Was a formerly enslaved man in a May-December romance? Was he well-read or illiterate? We try to untangle the clues.
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Repeating patterns in Reconstruction-era census records point to possible connections during slavery.
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Historic records point to a life of mixed heritage in the American West.
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Finding out how a great-grandfather came to own 300 acres of land in post-Civil War South Carolina.
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News reporters and anchors have repeatedly referred to the recent tragedy in Las Vegas as the “worst mass shooting…
Post-Civil War records point to a common fate for many African Americans after emancipation.
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A forebear emancipates his slaves in the 1840s, but “freedom” was a relative term in 1840s Kentucky.
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She found a photo of her great-grandmother in the records of a historic plantation house in Georgia, but little…
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Census records reveal clues to an African-American lineage stretching back in time to the years before slavery ended.
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For this week’s column, we decided to address a topic that comes up frequently in your questions:
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A white woman discovers that she has African ancestry and wants help identifying her black New England forebear.
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A few reasons that the percentages in your ethnic-ancestry breakdown may change over time.
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A mystery illustrates how an 18th-century family became caught up in Virginia’s laws around race, sex and freedom.
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A reader encounters the proverbial brick wall that African Americans encounter in antebellum genealogy research.
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A family legend points to a turn-of-the-20th-century transracial adoption. Could that have actually happened?
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There are times when black America’s feathers are ruffled, and our reaction does not come from anger or aggravation…
A series of run-ins with law enforcement in the United Kingdom splits a family apart. Now the family is seeking…
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Jahlil Nickens, 18, who earned the honor of becoming his class valedictorian this spring, also made history as the…
In revisiting the story of black refugees to Trinidad, we came across the tale of a foiled slave rebellion in…
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A reader wonders if she could be related to Andrew Jackson through one of his slaves.
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