African American Genealogy: How to Get Past 1870

African American genealogy usually runs into the same wall: 1870. You are told the records stop there. They do not stop, but they change, and you have to know where to look.

Why 1870 is the wall

The Boston Public Library explains that the 1870 census was the first U.S. census to include the names of all African Americans recorded by census takers. Before that, the 1850 and 1860 censuses put enslaved people on separate slave schedules. The National Archives says census takers were told to use numbers in place of names. Our people were counted under an owner's name, by age, sex and color.

Step 1: Start with the living

Write down what your elders know before you open a website. Get full names, nicknames, birthplaces, churches, burial grounds and the county the family came from. A county and a family story will take you further than a common surname.

Step 2: Work backward, one census at a time

Start with yourself and move back through each census toward 1870, one generation at a time. Do not skip. In 1870, write down everyone in the household and their neighbors. A neighbor can be the clue that breaks it open, because some families enslaved together stayed close after freedom.

Step 3: Use the Freedmen's Bureau records

FamilySearch calls these the way through the 1870 brick wall. They list freed people with surnames as early as 1865. Labor contracts name the employer, the plantation and the workers, often in family groups, and many records identify a freed person's final slaveholder. Rations lists can show children and elders who may not appear in 1870.

Records were kept by local office. The Mapping the Freedmen's Bureau site helps you find the office closest to where your family lived.

Step 4: Check the Freedman's Bank

The Freedman's Savings and Trust Company kept records on its depositors from the 1860s and 1870s, and the National Archives treats them as a tool for African American family research. If your people lived near a branch, look there.

Step 5: Name the enslaver, then search the slave schedules

Once a record names the final slaveholder, go to the slave schedules. They are arranged by state, county and owner. You will rarely find a name, but an age and sex that match your ancestor is circumstantial evidence. It is hard reading, and it is still your family's record. From there, look for wills, estate papers and deeds in that county.

Other places to search

The Boston Public Library also points to slavery databases such as Enslaved.org and Freedom on the Move, which collects runaway ads.

Keep it for the next one

Write down what you find and where you found it, and share it with the family. Each one teach one.