I began my genealogy research in 2000 at a time when very little content was available digitally or online. Microfilm and microfiche readers were the staple tool for viewing birth, death, immigration, probate and deed records. As genealogy research has become more widespread, so has the access to and transcription of important records. Freedmen Bureau letters, complaints and work contracts once available only as images that you had to scroll through to find names and places of interest are now widely accessible on Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org via keyword searches.
People and organizations have been very busy providing information to help unlock the ancestral roots of once enslaved Black peoples. I recently attended a panel discussion at Prairie View A&M University’s Ruth J Simmons, Center for Race and Justice. Rice University Professor Domingues gave a presentation on the SlaveVoyages.org database. A database that has been around for quite a while that was available initially via CD-ROM access only but is now a robust digital tool. SlaveVoyages ‘explores the origins and forced relocations of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic world.’
Today, I stumbled upon a true treasure-chest–the ‘Lost Friends’ database. Included in this database are over 2,500 letters or ads in which Black families separated by slavery or separated after emancipation attempted to locate family members. The ads ran in the New Orleans Southwestern Christian Advocate newspaper November 1879 – December 1900. Content was provided by Hill Memorial Library, Louisiana State University Libraries (1879–1896) and the Bridwell Library, Southern Methodist University.
I have already found ads for families that lived in Jeanerette and Franklin, Louisiana as well as those in Double Bayou, Matagorda and Bremond, Texas.
It is hard to keep my focus when such great research tools keep popping up. You can search by lastname, year or location. I have found that wide searches on parish names or county names is not as successful as searching specifically by city names. So a search for Jeanerette may produce records while a search on Iberia Parish, may not.
So, check out ‘Lost Friends’ and see what you can uncover.
Best,
My Maryland-Louisiana Roots 