A search for the Caribbean origins of a reader’s family takes a few surprising turns.
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In a common scenario for African Americans, the paper trail disappears once a reader gets to the 19th century.
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Inspired by a shocking revelation on Professor Henry Louis Gates’ show, a woman wonders how to research her own…
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A reader wonders if her family originates from a unique coastal Southern community that has retained many West…
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Her mother-in-law’s paternal roots lie in what was once Texas’ richest county, made so off the backs of slaves.
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A grandfather made headlines for his various run-ins with the law, but his origins and racial identity are…
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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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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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