Hello and welcome back to this week’s episode of the African Roots Podcast! You can reach me always HERE.

I know that you are all getting ready to kick off the summer season with this Memorial Day weekend that is here. I am thrilled that summer weather appears to have finally arrived. Plants and seedlings are blooming and warm weather is finally here!

People are busy this week–genealogy on TV was buzzing, and this week we all watched the moving episode on Genealogy Roadshow about one lady’s ancestor was a victim of the Tuskegee Experiment that simply allowed black men to die. Many of us have read of the story. That story moved many of us as we watched.

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Last night’s episode of Bernice Bennett’s show was interesting. Her guests were Zann Nelson, and Elizabeth Chew. Both are working on the project at Montpelier, the home of James Madison. It appears that they are also looking for descendants of those once enslaved there at Montpelier. The surnames are TAYLOR, STEWART, TALIAFERRO, AND SHEPPARD. If you have ties to Orange county and any of these surnames, then you may want to touch base with them. Here is the link to connect.

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Rosenwald School in Barco NC Saved

“A school for poor black children, built nearly a century ago, sat on a trailer Tuesday behind a barbecue restaurant on U.S. 158. Its original site was a little less than a mile away.” ~The Virginina-Pilot, PilotOnline.com

 

That quote comes from an article about efforts to save an old Rosenwald school in North Carolina, on the outer banks. It has been over 70 years since any teaching took place there, but the effort to preserve the building is so important.

More on the story can be found HERE.
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Ok—so many of us will be watching ROOTs  this weekend. Well—there is a new project to encourage the conclusion of the indexing project, launched by Family Search. Well—the indexing project has partnered with The History Channel, and with the Smithsonian NMAACH to launch the final push to complete the indexing project.

With the airing of ROOTS, there is the final effort to complete the indexing Family Search Freedmen’s Bureau project. The partnership will reach a national community with the airing of Roots. If you have not been an indexer, well this is an opportunity to do so! The goal is to get it down by the opening of the NMAACH completed by September 24th the day of the Grand opening of the Museum.

Let’s all work to get further in our research, and to move from the 1870 census records to those additional records that can be found from the Civil War’s end to that census year!

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Well this is Memorial Day—the origins are not aware of the origin of the holiday with African American. Black people people honored their loved ones, on that weekend before it became a national event. The spirit of memorializing loved ones caught on, and over the years it has morphed into a day that also honors soldiers that served the nation. As we do that–let’s remember the Freedom Fighters—the United States Colored Troops, and so many more–including both men and women who served. All served with honor.

I hope to see some of you in California at the Southern California Genealogy Jamboree! Looking forward to seeing some of you there, and next week’s podcast will be coming directly from Burbank!

In the meantime, thanks for listening, and for your messages. Have a great week, make some memories, and keep researching, keep documenting and keep sharing what you find!

Welcome back! This has been a busy week! And a shout out to those who are attending the gathering of historians in Washington DC, hosted at the Smithsonian, looking at “The Future of the African American Past.” They are scholars in African American history, who are taking a look at African American history as a discipline, and hope that you will catch some on Saturday as well, as they are being live streamed.  Listen to the presentations HERE. I should also point out that the conference papers can also be downloaded HERE.

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New Co-habitation Records Found!

Thanks to the efforts of the Westmoreland County Clerk of the Circuit Court and her staff, the county’s cohabitation register and register of children, both 1866, were recently rediscovered. The pages will be conserved, digitized, and added to the on-going cohabitation register digital project.  The records will rest on a digital project at the Library of Virginia and can be explored

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The International Black Genealogy Summit Schedule has been posted!

The schedule for the Black Genealogy Summit is now available. Please take a look–a lot of familiar names and some new names are among the speakers. I am looking forward to being there, and looking towards meetings friends and colleagues at this event in northern Virginia in early September! Take a close look at the conference schedule.

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The Georgetown Memory Project has been in the news quite a bit the past several weeks. The effort to study the incidence of slavery among Jesuits has somehow become big news as it is just capturing the attention of the public. Over 200 enslaved people were sold south, to allow Georgetown University to expand.

There is now an effort now to re-establish contact and to find descendants of the slaves of the Georgetown slaves sent south to Louisiana.

Well last night on Bernice Bennett’s show featured the lead genealogist Judy Riffel, and a descendant of one of the Jesuit held slaves who now lives in the state of Washington. I have been fascinated to look at the stories of people who are descendants. I am surprised at how surprised the descendants are. The slave holders were priests who were men of their day. Slavery was horrific, and everyone–even the most well respected, also found enslavement of other people to be perfectly acceptable. Tune in to last night’s show if you missed it. Her show can be heard every Thursday evening on Blog Talk Radio at 9 pm.

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Well time to wrap things up this week, and thank you so much for taking time to listen. You are appreciated for tuning in and thank you for your messages and notes this week!  And remember to keep researching, keep documenting and keep sharing what you find!