Black History Month: Finding and Sharing Records

yes so y'all eat all that kind of stuff uh from one end to the other yes that's right i didn't want to say that that was my dad's saying but no i don't i don't even know what the ruta and the tudor oh great so okay so we are good and live here um i see wendy i think i still see you not muted as a um i'm in a high non-participant video so here we are looks like the stream is working um all of us are here today rick in that beautiful lovely background in alexandria virginia i'm jealous and it's snowing it's snowing oh my goodness that's crazy so well welcome uh you know i'm saying welcome to those who may be watching this live on uh our facebook um our family search facebook live or via youtube my name's tom reed i'm the deputy chief genealogical officer with family search international and i am going to wendy has been crazy enough to allow me to kind of host today uh with several of my friends my genealogy friends and buddies uh today as we talk about african-american genealogical societies and organizations and their connections and things they're doing for their members as well as for black history month so let me go ahead and introduce this illustrious panel of people i'm going to go alphabetical by last name so i show no bias except i like bees first so marie bryant is coming to us from los angeles california as the president of the california african-american genealogical society marie introduce yourself to our to the people well i think you've done that i got interested in genealogy in the 90s when [Music] we were burying one of our great aunts and in talking to my siblings i realized they did not know the people that i knew because they were younger okay and um so then i started um saying that i needed to do something about that to make them acquainted or introduce my siblings to the people that i knew and then that just started everything tumbling because once you find one person then it goes on to the next and next so um yeah i i uh have enjoyed so i went searching for uh someone or some place that could help me and i saw a flyer one day in a library that the california african-american genealogical society was having a one-day conference so as they say i paid my ten dollars and i went and i have been with them ever since and i invite all others in the los angeles community to check us out check our website and join us because of the pandemic we are doing like you are doing we have our meetings which is the third saturdays of the month uh via zoom uh we had just restarted our um writer's group because uh it shut down because of the pandemic because we were meeting in in person but we just started so that's that's me thank you thank you i wanna you know you you said you were from texas a little earlier as we were getting started i want to acknowledge some of the people that are tuning in we've got folks from denver color from a delaware from illinois my old stomping ground even florida and england at least that's a couple so if you're watching we want to know where you're from please throw in the comments and we'll we'll give you a little location a little shout out so now we're gonna go over we're moving from california to the other coast south carolina and we're going to our good friend tony carrier who is the director for the center for family history at the international african-american museum welcome tony tony how you doing thank you hello hello friends um it's great to be here doing well it's black history month how could i not be [Laughter] i know you got a lot of stuff going on i talked to you earlier about some of the big projects you've been working on and pulling all multiple all-nighters and stuff like that so yeah we'd love to hear about that and hear about what's going on at iam in just a moment so thank you tony from south carolina any others checking in we've got actually someone who's caught who's uh watching today from ghana another person who is coming from north carolina so just up above you there tony uh and and like i said florida we got some some good folks in florida that are watching and tuning in what about some people in virginia rick you got any fan any folks that should be tuning in from virginia or where where are you coming from i got folks from all over the country so i'm hoping my peeps have tuned in to listen to us i'm living in the dc metro area what they call dmv district maryland virginia originally from the boston area and can't wait to share new things with you guys well thank you rick is the vice president of history for the afro-american genealogical and historical society uh we call it oggs and i literally just said the acronym backwards i don't know why i did that afro-american historical and genealogical society i know better rick didn't call me out but now the form of the former vp former vp of history yes the former the former vp they gave me the opportunity to not to run so i'm very happy about that because i'm doing some other new things along with with uh nika so we'll share with you a little bit later on oh yeah i'm excited i know you you've had you've published some books recently and and and got some other things on the horizon so i'm excited i'm i'm excited for our people to hear about it so next is miss nika smith howie nica sewell smith i'm sorry that i did not use the hyphenated for i just always call you nikki smith so you you can explain either one but you're coming to us today you you are a woman of many talents but you just put your title today as planning committee for the oklahoma friedman collective which is just one of the various organizations i know you're involved in so nika how are you doing today i am good um it's still in the land of living you know we are good healthy um we're supposed to get a snowstorm down here right outside of memphis so you know the you know usual oh gosh go to the store and get your bread and your eggs you know that is currently happening around me it's a frenzy um yeah i'm good i'm excited to talk about what we've been doing with the collective um it's such an uh undertold story of black history in particular during black history month so i'm super excited to to talk about that today well thank you nikki and thank all of you the reason i kind of have brought you all together if you will is because you do all represent somewhat different societies and groups when it comes to african american genealogy so nika you just talked about the oklahoma friedman collective and i think of that more as a kind of ethnic and really focused group versus you know someone like the california african-american genealogical society very localized but broad in african-american genealogical research oggs obviously is broad because of all the chapters that are around the nation and the different you know groups that that meet in the name of ogs and because so i consider them kind of the national organization that's out there and then tony represents something unique in terms of an actual physical space being built and and creating a a center for family history there in charleston at the international african-american museum and providing a lot of resources to the community there but also broadly as well now there's a couple more you know i i i i felt bad because there's a couple more that i would love to have included in this group so my friends for example at the midwest african-american genealogical institute maggie as they're known is the i can stand proxy because i can stand proxy right this is their proxy for maggie proxy for maggie and then we also have like for a lineage society the only one that that's for those of documented enslaved african ancestry and the sons and daughters of the