African American Genealogical Research

When researching an African American family, start by using the same sources as other researchers (see our Genealogy & Local History section for more information). This guide focuses on additional resources of special interest for African American families.

• 929.1 SMI NCC. A Genealogist’s Guide to Discovering Your African-American Ancestors by Franklin C. Smith and Emily Croom.
• The African American Heritage database contains Black Genesis, a state-by-state resource guide, as well as other reference and how-to guides, a census index and images, some marriage and cohabitation records, and Freedmen's Bureau records.
  Go to: https://africanamericanheritage.proquest.com
  • Contact your local library to obtain the required username and password for home access.
• African-American Research by the National Archives.
  Go to: https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans
• AfriGeneas includes a manual for beginners, a mailing list and other features. Use the ‘Site Map’ in the upper left.
  Go to: http://www.afrigeneas.com
• Cyndi’s List of Genealogy Sites on the Internet: African American
  Go to: http://www.cyndislist.com/african-american
• African American Genealogy
  Go to: https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/African_American_Research
• African American Gateway contains a large collection of web links.
  Go to: http://www.genealogycenter.info/africanamerican/
• Records of Enslaved People Brief how-to guide for researching records of enslaved people.
  Go to: https://statelibrary.ncdcr.gov/research/genealogy-and-family-history/family-records/records-enslaved-people
• Military Resources: Blacks in the Military
  Go to: http://www.archives.gov/research/alic/reference/military/blacks-in-military.html
  • For more on this topic, search our Catalog by Subject for: African American Soldiers

Census

Separate “Slave Schedules” were created as part of the 1850 and 1860 censuses. The slave schedules do NOT include the names of the slaves. They list the name of the slave owner and give details on the number of slaves owned by age and sex.

• The 1850 and 1860 slave schedules are available in Ancestry Library Edition, available at all library branches.
• The 1850 slave schedule is available in FamilySearch.org
  Go to: https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1420440

For more information on censuses, see our research guides on the topic:

• The U. S. Census for Genealogists: 1790 – 1940
  Go to: http://gastonlibrary.libguides.com/census/the-united-states-census-for-genealogists-1790-1940

Local Vital Statistics

• 929.3 WHI NCC. Somebody Knows My Name: Marriages of Freed People in North Carolina, County by County (3 vols.). compiled by Barnetta McGhee White. Index of available North Carolina cohabitation records. [Cohabitation records have survived from the following counties:  Alexander, Alleghany, Beaufort, Bertie, *Caldwell, *Camden, Carteret*Catawba, Chowan, *Columbus, *Craven, Currituck, Davidson, *Davie,*Duplin, Edgecombe, *Forsyth, Franklin, Gates, Granville, Guilford, Halifax, Hyde, Iredell, Johnston, Lincoln, *Mecklenburg, Mitchell, Nash, New Hanover, Orange, Pasquotank, Perquimans, Person, Pitt, Richmond, Robeson, *Rowan, Stokes, Surry, Union, Wake, *Warren, Washington, Wayne, Wilkes, Wilson.  Records of counties marked with an asterisk (*) are on microfilm, and the originals remain in the county," according to Becky McGee-Lankford, Section Head, Government Records Section, State Archives of NC]
  • There are no known Cohabitation Records for Gaston County.
• 929.5 SAI NCC. Saint Benedict Catholic Cemetery [Gaston County], compiled by Richard E. Wilson.
  • Also known as the Black Catholic Cemetery. Only 3 pages long.
• Lincoln County: Record of Freedmen’s Marriages, 1866. Microfilm (Cabinet 1, Drawer 4).
  • Also known as "Cohabitation Records”. There are no known Cohabitation Records for Gaston County.
    Go to: https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/North_Carolina_Cohabitation_Records
  • North Carolina, County Marriages, 1762-1979.  With record images.
    Includes Lincoln County Cohabitation records, 1866.
    Go to: https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/685860
  • 929.1 FOO NCC "Record of Lincoln County Freedmen's Marriages: Transcription of Cohabitations (Freedmen's Marriages)" Compiled by Jason Harpe. Footprints In Time, September 2022, pp130-134.
• Ancestry Library Edition:
  • North Carolina, Marriage Records, 1741-2011, Includes marriage bonds, licenses, certificates, and registers, as well as indexes and abstracts to the various records from 87 North Carolina counties. Of special interest to African American researchers are records of cohabitation, which were required to be recorded in 1866 in order for the marriages of recently emancipated enslaved people to be legally recognized.

