Welcome back to the African Roots Podcast! You can always reach me at AfricanRootsPodcast@gmail.com
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Well, greetings to everyone! Hope you have had a great week! This week has been extremely busy and I hope that you have had a time of it genealogically. A highlight of this week was the Black Pro Gen LIVE episode! We had a panel of 10 and an active viewing audience asking questions and sharing their knowledge as well. The focus was North & South Carolina resources for African American genealogy. Well, the dialogue was fantastic, and the breadth of knowledge shown by so many on the 10-person panel was inspiring! If you missed it click on the link above and watch. The show went on for over an hour, but the dialogue was quite engaging!
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Well last night you had another opportunity to hear some engaging dialogue on Bernice Bennett’s show, Research at the National Archives, and Beyond, on Blog Talk Radio. Her guest last night was Nicka Smith, and they had a fascinating conversation about the challenges facing African American genealogists. They spoke about records, but beyond that they addressed the issues of addressing descendants of slave holders. DNA was brought up and there was the issue of emotion of African American genealogy. There is much emotion one faces when one confronts for the first time seeing an ancestor listed alongside animals, tools, furniture—they are on a list not as people, but as objects. Seeing that record for the first time alongside other pieces of “property” is indeed a jolting experience. Tune in and listen to last night’s episode. As you know Bernice’s show airs every Thursday at 9pm on Blog Talk Radio.
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Ok—everyone is getting ready for next week-end the long awaited National Museum of African American History & Culture is about to open. Preliminary events are going on this weekend at the new Smithsonian site. Open House events, receptions for charter members and also donor are underway as well. Then next weekend—yes–thousands of us will be in Washington DC for the grand opening of this amazing site and the chance to visit this long awaited facility. I plan to be there, and shall be blogging about the experience.
A special treat will be to visit the genealogy center, so I am most excited about going to visit this facility.
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Registration is open for the AAHGS Conference, which is coming up next week! We are now less than a month away from the 37th Annual conference of the African American Historical and Genealogical Society in Atlanta! The dates are October 13-16th at the Westin Airport Hotel.
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Well—there is a chance for you to register now for Roots Tech, the largest genealogy event in the world! Next year there will be a record number of speakers of color and a special feature will be one of the actors that helped to inspire millions of Americans to pursue their family history. Levar Burton–actor from the original mini-series ROOTS will be among the guest speakers on the main stage at Roots Tech. I hope that you will take advantage of the early bird registration and sign up now. Among many speakers are Bernice Bennett, Sherri Camp, Toni Carrier, Shannon Christmas, Janis Minor Forté, Nicka Sewell Smith, Robin Smith, and yours truly Angela Walton-Raji. We look forward to the experience and the event promises to be an exciting one again in 2017!
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A Cemetery Story
Other stories from the genealogy community consist of a story of an African American cemetery desecrated in Greenwich Connecticut. This was an historic burial ground and it is now someone’s front lawn. Teresa Vega has ancestors buried there, and she share some of her story on the LIVE event this week. You can read more about the cemetery history on her blog.
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So glad to hear a story about a St. Louis based researcher, Sarah Cato who has learned more about her Illinois ancestors who were free people. She made contact with Monroe County IL genealogists, and they found more on the Merrimans of that county who were free people! A thumbs up for the spirit of sharing what they found on some of her ancestors.
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Well, time to wind down and to prepare for next week’s projects that face me. Thank you all for tuning in, and most importantly know that you are appreciated! In the meantime, please remember to keep researching, keep documenting, and keeps sharing what you find!