united states middle passage i can stand proxy for them too as well let our viewers know people know there's so much out there that that you can be involved in and connect with you know this is black history month and we are taking you know time during this month to shine a spotlight on the contributions of black americans which is not limited to 300 you know to 30 28 days 29 days last year but it's something that's 365 days but i wanted to bring you all in here because you provide some unique resources for those who are trying to find their own personal story amongst the black history narrative and in the context of history and those who've made contributions to this country and so i i want to first of all applaud you and thank you for the work that you're doing in the various spaces and the many hats that you wear because it is so needed um our people are searching i feel a hunger and a thirst you know as as alex haley talked about like you know a hunger and a thirst narrow deep to know who we are and where we've come from and you're helping satisfy that hunger through your organizations and what you provide and so so tell us let's start off and just ask a question of kind of what is the role of genealogical societies and groups and and particularly what you're involved in and let i'll go kind of now by pictures on my screen tony what what what do you kind of what do you think about that in terms of the roles of groups and how they can play and help people discover and connect with their families right oh goodness there's just so much that that groups can do to move your genealogy forward and also to um to really give you a community that shares an interest with you but i think groups and societies what we do in general it's a it's a gathering place it's a place for people to come together and share what they're looking for um i think one of the primary benefits of some of the research group groups that we have on facebook is simply that people start helping each other and you have this this enormous depth of experience when you get a group of people who have been researching their genealogy for years and years when you get those people together it's like they say all of us are smarter than any single one of us and so what we see a lot in our research groups is people helping each other before we even see the query on facebook five people may have popped in and said oh you might try this or i found that so there's just so much that that um being involved in a in an organization or being involved in a research group can do for you that's great marie you talked about you know seeing that flyer and joint and then you know paying your ten dollars and being connected how how has being a part of an african-american genealogical society helped you personally in your research well it has shown me how to do research because that's our mission uh we find that when we get uh younger people coming in and then we you know they think that everything they can do over their phone everything is online uh and they are sorely this and we they're sort of disappointed when they find it's not and they want to know why and then we just explained to them there is someone has to go out to these resources and they have to film they have to re record they have to do the transcribing in order for you to be able to see it um and i i've also found that some of my ancestors don't want to be seen to not want to be found they are yes and uh it's it's a different kind of euphoria when you do find someone uh we've made several trips to your city there in salt lake uh to the family history to the family library there and it's just when some of our members this big uh smile comes on their face when they have found this elusive person that they've probably been looking for for 15 20 years and maybe even longer so um and i love the as um tony mentioned the camaraderie that because we have members that are uh in louisiana new york okay um texas and we all share the same um connecting and we've also since we've been doing this research i have not found anyone uh in our society but we've some of our members through their dna and we'll get i know we'll get to that later but it just it just came to me that they are related although right now they can't find out how they can't find that coming common person but uh it's it's really just exciting it can be disappointing uh but it's but uh the excitement outweighs all of the disappointments i think when you found something it is exciting and i know rick it's it's been exciting probably for you particularly last year when we really shined a light on 1619 in the arrival of the first documented africans in british north america for you to kind of do a homecoming and connect with others who are descendants of those first 20 and odd so to speak um can you can you talk a little bit about what oggs has done to bring those people together or to to and what oggs does as a society actually in in bringing people together and helping i know you do conferences for example we participated in so i'd love to hear you kind of speak about that well august is the the afro-american historical geological society is the premier uh historical genealogical society for americans of african descent as you indicated earlier we have chapters all over the country we've got thousands and thousands of members who bring their individual stories their individual histories and and i personally i look at genealogy very differently i look at it through the lens of history and genealogy and for americans of african descent we have to realize that our history was taken from us but also through that history of families who are divided and separated and sold and children taken away from parents so when you look at the history then tied it into the genealogy it's so important for us to try to reunite with with different parts of our family that was taken away so when we look at 1619 um and we're beginning to realize that so many of us are now able to make those connections to the 16 and 1700s as valuable as that is we're also beginning to realize the importance of our ancestors in terms of the formation of this country and many people don't realize that our free ancestors uh work the soil much like our enslaved ancestors but our enslaved ancestors were really the foundation for the nation's monetary system so when you look at history and genealogy together it just means so much more and i think so many of us are now looking back and saying had i known this when i was a younger person i myself might have been a different person growing up i might have been a different person as an adult so history and genealogy now has taken a new meaning to us and that's what 1619 was all about to correct a false national narrative in terms of who our ancestors were and more important as many of us are now doing genealogical research we're beginning to find out that our ancestors are speaking to us because they want to be found and they want their stories to be told and they want us as descendants to understand their importance in life and how they really are true founders of this country okay let's let's just drop the mic in the broadcast now i think rick summed it up so well thank you rick for that that was great um and you you talk about the ancestors now are speaking and and so marie i know you said they're they're some of them are elusive but there are others that are that are shouting from the rooftops to be found and and you know all of us are doing our best to kind of help that happen nika talk a little bit about this oklahoma friedman collective and how maybe it's unique in the genealogy space in terms of how it's helping you know people connect with the collective