WPA Slave Narratives

Between 1936 and 1938, writers and journalists working for the Works Progress Administration interviewed over 2300 former slaves. (It appears that none of the people interviewed were from Gaston or Lincoln Counties.) These interviews are available in several ways with different approaches to searching:

• U.S., Interviews with Formerly Enslaved People, 1936-1938. Ancestry Library Edition includes a keyword search.
• Born in Slavery, the Library of Congress site, is supplemented with 500 photographs.
  Go to: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/snhome.html
• American Slavery: A Composite Autobiography has added indexes and is available through NCLive.org.
  Go to: https://www.nclive.org/cgi-bin/nclsm?rsrc=134
• 973.0496073 CIV. The Civitas anthology of African American slave narratives, edited by William L. Andrews, Henry Louis Gates Jr.

Enslaved People Records

• Records of Enslaved People Brief how-to guide for researching records of enslaved people.
  Go to: https://statelibrary.ncdcr.gov/research/genealogy-and-family-history/family-records/records-enslaved-people
• FamilySearch.org has the following North Carolina collections:
  • Lincoln County, North Carolina slave records, 1784-1864 (Starts on IMAGE 510)
    Go to: https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/1283316
  • North Carolina, Gaston County, miscellaneous records, 1847-1910. (C.R.040.928.4) Folder Titled: Slave Records, 1860. (See also Estate of Lee Hunter, 1860, free person of color) [Image 492] Contains documents relating to The State vs. Robert W. Winters for harboring slave named Rufus, property of David A. Jenkins
    Go to: https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/3000395
• Confederate Slave Payrolls "The Confederate Quartermaster Department created the payrolls for slave labor on Confederate military defenses. The rolls show the period covered, the entity or person that employed the slaves working for the Confederacy, the place of service, the name of owner, the name and occupation of the hired enslaved person, the time employed, rate of wages, amount paid, and the signature of the person receiving the money (usually the owner or an attorney)." Read more.
  Go to: https://catalog.archives.gov/search?q=719477
• See Online websites and Databases for more records.

The “Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands” also known as the Freedmen’s Bureau, was formed at the end of the Civil War. The Freedmen’s Bureau created many records containing the names of newly freed slaves in the period before the 1870 census. Records include labor contracts between planters and freedpeople, apprenticeship disputes and complaints, court, education, ration,transportation, hospital, marriage, and more.

• 929.1 LAW NCC. An Index of African Americans Identified in Selected Records of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands by Jacqueline A. Lawson.
• Search for Freedmen's Bureau Records at FamilySearch.org
  Go to: https://www.familysearch.org/en/info/freedmens-bureau-records
  • United States, Freedmen's Bureau Hospital and Medical Records, 1865-1872
    Go to: https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/2432992
  • North Carolina, Freedman's Bureau Assistant Commissioner Records, 1862 - 1870 (Indexed and searchable)
    Go to: https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1803698
  • North Carolina, Freedmen's Bureau Field Office Records, 1863 - 1872. Includes Lincolnton, NC Field Office, Freedmen's Bureau (Lincoln County). A descriptive pamphlet is available at M1909 Rolls 27 and 28 (Not indexed, but you can browse images)
    Go to: https://familysearch.org/search/collection/2143119
  • Freedmen's Bureau Marriages, 1861-1872.
    Go To: https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/1414908
• Ancestry's U.S., Freedmen's Bureau Records, 1865-1878 has 3.5 million searchable records that provide details of African American ancestors’ lives before 1870. Includes Freedmen's Bureau Marriage Records, 1846–1867. Also available in Ancestry Library Edition.
  Go to: https://www.ancestry.com/cs/freedmens?o_iid=116301&o_lid=116301&o_sch=Web+Property
• Freedmen’s Bureau Online has information and transcriptions of records.
  Go to: http://freedmensbureau.com
• The National Archives has background information and list of microfilm records.
  Go to: https://www.archives.gov/research/african-americans/freedmens-bureau
• Mapping the Freedmen's Bureau will help you find the Freedmen’s Bureau Field Office nearest your area of research interest, view sample documents and research guides. 
  Go to: https://mappingthefreedmensbureau.com/

The Freedman's Savings and Trust Company was an institution where former slaves and their dependents could place and save their money. The bank branches were primarily in large and coastal cities.

