Juneteenth - a time for reflection.

 

Today is the commemoration of the day in 1865 when people who had been in slavery in Galveston TX heard that slavery had actually finally ended. To put this in perspective, President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863 ONLY APPLIED TO ENSLAVED PEOPLE IN CONFEDERATE-CONTROLLED AREAS. So basically, it did not apply to people in any area that the Union (United States -  Lincoln) controlled. Let's take a moment to reflect on the twisted nature of this political convolution... wherever the US flag flew, people were still enslaved. This applied to border states like Missouri, West Virginia, Maryland, Washington DC, etc. And then it took two and a half years after that before slavery actually ended everywhere - basically not until the Civil War ended. 

In addition, no reparations were forthcoming, despite the promised "40 acres and a mule" that the Union Army was "advertising" to attract support from black folks to enlist and serve in the war effort against the Confederacy. Then afterwards, with the reaction of massive white southern resistance to the Reconstruction measures after the war (1865 until 1876-77), and the overturning of Reconstruction, that meant that the half-measures to give formerly enslaved people a fighting chance in life - things like the Freedmen's Bureau and the FB Bank, the schools they started - were either shut down or were massively undermined by the rise of Jim Crow segregation which terrorized black folks who tried to start businesses, educate their community, and vote. (Think Tulsa race massacre of 1921 as but one example of the reign of terror against successful black businesses and communities.) 

This Jim Crow era which started in the 1870s didn't really end until the mid-20th century civil rights measures. The civil rights movement of course started during Jim Crow - think Ida B. Wells, WEB DuBois, Booker T Washington, A. Phillip Randolph among others - it didn't start with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr or Rosa Parks. They carried forward a movement that really started even in the 1850s and 1860s with Frederick Douglass and on through the Jim Crow era with the many freedom fighters who gave their life's work and sometimes their lives for the struggle. Meanwhile, white settlers were given free land with the Homestead Act of 1862. No free land was being given to black people who had tilled it and given their blood, sweat and tears to build wealth for others involuntarily. I try to keep this in perspective as I find relatives of my own who benefited from the Homestead Act, in the course of my genealogy research. Doing genealogy with ancestors who were enslaved has its challenges, since no enslaved people were NAMED in US Census records before 1870. But starting in 1870, much can be learned, and for pre-1865 research, the papers and records of plantations, as well as newspapers and other sources, can be rich sources for finding information on one's relatives.

Some of these records have been digitized and are open-access to anyone. There are many free resources online to get started, not only at FamilySearch but also the Library of Congress and websites like Reclaiming Kin. As far as organizations that support genealogists in gaining skills, the Midwest African American Genealogy Institute is a great organization, a leader in the field. If you have African American/ black roots in the US, do not be daunted by the "peculiar institution" - dive into genealogy research of your ancestors, and be prepared for some amazing discoveries! Think Finding Your Roots! 

Grateful for happy clients!

 Some recent survey results from clients after their projects were completed:

This is the second project we’ve done with Gretchen, which is the best indication of our satisfaction. I love how excited she gets to uncover not just the facts, but also fun facts she finds along the way. Working with her is a very pleasant and illuminating experience. 

Another: The task given was not an easy one -- documentation is hard to find from that time period. I appreciate your efforts tremendously.

And a third: :  I do appreciate that you discovered this [a lead about an ancestor] and theorized about it — the work of an excellent researcher! Thank you so much. 

Asian American / Pacific origin month - focus on genealogy!

The National Genealogical Society has a great list of resources for discovering or rediscovering the heritage of people of Asian and Pacific origin and Asian-Americans, their experience in the US: 

• Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation - aiisf.org
• Chinese Family History Group - chinesefamilyhistory.org
• Chinese Historical Society of America - chsa.org
• Densho: Japanese American Family History and Genealogy - densho.org/collections/family-history
• FamilySearch Wiki: Asia and Middle East - familysearch.org/en/wiki/Asia_and_Middle_East
• FamilySearch Wiki: Pacific Island Guide - familysearch.org/en/wiki/Pacific_Island_Guide_to_Family_History_Research
• FamilySearch Wiki: South Korea Genealogy - familysearch.org/en/wiki/South_Korea_Genealogy
• Filipino American National Historical Society - fanhs-national.org/filam
• Hoji Shinbun Japanese Newspaper Digital Collection - hojishinbun.hoover.org
• Japanese American National Museum - janm.org
• My China Roots - mychinaroots.com
• My Koseki: Japanese Family Register - mykoseki.com
• National Archives: Asian American and Pacific Islander Records - https://www.archives.gov/research/aapi
• National Archives: Chinese Immigration and the Chinese in the United States - archives.gov/research/chinese-americans/guide
• National Archives: World War II Japanese American Incarceration: Researching an Individual or Family - https://www.archives.gov/research/aapi/ww2/genealogy
• National Japanese American Historical Society - njahs.org/research
• Nikkei Genealogical Society - facebook.com/nikkeigen
• Siyi Chinese Genealogy Forum - siyigenealogy.proboards.com
• University of Hawai'i at Manoa Library: Hawai'i Genealogy Research - guides.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/hawaiigenealogyresearch
• University of Hawai'i at Manoa Library: Korea Genealogy Collection - guides.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/c.php?g=105260&p=687180

Even if you have no heritage in this part of the world, there is a wealth of knowledge to be gained by reading /using these sources. Happy reading! 