um it's a particular story that again is something that just hardly ever gets mentioned in in not just american history but in african american history i think a lot of us on the panel can agree that you know in the various societies and groups um that we've been involved in over the years there's always someone new that comes that is trying to verify this story of of the native american princess or is really you know connected to you know this narrative that has been passed down for generations in their family and you know they're coming to the meeting to you know figure out how to verify that right like we've seen that more commonly um and in marie's group that that actually shouldn't be odd because you know friedman of the five tribes meaning the cherokee choctaw chickasaw creek muskogee um in seminole nations we move around in clusters we're like an amoeba and la is one of the places that we all settle next to oakland so someone came to marie's meeting and said oh my folks were choctaw i'd be like okay that probably is right where where where did they were they from right and they would mention a place in oklahoma literally we know based on the city like that's how that's how corral this is and so um with that history you know we don't have to go on this you know 20 30 year journey to find out who our ancestors slaveholders were the names are right there clearly on the dogs cards that's a that's a journey that friedman that's one of the benefits i guess you would say of being a friedman but there are sometimes there's a lot of challenges with our relationships with the nations as well right and so um we we have this sort of duality right just how i'm a citizen of the cherokee nation i'm also a citizen of the united states we have parallel histories and parallel documents that exist for us um and so you know i will go on record and say we are probably one of the most documented groups of black people in the country bar none because we've got nation records and then we've got u.s records and so in some ways we kind of fit into everyone's pockets friedman are members of oggs friedman are members of cags friedman i have a place in the in the museum in charleston and and you know again it's it's it's really putting skin on the bones of this this story and ties to um to you know to the five tribes and um you know the amazing history and having the ancestors calling out you know it's there's again just like there's no we don't have that sort of paradigm of i don't know who the slaveholder is we also have unique records where we hear our ancestors voices almost very similar to uh the slave narratives whereas questions and answers and you you you know you see them on the stand talking to the people the dos commission and you're just hearing it's almost like you're in the room so um so yeah i'm i'm i love it it's to me it's like you can't beat you just can't beat that you can't beat friedman research which is why which is why tony is nodding her head because if you just dip your toe in it a little bit you're like oh this is good it's yeah it's good well well i i appreciate that and and that is a kind of an interesting dynamic that i've come to learn over the years you know years of being in the genealogical community is about that connection of native american and african-american and how those two come together and how they play out you know i did have that story i got my you know we got good hair because we got indian and our family kind of thing and my mom was like 164th cherokee or something like that well but but a lot of it is region right like so many of us have been fed stories and and it may not necessarily be that your your your ancestor wasn't native american it's just that the nation that you're thinking it is it may not be that one it may be another one or it might be but your people are from alabama so that's totally possible right right yeah right so we've got we've got some um viewers that are that are kind of commenting and throwing some things out there for us and we invite anybody who's watching if you have a question for any of us on the panel anyone specifically or anyone please feel free to to chime in we'd love to kind of answer your questions and respond to anything that's on your mind in particular um and so i we do have a uh another just a question and this is i want you to put this again since you all represent these organizations and i want to be brief on this so we can get around to everyone is someone asked what are the recommendations for someone who is just getting started with african american ancestors so i want to just hear one tip from each of you about what they can do to get started and maybe how your organization might be able to help so tony let's take it from the top all right all right i would say start with the basics and avoid common mistakes um there's a great video out there on youtube that tony burroughs recorded for ancestry.com some years ago about avoiding 10 common mistakes in african-american genealogy and it falls under the if only i had known category so i would say avoid if only i had known i would have done this differently yeah that's a good one and hopefully our moderators that are that are helping us on this broadcast might be able to find that youtube link to tony burroughs video on those 10 common mistakes or or i wish i would have known kind of thing rick what what what's one thing someone can get to do to get started in african american research i started my genealogical research in the late 70s and it was a very unique opportunity um for a number of reasons um but what i came to learn the importance of collecting oral histories from the oldest people within the family okay and what i found is in the 70s i had a number of great aunts and great uncles who were in the 80s and 90s and through their knowledge was able to take me to the early 1800s so that was invaluable information that certainly allowed me to do the in-depth genealogical research so clearly my recommendation is do your oral history your oral family history and go to the oldest people in the family because they won't be around long and once they're gone that knowledge base is gone so so your success is based on your knowledge based on your elders respect your elders okay so we got we got just don't make those common mistakes learn learn what others have done and talk to the oldest living relative that you have and gain that information that's amazing how far they were able to take your family back nika what what's another tip that you would give in just getting started with american research i would say don't neglect what you know in the in the pursuit of rushing to get online to find out what's out there a lot of times people will make that rush to do that and neglect to search you know what we what we call the home repository right you know looking through even some of the most mundane records that people have lying around their homes or the homes of relatives you know and and and you know it kind of fits in with what rick just talked about with regard to interviewing elders right when you're doing those interviews you also want those folks to entrust you with what they have that is related to your family whether it's funeral programs or obituaries or vital records or photos right you want to nurture those relationships so that they you develop trust with those folks so that they know if they impart this information to you you're going to do something with it and you're gonna share what you find and so um the most powerful and most significant asset we have to our family history projects is our self our knowledge and our and our community um whether that's blood relations or even fictive can you