FBA Glossary

Historical labels appear here because they occur in source records; inclusion does not recommend their modern use.

Foundational Black American (FBA) — A lineage-based identity used by this project for descendants of the historic Black American population established in the United States.

Lineage — A line of descent connecting a person to ancestors across generations.

Delineation — Defining or distinguishing the boundaries of a group or concept.

Documented FBA Lineage Anchor — An ancestor connected through a reasonable genealogical chain whose contemporaneous U.S. records and surrounding evidence support continuity with the historic Black American population.

Historical Continuity — Evidence that an ancestral line continues from the historic U.S. Black population rather than relying on a racial label alone.

Black / Colored / Negro / Mulatto — Classifications used at different times in U.S. historical records. The project preserves exact source wording and analyzes it in context.

Freedmen’s Bureau — The federal Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands; its records are important sources for African American genealogy and Reconstruction history.

Slave Schedule — 1850 and 1860 federal census schedules recording enslaved populations, often without the enslaved person’s name.

Manumission — The legal act of freeing an enslaved person under applicable law.

USCT — United States Colored Troops.

OMB — U.S. Office of Management and Budget.

SPD 15 — Federal standards for maintaining, collecting and presenting race and ethnicity data.

Detailed Race/Ethnicity Response — A more specific identity reported within or in addition to a broad minimum federal category.

Census Race/Ethnicity Code — A numeric code Census assigns to a race/ethnicity response for processing and tabulation.

Disaggregation — Breaking a broad statistical population into more detailed groups so within-group differences can be measured.

Self-Identification — Voluntary reporting of the race/ethnicity identities that apply to a respondent.

ACS — American Community Survey.