Tracing Your Roots

A reader seeks details on grandparents who left behind a family tree with many branches.

A record search uncovers clues to why a Georgia family fractured eight decades ago, leaving painful memories.

A book claims that a man’s great-grandfather was abducted as a boy and sold into bondage. Official records back up…

A historical document that appears to legalize a marriage formed under bondage in 1858 suggests a heartbreaking…

If you’ve heard anything about the new Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, it’s…

Dear Professor Gates:

Dear Professor Gates:

I am seeking help to learn more about my third great-grandmother Elizabeth Bettie Lane Dickey. She was raised on…

I have a lot of questions regarding my family's history. With my grandfather's recent passing, I was compelled to…

Many years ago, I located my maternal great-great-grandparents, Lucy Hoffman and Ben Hoffman, in census records for…

Is there a DNA test that can be done on hair that will lead to the same genetic ancestry-test results as those…

I've been trying to help my dad, Samuel D. Jones, locate his father. His mother, Amolene Hughes Jackson, passed in…

I am trying to trace the roots of my paternal great-great-grandfather, Lucien Joshua. He relayed to the census taker…

I’ve managed to trace my family ancestry back to an Adalin and Alex Vinson. The records I have state that Adalin…

How do I go about finding the parents of my maternal second great-grandfather Spencer Mott, born about 1820 in…

I visited Charleston, S.C., last week and walked past a statue of Wade Hampton III and stopped dead in my tracks.…

I’m Australian, and hoping to trace living relatives of a slave owned by a relative of my uncle in Trinidad. I want…

I have been working on my family tree for years and cannot find anyone on my father's side earlier than my…

I have been watching your show and cannot remember anyone having Melanesian in their DNA ethnicity results. I did…

My maternal grandparents immigrated from St. Kitts between 1899 and 1901. They are Albena Denham (Daveron), born on…