know ours i like to say your your nosey aunt um you know who's not really an aunt but she's an aunt that's my mom um you know who can recount everybody's life can run it down right oh no she had that baby with so you know that's who you need to talk to before you run out online and then you're confused because you didn't you didn't invest in those conversations with with yourself and with your elders early on so i think what i heard you say is that that home repository can be a gold mine as well as those relationships as rick said and just make sure you you you know don't follow those mistakes that most people do of running right online i think even marie you said that earlier that people you know get disappointed that young folks come to help and and they're like well everything's online so what what advice do you have for someone getting started just one quick tip we can share with our viewers well i had to think of something else because uh rick thought of the first thing rick said the first thing that i thought about but also in in interviewing depending on the age of the person don't ask direct questions because they will tell you they don't know i'm talking about something somebody maybe someone in their uh 80s 90s even 100 because we have a lot of still i have a lot of those around uh i prefer i learned going to root the route of do you remember your what was your first day of school like then you can get into the bring them up up in age and then you can get into the meat of what you're really after sure okay uh who was your best friend in school or did you do you remember your first school dance or something like that because if you just ask you know who was someone's like nika said uh father they don't know mm-hmm and so they don't know right exactly so the type of questions you ask it's the direction that you take absolutely times you have to go uh left in order to come back to where you actually want to be and it usually depends on the age of the person okay thank you for that and thank you for answering that question um we we've got some resources hopefully we'll be able to put up in for those on on facebook live are seeing some of the resources and things and answers to that question as well i want to give an opportunity for each of you to talk a little bit more about your organizations we got a question specifically for you tony where is this museum that we're hearing about in south carolina so tell us a little bit more about the international african-american museum and the center for family history there sure the international african-american museum is being developed in downtown charleston south carolina and it's one it's on one of our country's most sacred sites and that is gadsden's wharf and the reason that gadsden's wharf is a sacred site in our country is that so many enslaved captive africans were brought into gadsden's wharf in the international slave trade as you know charleston was a major center in the international slave trade and gaston's wharf was one of those places where so many enslaved africans took their very first steps on american soil and into their journey of lifelong enslavement and so we will have a memorial garden beneath the museum the museum is raised up in order to pay homage to the reverend site that's below and we will have a memorial garden below that's free to everyone without museum admission the center for family history itself will be a research center within the museum when the museum opens in the spring of 2022 but we are online now live you can find us at cfh.iaa museum dot o-r-g and we have hundreds of historical documents archived there and many many many resources for your research as well as more than 180 blog posts about family history research how to get started and how to keep your research moving forward okay thank you for that giving us just a little primer on what's happening and you said spring 2022 in charleston is where you'll be um when the center opens and i'm so excited for you i'm so excited for our partnership and how we're working together as well um rick why don't you tell us a couple of things that you you said earlier you and you and nika had something that you wanted to share with us with the group i don't know y'all collaborated on something but i i want to give the floor to you for a moment to maybe talk about odds or talk about some of the work that you're personally involved in right now that may be of interest to our viewers well let me give a couple of shout outs um i talked about odds um you know as of the premier organization um every year we have a national conference where we bring thousands of people from around the country in fact from around the world to learn about african-american history and genealogy this year like most organizations we weren't virtual um the upcoming year 2021 will be a virtual conference again the second week of october we will have phenomenal speakers um i know nika was there last year tony i don't know if you were a speaker there last year tom you were a speaker you had a very uh enlightening piano so we really do bring you know premier speakers from around the country to try to answer the unique questions and challenges that people have in terms of doing the geological research but also understanding their people um nikkor and i collaborated an awful lot of stuff i'm the board member of the sons and daughters of the united states middle passage anika recently became a member it's an organization that honors our enslaved ancestors we really need to begin to understand the historical importance of our ancestors who were enslaved we need to honor their history and their memory i mean the sons and daughters does that it's a lineage society and we as people of color as americans of african descent um linear societies is something new to us but we don't realize how important they are um my mother was the first african-american woman of africa the first woman of african descent who descended from an african-american the daughter's american revolution back in 1983. i'm the sons of the sons of revolution i belong to a number of linear societies and as a result of that anika ion and a couple of other people realize the importance of honoring our ancestors who were the actual founders of english north america and we're starting a new society so we will have a soft announcement this evening and we will have a more formal announcement um in may but there's going to be a national society for the first africans in english america and we have a whole bunch of people waiting for the application to come out the criteria to be announced um and really will be an organization that will really begin to emphasize the importance of our ancestors in the founding of english america and when most people realize that half of the half of the africans who came to english america slash united states came prior to um the mid 1700s um and that was long before most european american ancestors came here we really are founders in the country and and i quite frankly say we're the second indigenous people of the land because not only did we come here we we built the land we developed the land we nurtured the land um and the land was the foundation of the country through our labor so this is going to be a phenomenal organization it's a large organization a lot of people are excited about it um and now we will have two linear societies the sons and daughters of the middle passage and the society of the first africans in english america the founders of america wow you heard it first y'all well hopefully this is this the first public thing you're talking about this is this is his stocked announcements this is soft but i still haven't you know i