IMLS funding cut - just another dangerous way that federal government cuts are hurting society...

 https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article302427449.html#campaignName=kansascity_morning_newsletter

Feedback from recent client:

I always send a feedback survey after sending the report/ results of my research to a client, and received back this review:  

I loved being able to talk to you via Zoom before you started the project. You were very clear about timelines and cost. I really appreciate everything you did and update you gave us partway through your work. - B. Roberts

African American (Smithsonian) Museum of History and Culture - and Ten Million Names

 

Recently, I had the opportunity to visit the Smithsonian's National African American Museum of History and Culture on the Mall in Washington DC. It's a very well thought out presentation of the heartache and the triumph of the African American experience in North America/ the United States. 

You start at the bottom and work your way up from seeing how life was on slave ships and early origins of slavery in the US to the struggle against slavery and the Civil War, Reconstruction (a very overlooked period of history) up to the Civil Rights struggle of the Jim Crow era/late 1800s and all through the twentieth century. Along the way, much about culture - from African origins to modern day popular culture - think sports, music, etc - is woven into the story. 

This map shows the migration route of those who had been enslaved in the "upper south" during the tobacco era (Virginia, Maryland, Delaware) further south to often larger plantations where cotton or rice were the main crops. But many powerful individual stories are told at all eras. And there is a whole section of the museum for doing genealogy research, the Smithsonian's Robert Frederick Smith Family History Center. What a great resource! 

This display: 

details the African and Middle Eastern languages that influenced the Gullah language of South Carolina and Georgia, and which also has influences in Black American speech generally. 

I recently also came upon the Ten Million Names project which is devoted to recovering, restoring and remembering African American family history, the ancestors who, despite the tragedy and violence of slavery, were able to leave their names in records, who tried valiantly to reunite with family after 1865 and at other times, whose names are recorded in American records, whose history is such an important part of American history. The Ten Million Names website is also a great place to start on researching African American family history. As a person whose ancestors William and Mary (Thorne) Fowler in Flushing NY in 1698 had a "Negro Jack" in their household, I have been contemplating how I might personally address the legacy of slavery. Volunteering with the Ten Million Names Project to transcribe information from original documents into spreadsheets to aid the digitization of records so that more African Americans will be able to find and document their ancestry seems like a small way to help heal the legacy of slavery. 

Book on Indigenous persistence in the Adirondacks

 

I recently read this book, written by Melissa Otis and published in 2018. Titled Rural Indigenousness: A History of Iroquoian and Algonquian Peoples of the Adirondacks, it takes a deep dive into the evidence that many Indigenous people, mainly Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois, and Abenaki folks, stayed in the Adirondack mountains and areas bordering them through many decades and centuries after "supposedly" they had been driven out. They adapted and persisted in living a life tied to the rhythms of the natural world, deployed creative strategies to survive in a harsh climate and in an environment of ethnic tension, maybe even rising to the level of "whitewashing."  Often people had to pass as white to survive in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. I grew up going to the Adirondacks every summer, and we would pass by "trading posts" which sold real leather moccasins, balsam pillows, and other products connected to the Native North American cultures indigenous to this area between Lake Ontario and Lake Champlain, south of the St. Lawrence River. Little did I realize that most of these "trading posts" were actually run by indigenous people who were very selective as to when and how, and to whom, they revealed their ethnicity. Census records showed them shifting back and forth between being identified as "white" and as "Indian" - not out of dishonesty but out of the need for survival. They taught newcomers to the mountains the ways of surviving in this rugged wilderness - how to make and use snowshoes for transportation, how to make baskets from natural materials, how to peel bark on a large scale for use in tanning hides, how to survive by fishing, hunting, gathering, and also by serving as guides for wealthy tourists who wanted an experience of roughing it for weeks at a time in the woods. They were the folks who identified iron deposits that could later be mined, they were the scouts who helped surveyors and railroad developers decide where to lay tracks based on the topography that they knew intimately.  They worked as midwives, imparting knowledge and care for birthing babies in the absence of doctors, they worked in lumber camps and mills, both with the lumber directly and as cooks, waitresses and launderers for the camps. They trapped beaver and other wildlife for their furs, as had been the main engine of the economy in this region from the earliest (1630s) French and Dutch settlement to the north and south of the mountains respectively. They piloted rafts and boats on the waterways, shared water routes through the mountains, told stories and fortunes, made and left pots, collected spruce gum for the chewing gum industry and more. In some ways they were very marginalized, but depending on perspective, they were the true Adirondackers, as Otis lays out for us. The Adirondack guide boat was probably designed by some of these people, as was the Adirondack pack basket, based on an Abenaki design. They maintained ties with their reserve/ reservation communities, but also often intermarried with non-Native people, sharing their cultures with others. Many Adirondack "mountain men" and "hermits" (who were the subject of folklore that even I remember) learned about how to live here from Mohawk, Abenaki, and other Indigenous people. Otis spells out for us how false is the narrative of the "vanishing Indian," since they did persist in this region, and have developed cultural centers to help us learn. You can visit the Shako:wi Cultural Center, the Iroquois Museum, the Six Nations Iroquois Cultural Center, and Fort de la Présentation, among other places that will give you a window into the cultural heritage of this part of northeastern New York State. Native people have always been here, gave names to the places here, and are ready to teach us, something possibly new about the history of this very beautiful and rugged land. Otis gives a window into this learning opportunity. 

Note: Melissa Otis writes in her introduction about the problems of names and labels for this topic, these peoples, indicating how complex the history is. I have simplified naming here for the sake of readability, and defer to her explanation of how complicated names are. I recommend reading her book, especially if you have been to this beautiful place!