Let Ring Freedom

Everyone has their “go-to” record collection for research. But what do you do once you’ve looked at it? You see a name, identify your ancestor, and maybe gain other details like a location or date. What do you do next? How does finding information on a document enhance your research? Is it another lead? Have you considered its accuracy?

My recent work has been locating descendants of enslaved laborers for the University of Virginia’s Memorial to Enslaved Laborers <slavery.virginia.edu/memorial-for-enslaved-laborers>. African American genealogical research, like that required for this project, has its challenges. But I found one key collection—a must for researching African Americans prior to 1870—the records of the Freedmen’s Bureau.

The collection is not new, though recent digitization efforts by FamilySearch <www.familysearch.org> and Ancestry.com <www.ancestry.com/cs/freedmens> have made it more accessible. But it does combat the myth of African Americans not being able to locate information on their ancestors prior to 1870.

As with other “go-to” resources, the key to using Freedmen’s Bureau records is knowing what to do with information once you’ve found it. This guide to understanding the Bureau and the records it created will help