i had when i knew he was gonna be on this we we had to do this so this is a soft announcement because we're still working out some of the bugs uh some of the dates some of the challenges okay getting the application ready getting the website ready um we have a phenomenal list of men and women who are already going to be our officers um those names are under wraps for the time being so um this is a soft announcement okay thank you for sharing that though and sharing some of the organizations and what they do so i'm going to go back to unique and then and then marie we'll we'll touch base on on cags but mika oklahoma friedman collective can you kind of give us a nutshell of why you exist i mean you kind of talked about it a little bit earlier but but how do you operate how do people connect with you and what do they get from being a part of this collective i'm going to read the official statement because hello i'd be remiss if i did not um through the collective people become effective visual storytellers of their family stories okay the freeman collective is the authoritative clearinghouse of educators dedicated to genealogy cultural exploration and the recounting of friedman of the five tribes history this is a unique pivot because there are organizations that exist to you know tell the story of friedman but a lot of them um are more politically sort of framed right like advocating for rights of freedom and things like that they're we're really the the first organization that has been created that is specifically to address the history of the freedmen of the five tribes right okay and of course to you know to recapture that cherokee choctaw muskogee creek and seminole nations and as well as not just people who are freeman of those tribes it's also friends of folks or people who just have a general interest in that our mission is to educate five tribes freedmen about methods of their learning their remarkable history we empower freedom to use technology to tell their stories and we create avenues of communication among freedmen groups communities and organizations and so the way that we do this is uh we have monthly metro map meetups and what those are is they're framed right the initial stuff is to get people familiar with terminology um with regard to the friedman community right like when i say things like dawes card it's not like what's that a card where you get it right um and then from there it's um every every time we meet we discuss a different aspect of freedom in history and then now we're in the place where we're doing a lot around storytelling what's a good story what um how do you find that how do you find the best parts of it and then how do you choose what medium to tell it through and then empowering people to actually put something together revolving around that story wow that's very that's very unique approach as you said you know it's not what i've seen in this space and so if people want to get connected with the collective where where do they go to find out more information and to read this perfectly crafted statement of your purpose where do they go okay yeah okayfreedman.org okay and we're on twitter we're on facebook and we're on instagram so you can follow us on all the social media programs and we're on youtube as well um and again it's it's we're we're in the business of of really empowering people who are descendants of friedman or who even think they might have ties and are not sure to discover or to just tell the stories because they're they're they are they are wide and broad and amazing awesome well okayfreedman.org and hopefully we put in the chat and comments um on facebook live the the urls for the other organizations i know rick's mentioned a couple one i don't know if you have your website ready because you're going to do the soft launch later tonight but um obviously with the museum we we've talked about that so cags we want to talk about kags and i just want to let our viewers know we we've been getting some good questions actually past we got some good questions we're going to pivot after after uh marie kind of talks a little bit about kags and answer a couple of these questions because these are the questions we get all the time so so first marie will you tell us a little bit more about tags and how frequently you you meet you said you've gone virtual you you talked about kind of how in terms of it's all california but but you're really localized in a certain area kind of tell us a little bit more about about tags well uh we were founded in march of uh 1986 and one of the founders was uh lonnie bunch the third because when he was here uh i guess the director for the california african-american museum right in the exposition park so that's right he was one of the founders and um like everyone else they were inspired by alex haley in roots finding your finding who you are and uh i think we've all touched on it a little bit uh sometimes you don't well you don't know where you're going or where you should go until you find out who you are what is your foundation and uh as the california african-american genealogical society we try and help people get that foundation uh show them uh there's more to them and their families than maybe they even realize they don't know so we have i've mentioned the dna interest group we have a writer's group and so um we are trying to get people to write down their stories because uh it's you know we are a people of grios but we all know that in america if it's not written down you lose it so we are trying to we started the uh the um writers group and encouraging people to at least start writing little stories and we working up from that and i must say that uh nika i have watched many of your pro-gen uh videos uh watched you on youtube and uh as far as the international african-american museum tony i have uh made a modest donation and i've encouraged my members uh i try every we meet on the third saturdays of the month except for july and august and i have encouraged my members to also make a donations to the to the upcoming museum awesome see the love that's all here i love this this uh i you know tony talked about it earlier about this sense of community in this sense of help and we're coming together and you know we we've got our viewers that have come together to learn some things and so one of the questions i want to ask it's actually two questions and it's the same side of the the same issue it's different sides of the same issue right so one viewer asks i've unfortunately discovered the horror of my family having owned africans that they insult that my people enslave people what do i do with that information to make sure the descendants of the enslaved have an opportunity to connect with their family so that's one side of it the other side of it is i recently found out my people are enslaved and it's and it's painful and it hurts how do i deal with that okay so i want to just spend a few moments as we kind of we're getting towards the end of our our time together but i just want to explore those two questions so maybe i'll ask ask one of you to talk about you know or two of you to talk about one side and two of you talk about the other if that's if that's okay so so i'm gonna marie i'm gonna come back to you if you've discovered that your family was enslaved and it's and it's painful to you how do you process that or what what advice would you give to to this person who's asking this question well i i look at it as you came from strong people you came from very you came from people who survived you are here and that has to say something about your heart your foundation and the people that you came from that's the way i look at it um i knew my