Description
CANCELLED Enslaved people were dehumanized, objectified, and regarded as property. Consequently, they did not create records, such as deeds and tax records. Furthermore, the names of enslaved people were not included on US census records until 1870. Therefore, descendants are frequently unable to advance their family history to a time earlier than 1870. However, they did record births, deaths, and marriages in family bibles. Those documents can be used as tools to identify one’s ancestry. Ruth Randall, genealogist, shares strategies and resources that can help with family history search.
Ruth Randall was the winner of the 2007 National Genealogical Society’s (NGS) Family History Writing Contest and the American Society of Genealogists 2008 Scholar Award. She is a member of the editorial board of the National Genealogical Society’s Quarterly. Randall authored several articles focused on the reconstruction of the lives of former slaves featured in NGS’s Quarterly and The Genealogist.