Trace Your FBA Lineage
You do not have to begin with slavery records. Start with yourself and work backward one generation at a time. Build a documented family chain and identify your earliest reliable connection to the historic Black American population.
1. Start With Your Family
Write down parents, grandparents and great-grandparents, including maiden names, approximate dates, hometowns, churches, cemeteries, military service and migrations. Interview older relatives and record where each fact came from.
2. Work Backward Through Census Records
Search the most recent publicly available U.S. Census and work backward. Compare names, ages, family members, birthplaces and locations across decades. Preserve historical classifications exactly as written.
National Archives — Census Records
3. Search Genealogy Databases
4. Look Beyond the Census
Use birth, marriage and death records, obituaries, cemeteries, military and pension files, church registers, probate files, deeds, tax records and newspapers to connect generations.
5. Reconstruction-Era Research
Freedmen’s Bureau records can include marriages, labor contracts, schools, legal matters, military claims and family-reunification information. These records can help bridge families across emancipation.
National Archives — Freedmen’s Bureau
6. Continue Earlier If You Want To
Probate files, wills, estate inventories, deeds, bills of sale, manumission records, plantation papers and slave schedules can sometimes extend research before emancipation. These records are valuable but are not required for every participant.
Start with yourself. Work backward. Cite every record. Preserve historical classifications exactly. Treat unsourced online trees and DNA ethnicity estimates as leads, not proof.
When ready, submit your lineage to the project.