great-grandmother she was born in november of 1870 she died when i was [Music] 12. you know okay i'm getting a little older really i i i think she died in 1960 so um so i was 13. so i look at it and she talked about she was born right after slavery but she talked about her parents and she always told me we are survivors and that's the way i look at it i i can look at it as hurt i can look at it as something as a weight but no it's something to me that lifts me up every day that i get up that's the way i look at it okay rick what would you say also to this individual well again i look at stuff from historical and a geological perspective slavery was our nation's original sin and even today we're still suffering uh the after effects of our nation's original sin um so he asked a two-part question so i'd like to respond to it from my perspective in those two ways he had european ancestry who were in slavers one since this is a genealogy discussion not a history discussion he may want to to do some genealogical research on the white ancestry because that may shed some very critical light in terms of who his enslaved ancestors may have been most of us who have mixed heritage um are not fortunate enough to to know a lot of our black ancestry because it's hidden within those enslaved stories um okay so it's it's important to i don't want to use the word embrace because that sounds maybe to some people condescending so you know it's like a rapist you can't really embrace the the abuser um but but that research may shed some light on the family okay the second part of that answer is that he has enslaved ancestry and i know myself i have free ancestors and i have enslaved ancestors and the stories of my enslaved ancestors were phenomenal stories that just as i looked today upon the challenges that they went through how they had to persevere how their families were taken apart how they were ripped apart from one another um it really is an opportunity to embrace their their their memories in terms of the challenges that they went through and i think that's what makes us so strong today and i think we have to to really embrace the strength that they had to go through to just survive on a daily basis and then not only did they survive they wanted to make sure that they provided a better opportunity um a better path for their descendants and i think that's why many of us are where we are today because of their perseverance through their struggles through their challenges so it really is an opportunity to really try to understand your enslaved ancestors and how important that they are to the very fabric of today and you can't help but have pride in that so i think it's important to understand that their pain that their suffering that their challenges really needs to be rewritten so light can be shed on their importance to american history so we need to embrace that um and feel proud about that and really teach that message for the next generation amen thank you there are so many positive comments coming through the chat the the comments now on facebook on that topic and you know what i if i can replay what i think i heard both of you say is really embrace be proud of you know for this one the question specifically was one of their friends doesn't want to get involved in african american ancestry because they're afraid they're going to find enslaved people and there's no shame in knowing that your people are enslaved in fact what you said is there needs to be pride and knowing how they persevered in their strength right and so the other side of that question that i pose now i'll come to nika first and then to tony right there's another part to that um and as you know tom a lot of times i attend conferences and meetings and so many european americans come up to us and they whisper i had my dna test done and i found out i have african ancestry in me so there's there's a flip side to that um and there you know according to some numbers 20 to 40 million european americans have african ancestry in them so there's another side to that there's another piece to that and i would argue that the same holds true that you know embrace it honor it respect it cherish it and understand the struggles that happened five ten six generations ago um and that helped us make who we are today so there's a flip side to that as well so i think it's important that we don't hide it we don't walk away from it and we certainly should not be ashamed of it okay thank you i appreciate you kind of adding that little con you know bit of context as well so the question is if you found out that your family let's say that that you're a european american you find that your family enslaved black americans what what should you do about with that information where do you put that kind of stuff how do you help those who are descendants of the enslaved find their own people so nika and then tony i'd love to hear your thoughts on this yeah i think a lot of this um a lot of the discussion is is absolutely right right on point and i think especially with with slaveholders descendants and we again we have to reframe this conversation you know literally earlier today i was like everything we learned about slavery was wrong like once you start getting into genealogy and you start learning nuance about our history you pretty much so much of the trajectory of what we were taught in school it's like but you know like literally there could have been a woman in your classroom doing that saying no that wasn't all that way right and in some ways it was kind of it was done that way because it was age-appropriate right like what is appropriate to teach children about this particularly tough subject so in that vein um the more information people have the better so if you are the synonym of of enslavers you could be black or you could be white let's let's also add context around that okay okay um your job is to whatever information you have is to make it widely available a lot of times um descendants of enslaved have no clues they have nothing to go on but you know that there's a bible or a set of documents sitting in your basement or your attic that everyone in your family has hidden and tucked away because this is a stain on our name and we don't want anyone to know about this right and so just as as you may have a home that you know served as a location where people who were enslaved work there right maybe you rent your house out for weddings and you know it was a working plantation but you've made a deliberate choice not to tell the stories of those enslaved people who work that land right the more transparent we are in these scenarios the absolute better it is because you could be holding on to the key of people getting back to to quote you earlier that narrow deep yearning to know who their people are right and so you don't want to be the cure for that cancer that is that was slavery and you're willingly holding back the cure because of your own personal shame and guilt so in my opinion be transparent on the other side look this is one of those roller coasters that if you know my six-year-old son was like come on mommy we gonna get on it and i'm like i don't wanna go slavery is a roller coaster research-wise you're gonna have peaks and valleys you're gonna have celebrations you're going to have tearful fits you're going to be mad you're going to put it to the side but we are the thread that holds those stars and stripes together in that flag where it's not all together clear when you see it flying in the sky that there is thread that holds all those things together that is literally our role we are a reflection we are a mirror into the history of this country and pretty much every atrocity that has