the information they give you from original source documents.
Search Every Census Record
Begin by searching for your ancestor's family in all available U.S. federal census records, but be aware that you may not find them in every instance. Notably, if your ancestor was enslaved, the first U.S. census record where they will be enumerated by name is the 1870 U.S. federal census, as slavery was abolished in 1865. Before 1870, enslaved individuals were generally not named, but instead counted by their age, sex, and the name of their enslaver in slave schedules.
Obtain Vital Records
Obtain birth, marriage, and death records for all of your ancestors and their known siblings. These documents can give important clues about names of parents and places where your family lived. For help locating where to obtain these documents, see our records directory.
Be Flexible With Ages
When conducting your research, be prepared to embrace flexibility, especially regarding ages. It isn't uncommon to find inconsistencies in reported ages across records, with variations of 3 to 5 years being relatively common. If you find a person with the same name in the same rural area and consistent family names, it is highly likely that you have located the same person, despite the age difference.
Adopt An Entire-Family Research Approach
Focus your research by looking at families as groups, not individuals. This cluster research approach can help you identify individuals, even when names and ages are different between records. Records for your ancestor's siblings and other relatives can often provide valuable information and clues about your direct ancestor. Keep in mind that households in the past were not always traditional family units; you may find your ancestor living with extended relatives.
Anticipate Variations in Names
Anticipate variations in names and their spellings, particularly for women who may have used multiple surnames, people who used nicknames, or individuals who changed their names after slavery. Prior to emancipation, enslaved people generally didn't have surnames. Upon gaining their freedom, they often adopted a surname, which could have that of their former slave owner, a previous enslaver, or another surname they selected. It is also possible for individuals to have changed their surname over time. Nicknames were also common, so be mindful of potential variations of how names were recorded across different records
Go Local
Not all records about your family are going to be online. Sometimes local records in places like genealogical societies, public libraries, and state archives may have records that will be useful for building your tree.
Using these tips will help you to locate records about your African American ancestors more effectively.
Need help finding more records? We have genealogy research services available. You can also try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1.3 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.