• HeritageQuest has a name index of registers of signatures of depositors:
  • Freedman’s Bank, 1865 – 1871 (National Archives Film M816).
    Go to: http://www.nclive.org/cgi-bin/nclsm?rsrc=218. You will need to log into NC Live with your library card.
• Family Search has the following name index and images of registers collection:
  • “United States, Freedman's Bank Records, 1865-1874”
    Go to: https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1417695

• African American High Schools in North Carolina:  a list of the names and locations of all of the public African American high schools compiled from the North Carolina Educational Directory around the time that the schools were desegregated.
  Go to: https://tools.digitalnc.org/aahighschools/


• African American Education collection contains documents and photographs related to African American education in North Carolina before 1950 drawn from the collections of the Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum and the Division of Negro Education of the Department of Public Instruction record group in the custody of the State Archives of North Carolina.
  Go to: https://digital.ncdcr.gov/spotlights/african-american-education-in-north-carolina


• Lincoln Academy, Kings Mountain, N.C. 1888 - 1955. Lincoln Academy, named after President Abraham Lincoln, was opened as a boarding school for African-American girls in the fall of 1888 by Emily Catherine Prudden. List of print and online resources.


• A county with a history...Home to 16 Rosenwald Schools, Lincoln Academy, and others, Gaston County, North Carolina has had a legacy with African American education.  Gaston County H.E.T. Diversity Awareness and Recognition Subcommittee.


• Rosenwald Schools in North Carolina Multiple Property Documentation Form includes complete list of Gaston County Rosenwald Schools.


• The State Historic Preservation Office website for North Carolina's Rosenwald Schools has a List of Surveyed Rosenwald Schools ("SURVEY FILE MATERIALS RECEIVED FROM VOLUNTEER SURVEYORS OF ROSENWALD SCHOOLS SINCE SEPTEMBER 2002") which includes Gaston County.


• Also available is PDF download of a List of Surveyed Rosenwald Schools ("Rosenwald Schools Documented in the Files of the North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office") which includes Gaston County.


• List of Rosenwald Schools in NC by History South.


• Check the Freedmen's Bureau Records (Lincolnton, NC Field Office) for early African-American schools in Gaston and Lincoln County (Location of Schools for the Freedmen in Sub District of Lincolnton with names and Post Office address of Teachers, Letter dated Nov. 30, 1868, p.130-135)


• For more records, visit Digital Gaston County: African-American.
  Go to: https://gastonlibrary.libguides.com/digital-gaston-county/african-american


• For Yearbooks, visit Digital Gaston: Yearbooks.
  Go to: https://gastonlibrary.libguides.com/digital-gaston-county/yearbooks

Search our Catalog by Subject for: African American* OR Slave*

Family & Local Histories

• North Carolina Slaves and Free Persons of Color (9 vols.).
  • 306.362 BYR NCC. Burke, Lincoln and Rowan Counties.
  • 306.362 BYR NCC. Chowan County
  • 306.362 BYR NCC. Hyde and Beaufort Counties.
  • 306.362 BYR NCC. Iredell County.
  • 306.362 BYR NCC. McDowell County.
  • 306.362 BYR NCC. Mecklenburg, Gaston, and Union Counties.
    • There is only one entry for Gaston County.
  • 306.362 BYR NCC. Pasquotank County.
  • 306.362 BYR NCC. Perquimans County.
  • 306.362 BYR NCC. Stokes and Yadkin Counties.
• 301.451 H NCC. The Heritage of Blacks in North Carolina, Volume 1.
• 929.1 YOU NCC. African-American Generations: (Vol. 1) Gaston-Lincoln 1763 – 1880 and (Vol. 2) Gaston-Lincoln 1865 – 1910 by Rudolph Young and others.
• 929.1 YOU NCC. Our Own Story: An African-American History of Lincoln County, North Carolina, compiled by Rudolph Young.
• 929.2 Fronebergers GAR NCC. African-American Fronebergers of Gaston County by Francis Gardin.
• 929.2 Gardin GAR NCC. Gardin: A Family History by Francis Gardin.
• 929.2 Hoyle GAR NCC. The Descendants of Sandy Hoyle by Francis Gardin.
• 929.3 BYR NCC. In full force and virture: North Carolina emancipation records, 1713-1860.
• 929.3 HEI NCC. Free African Americans of North Carolina, Virginia, and South Carolina from the colonial period to about 1820 (6th Ed.) by Paul Heinegg. 3 Volumes: v. 1. Families Abel to Drew -- v. 2. Families Driggers to Month -- v. 3. Families Moore to Young.
  • Also see his website, Free African Americans of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware
    Go to: http://www.freeafricanamericans.com
• 929.3 R NC. Somerset Homecoming: Recovering a Lost Heritage by Dorothy Spruill Redford.
  • Recommended for its description of her research.
• 975.00496 HAN NCC. Footprints on the Rough Side of the Mountain: An African-American Niche in the History of a Southern Textile City.
  • About Belmont.
• 975.677 BAR NCC. From faith to glory: Historical perspectives on African Americans in the Springfield Community of Stanley, North Carolina, by Lois Brown Barnett.
• 975.677 BRE NCC. African Americans in Gaston County, North Carolina, by Gale S. Brewer. Contains 27 names listed in the 1870 census for African Americans who were skilled laborers and craftsmen in Gaston County.
• 975.677 YOU NCC. African Americans in Gaston County North Carolina, compiled by Rudolph Young, Gale Brewer.