been committed against people black folks stand proxy and say look i'm here and we are a mirror so stand in your mirror status right like walk in that be confident know that that again the flag does not stay together without the thread and we are the threat please and nico is so right because many of those slave holder families may hold slave logs they may hold manifest they may hold records that would help bring closure also and she mentioned the plantations a lot of those plantations had cemeteries on them and that helps heal for many people to know that their ancestors were buried on a plot of land and they can go to their plot of land and least pay a memorial service or homage to their ancestors so there are so many things that can be done right to help heal of the broken hearts of families who were ripped apart so i think nick is absolutely right so i i just had to add that i'm sorry amen and hopefully somebody caught that quote about the threat and put that in the comments and tony i want to let you get in on this as well about again if you if you are the descendant of an enslaver and you've got information on this slave people what do you do with it how do you you know how how do you you know i think yeah okay simple let me know the first thing i would say is um it's uh i can't tell you how many times i'm asked this question and how many communications i get of this nature i have just learned in horror that my ancestor enslaved people and i would say acknowledge that i had one time a communication from someone who's now a dear friend who's a a member of a prominent former slave holding family here in charleston who approached me and said i have had a dna descendant come to me and give me evidence that he is related to my family what should i do and i said well the first thing i would do is invite him to the family reunion and invite him to bring photos of his family invite him to be prepared to share about his family's history if he's separated um geographically um learn a bit about his family's life where they live now and um etc and so he did and this young man did come and everyone was enriched by that experience so the second thing i would say is um once you get past that sort of shock that you realize that your family actually were a part of america's original sin you know that can be something really that takes some time to process but once you do i suggest that you share widely all of the information you have because as nico and rick pointed out so many of the really important records that were made during the period of enslavement were actually made by the family uh who held an enslaved community and it's in their bibles it's it's in family correspondence it's in all those papers who are in that that are in the attic or as nika said sometimes in the basement um but i you know the internet has such a reach and facebook has such a reach that uh i would say go to some of the many facebook african-american research groups such as our black ancestry such as i've traced my ancestors uh my enslaved ancestors and their slaveholders etc and share that information in those groups i think that you will find that you will not be met with hostility that you will not be met with anger i believe that you will be met with open arms and with gratitude because you may be sharing as nika and rick both point out just that very record that's going to put those pieces together for that person amen thank you can i also add to um we did a show on this for black pro gen live and that's something that i constantly send people back to because we had a descendant of the slave holding family and the descendant of the enslaved and they talked very practically about how they nurtured that relationship and how it wasn't all pretty at the beginning and how there were barriers when when you know when um he initially came and was like look i have like all the stuff we're saying he did it and there was still like i don't know should i trust you and the fact that we we can't assume that it's gonna be microwave right just the same way as we talked about earlier with interviewing your your relatives you want to build those relationships you want you want to be on speed dial with those people that are going to give you information and then with these more complicated ones you've got to build trust right because the enslaved descendant is like i don't trust you you own my people and then the the enslavers family is like look we hold your people but i don't want nobody to know you know there's a whole lot of like back and forth where you just have to unfo you just have to blindly trust and you've got to allow people to be noble and honorable or prove to you that you're that they're not but again tomlin polite um um ed ball they were incredible at how candid they were it's the end and the episode is called connecting with the slaveholders um descendant was the ed ball was that was he on was that yeah that's who that was who was on the show i think i saw that episode so thank you so much we're gonna wind down now this has been too energizing and i know we can all keep going on and on and on once we get kind of going the energy is flowing i'm hearing that you know through the comments the great energy and great information that we're providing i want to you know give give you a chance to give a shout out for anything that maybe your organization or you personally are doing for black history month this is black history month my shameless plug is roots tech connect february 25th through the 27th virtual go to rootstech.org and uh and get uh free access to tons of content that we're giving to help people do african american research but each of you are involved in organizations that are doing things to either tribute or have done things this month to pay tribute for black history month so so marie anything that that kags has done or that you plan to do for black history month as we kind of in today that you want to share with people well we are constantly posting things we do have a facebook page facebook slash california african-american genealogical society okay our website is kags c-a-a-g-s dot o-r-g okay our meeting uh is um what's the third the third saturday which is next saturday which will be the 20th at uh 10 am in the morning we usually have uh if we have anyone that wants to take a beginner's class we do have that we have an intermediate class and this month charlotte vocaj will be our uh presenter and since we have so many people uh that are members of our society who are from louisiana she will be and i i don't remember the title of her presentation but it will have to he will be doing researching it has to do with researching um your ancestors in uh louisiana and you know and we have uh we have that um so that's about it right now um next month we will be doing a little bit something special for to honor our uh anniversary which will be our uh third saturday in uh the month of march so that's about it okay but i i've enjoyed this discussion and i have like i said i uh uh lead people or direct people to family search uh also to uh black project uh live and i have uh to uggs and and uh to the uh museum that's coming in uh south carolina so i'm looking forward to all of that awesome thank you thank you nika anything that you you've involved in a lot i saw a press release earlier yesterday about some a new thing that you're involved in with questions and stuff like that but i don't know if that's launching during black history month or not or what what you're doing for black history month yourself or black project or any of the organizations what you got on tap yeah so for the collective we already met um we had a meeting on the six so it