• Military Resources: Blacks in the Military
  Go to: http://www.archives.gov/research/alic/reference/military/blacks-in-military.html
  • For more on this topic, search our Catalog by Subject for: African American Soldiers


• 973.34 GRU NCC Forgotten Patriots: African American and American Indian Service in the Revolutionary War, 1775-1783, 4 vols + supplements 2008-2001.
  • You may download the book and the 2008-2012 supplement from this page:
    http://www.dar.org/library/forgotten-patriots/forgotten-patriots-book.


• The Patriots of Color Database: Database project on men and women of color who fought in the American Revolutionary War; includes individuals from North Carolina in the database.
  Go to: http://www.archives.com/patriots



• List of Free African Americans in the Revolution: Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware by Paul Heinegg "Over 420 African Americans who were born free during the colonial period served in the Revolution from Virginia. Another 400 who descended from free-born colonial families served from North Carolina, 40 from South Carolina, 60 from Maryland, and 17 from Delaware."
  Go to: http://www.freeafricanamericans.com/revolution.htm

  Also family history of colonial militia and French and Indian War soldiers by Paul Heinegg. "There were over 75 free African Americans in colonial militias and French and Indian Wars in Virginia, North and South Carolina." 
  Go to: http://www.freeafricanamericans.com/Virginia_NC.htm

• Fold3 includes “Southern Claims Commission” records. Commission established to address southerners' petitions for compensation of supplies, livestock, and other items taken by the Union troops during the Civil War. Includes first-person accounts of freedmen from testimonial files found in claims submitted to the Commissioners of Claims. States with approved claims (available online free)  that have been filmed by the National Archives (NARA) include Alabama, Georgia, Virginia, and West Virginia. Also visit Southern Claims Commission Approved Claims, 1871-1880 for more states.
  Go to: https://fold3library.proquest.com/barcode?accountid=11047 Log into Fold3 with your library card.
  NOTE: You may want to start with the U.S., Southern Claims Commission Master Index, 1871-1880 in Ancestry Library Edition to search for a name. Ancestry also has U.S., Southern Claims Commission, Disallowed and Barred Claims, 1871-1880.


• For more records, visit Military Research Guides.
  Go to: http://gastonlibrary.libguides.com/military

• African-American Newspapers in North Carolina,
  Go to: http://www.digitalnc.org/exhibits/african-american-newspapers-in-nc/
• Chronicling America (Select State and Ethnicity to search for African-American newspapers)
  Go to: http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/#tab=tab_newspapers
• N.C. Runaway Slave Notices 1751-1865 provides online access to runaway slave advertisements published in North Carolina newspapers.
  Go to: http://libcdm1.uncg.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/RAS
• Historic North Carolina Digital Newspaper Collection. 3.5 million pages of digitized content from over 1,000 NC county newspapers. Log in to NC Live with your library card number.
  Go to: https://www.nclive.org/cgi-bin/nclsm?rsrc=411

• Ancestry Library Edition "U.S., African American Newspapers, 1829-1947" contains issues of African-American newspapers printed in the 19th and early 20th century. (Available in Library)

929.375 WYN NCC. North Carolina extant voter registrations of 1867, by Frances Holloway Wynne.

FamilySearch.org has the North Carolina, Voter Registers and Certificates of Registration, 1868-1964. Index and images of voter registration lists and certificates of permanent registration from various counties in North Carolina.
Go To: https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/3326982