was just last weekend but for um march 6 we're actually going into directing our efforts towards storytelling types are you someone who likes audio are you someone who likes video do you like to write and then we're going to have people join a team so they have a support around the ancestor story of choice that they've decided to tell during our showcase which is going to happen on april the 3rd um tonight actually in literally two hours black progen live will be having episode 128 that is all about the national ex-slave pension movement which a lot of people do not know about there were bills and all kinds of stuff that were set up um to establish pensions for the formerly enslaved that were based off of civil war pensions for veterans of the civil war so we're going to be doing a deep dive into that tonight um we'll also have um an episode at the end of the month that's going to be a premiere where we're going to be talking about just literally answering the question is it possible to trace back to africa both on paper and through dna and where the panel weighs in on what the challenges are to do either okay great rick what about uggs any anything in orgs or you have obviously you announced this this new group that's formed um for those who have enslaved ancestors and they want to honor them um certainly go to the website of the sons and daughters of the united states middle passage of their conference is in may it's a phenomenal opportunity to learn how to do uh research on enslaved ancestors how to honor your enslaved ancestors and dr evelyn mcdowell is a phenomenal person ox has its conference in october it's training education collaboration research theory um so you really want to reach out to gene stevenson and as president at aahgs.org um is a phenomenal organization we have chapter presidents from all around the country and some of the stuff that that the organization is doing is absolutely phenomenal we're now doing international stuff so we're really doing some great phenomenal things and those of you who really interested in how we as as americans help found the country build the country develop the country stay tuned we will have a hard launch an announcement in may on the society of the first africans first africans in english america you'll notice i've referred to as english america um because because we are the founders before it became the united people hear st it um we'll actually be helping people make the connections to their ancestors there's a lot of things that we're going to do um through dna through genealogy through paper you name it so i think and since they say that 70 of us are related through dna then most of us will be able to be uh become members of this linear society and learn from one another in the history of our ancestors great thank you and we'll put for viewers we will put links i know there was a question about cags and their event coming up on saturday the 20th so we'll put a link to that um to caggs.org where you can learn more and and see how you can connect with that event we're sorry that we haven't been able to answer all the questions that have come in nika there's a question specifically for you in the chat on the freedmen's bureau that someone has a question about and so um they wanted to know if you might have a chance to go after this and answer that question specifically um i want to give tony a chance to talk about some things that that you're doing for black history month i know you've got a big virtual event happening i know the museum is not functioning yet it's being built and constructed but the center for family history is thriving with lots of you know you've been thriving for a long time a collection of resources and and blogs and tutorials and all those kinds of things what do you got coming up for us for black history month as we kind of in today's program oh yes we're dead serious around here uh never never a dull moment we have so many things going on um the first thing that i'd like for everyone to know is that the wonderful angela walton raji uh will be blogging for us on our family history research blog and in fact we're going to introduce her next week and her series of blog posts going forward will be about beginning and basic african-american genealogy to help people get a really solid foundation in the basics of african-american genealogy the second thing that we have going on is that um we recently completed our very first and this is also a soft announcement we recently very completed our very first exhibit on the google arts and culture platform that will be coming out soon where we tell the story of a local farming and fishing community solid green community and a fraternal organization lodge that served that community back in the early 20th century and how when that lodge fell into disrepair the community that it once served came together to save it and actually did and did a remarkable um job in the and the lodges now serves as a museum and then finally we are participating quite a bit in roots tech connect um we have you'll be able to watch a preview of the museum that our ceo elijah hayward recorded that gives you a little bit of a tour of the museum just tells you about the values of the museum and what to expect and then we have a five-part short video series called pilot spies and soldiers how african americans turned the tide of the civil war where we take you into individual stories of how african americans were active agents in assuring a union victory in the civil war and the enormous risks they took in order to assure those ends so that's awesome also i'll be presenting two sessions at roots tech one with bernice bennett about united states color troops pension files and another one with shelly murphy where we are going to swat analyze an obituary so we're going to take an obituary raw and we're going to say what's what information is in here where can we go from there and where might those records lead us wow so tony do you sleep rarely right now uh because it's february so i i'm going to say it rarely i had a 40-minute nap today so we're all very busy um and i want to just take time to thank you and honor you our panelists we have marie bryant the president of the california african-american genealogical society tony carrier the director of the center for family history at the international african-american museum rick murphy former vice president of history for the afro-american historical and genealogical society and nika smith there's too many titles to say but representing the oklahoma freedmen collective today i'm so glad you were here so much information i know so many people want to get in contact with you so we put a lot of links in uh in the chat on on facebook and you know people can replay this on youtube and hopefully get that information as well and connect with you on various social media sites and things like that again on behalf of family search uh and all of those who our viewers today who joined us thank our panelists for this great time great energy i love being with you you all stay on we're gonna stop our live broadcast so thank you everybody wave how about all of us wave

Channel: FamilySearch

Views: 2,005

Rating: 4.9402986 out of 5

Keywords: african american ancestry, african ancestory, african ancestry, african ancestry review, african ancestry vs ancestry, african ancestry.com, african culture, african dna, african dna test, african heritage, african history, african kings, african nations, african tribe, african tribes, black history, black history month, ethnicity, roots, familysearch, family history

Id: lCQHNn1lpqw

Length: 72min 15sec (4335 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 10 2021