• Civil Rights digital collection contains materials related to the Civil Rights Movement in North Carolina from the 1950s to the 1970s, including letters, speeches, reports, booklets, photographs, news clippings, court records, and proposed legislation.
  Go to: https://digital.ncdcr.gov/collections/civil-rights
• Guide to African-American Documentary Resources in North Carolina
  Go to: http://www.upress.virginia.edu/epub/pyatt/index.html
  • Also see its companion publication, Afro-American Sources in Virginia: A Guide to Manuscripts
    Go to: http://www.upress.virginia.edu/plunkett/mfp.html
• Digital Library on American Slavery, five collections of documents including petitions, deeds, insurance registries, and advertisements for runaways.
  Go to: http://dlas.uncg.edu/
  • Race and Slavery Petitions Project contains detailed information on about 150,000 individuals, including slaves, free people of color, and whites, extracted from legislative petitions, county court petitions, as well as from wills, inventories, deeds, bills of sale, depositions, court proceedings, and amended petitions.
  •  North Carolina Runaway Slave Notices, 1750-1865 provides online access to all known runaway slave advertisements (more than 2300 items) published in North Carolina newspapers from 1751 to 1840.
  • People Not Property - Slave Deeds of North Carolina is leading towards a centralized database of bills of sales indexing the names of enslaved people from across North Carolina.
  • The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database includes 34,946 voyages from Emory University's collection, including 86,689 slave names and 34,551 captain names.
  • Slavery Era Insurance Registries. "Insurance companies, many of whom do business to this day, wrote policies insuring slave owners against the loss, damage, or death of their slaves. Included here are 670 distinct records as made available by the California Department of Insurance." The data is not exclusive to a single state.
• The Beyond Kin Project collects "the life-altering connections between slaveholders and the enslaved persons who shared their environments" showing "relationships between the enslaved persons, who shared their life circumstances without necessarily being related to each other."
  Go to: https://beyondkin.org/
• Enslaved: Peoples of the Historical Slave Trade. Search over numerous datasets and reconstruct the lives of people involved in the historical slave trade. Browse interconnected data, generate visualizations, and explore short biographies of enslaved and freed peoples.
  Go to: https://enslaved.org/
• Roots Revealed "Viewing African American History Through a Genealogical Lens" See numerous African American DNA cases.
  Go to: https://rootsrevealed.com/
• 10 Million Names is dedicated to recovering the names of the estimated ten million men, women, and children of African descent who were enslaved in pre- and post-colonial America (specifically, the territory that would become the United States) between the 1500s and 1865. Go to: https://10millionnames.org/

Gaston County

• Gaston County African American Resources Survey, 2000 [PDF] Architectural survey report created by Emily Ramsey and Lara Ramsey, Consultants for North Carolina Historic Preservation Office (November 9, 2000). Located at Architectural Survey Records & Reports.

Ancestry Library Edition contains the African American Collection which includes many data collections.
(Available in all library branches)

• "U.S., African American Newspapers, 1829-1947" contains issues of African-American newspapers printed in the 19th and early 20th century.
• "African American Photo Collection, 1850-2000"
• "U.S., Definitive List of Slaves and Property, 1827-1828" consists of a list of slaves and property for which citizens of the United States claimed indemnification.
• "U.S., Interviews with Formerly Enslaved People, 1936-1938" contains slave narratives as collected by the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s.
• "Edgefield, South Carolina, Slave Records, 1774-1866" Gloria Ramsey Lucas compiled this collection of more than 28,000 entries extracted from various records over a period of six years.
• "South Africa, Slaves and Free Blacks Records Index, 1658-1835"
• "U.S., Southeast Coastwise Inward and Outward Slave Manifests, 1790-1860" is a database of manifests for slaves arriving in Georgia, South Carolina, and Alabama from 1790-1860.
• And More

Fold3 contains the African American Collection which includes the following collections:

• Court Slave Records for DC
• Board of Commissioners - Emancipation of Slaves in DC
• South Carolina Estate Inventories and Bills of Sale, 1732-1872
• Colored Troops - Civil War Service Records
• Amistad - court records
• Danish West Indies - Slavery and Emancipation

Go to: https://fold3library.proquest.com/barcode?accountid=11047 Log into Fold3 with your library card or visit library branch.

Author: Gaston County Public Library
Title: African American Genealogical Research
URL: http://gastonlibrary.libguides.com/african-american-genealogical-research
Revised: 1 February 2022