Websites expand ancestry records of enslaved people
Two genealogy sites are adding troves of historical materials about enslaved people in the U.S. to databases, which could give many of their descendants a fuller picture of their families' histories.
The moves come as the nation on Thursday celebrates Juneteenth, the annual celebration of the end of slavery.
Why it matters: In recent years, descendants of enslaved people have gained unprecedented access to collections of long-lost family records online — made possible by advances in technology, AI, and DNA testing.
The big picture: A growing number of Black Americans are tracing how their families were torn apart, received Anglo names and sold across the country because of slavery, which began in the British colonies more than 400 years ago and officially ended with the 13th Amendment in 1865.
They're also learning about how some relatives escaped slavery and what their lives were like in the aftermath of emancipation.
Driving the news: Ancestry.com announced last week that it will significantly expand its free Articles of Enslavement records collection — an archive of newspaper articles documenting the experiences of enslaved people in the U.S.
The website is expanding its archive nearly fourfold, using proprietary AI models and machine learning to index 110,000 newly discovered articles that reference more than half a million people.
Many of the original newspaper articles contain never-before-seen information about enslaved people in communities where courthouse and community records were otherwise destroyed or lost.
How it works: Users can visit Ancestry's expanded landing page dedicated to enslavement records and search by name or explore a state with the most records.
AI will comb through the once-hard-to-search data for names of enslaved people, connecting names in Ancestry's other databases of public documents to piece together puzzles.
Zoom in: Michigan State University announced this week it's publishing new data on its "Enslaved: Peoples of the Historical Slave Trade" website, Enslaved.org.
That's a project in partnership with other organizations, such as FamilySearch International, that documents the lives of enslaved people of African descent.
The latest data release makes information regarding 2 million Black Americans born before emancipation in the 1900 Census available for discovery and download.
The expanded dataset will significantly aid researchers' ability to identify formerly enslaved people and their families for academic study, the university said.
What they're saying: "Tracing people from the era of enslavement into the generations that followed emancipation presents exceptional challenges to descendants and researchers," Walter Hawthorne, an MSU history professor and head of the Enslaved.org project, said in a statement.
That's because managing databases across multiple sites remains challenging, along with ensuring the long-term preservation of projects and resources, MSU said.
"The details of these records can lead to key breakthroughs in helping descendants of previously enslaved people in the U.S. make discoveries about their families prior to 1870," Nicka Sewell-Smith, Ancestry's senior story producer and genealogist, said in an announcement.
State of play: Juneteenth celebrations began in Texas, and commemorate June 19, 1865 — the day Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, with news that the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed by President Lincoln more than two years earlier.
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Los Angeles Times
2 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
Rebuilding one of the nation's oldest Black churches to begin at Juneteenth ceremony
WILLIAMSBURG, Va. — A ceremonial groundbreaking will be held Thursday for the rebuilding of one of the nation's oldest Black churches, whose congregants first gathered outdoors in secret before constructing a wooden meetinghouse in Virginia. The First Baptist Church of Williamsburg officially established itself in 1776, although parishioners met before then in fields and under trees in defiance of laws that prevented African Americans from congregating. Free and enslaved members erected the original church house around 1805, laying the foundation with recycled bricks. Reconstructing the 16-foot by 32-foot building will help demonstrate that 'Black history is American history,' First Baptist Pastor Reginald F. Davis told The Associated Press before the Juneteenth groundbreaking. 'Oral history is one thing but to have an image to go along with the oral history makes a greater impact on the psyche of oppressed people,' said Davis, who leads the current 215-member congregation in a 20th Century church that is less than a mile from the original site. 'Black Americans have been part of this nation's history before and since the Declaration of Independence.' The original building was destroyed by a tornado in 1834. First Baptist's second structure, built in 1856, stood there for a century. But the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, a living history museum, bought the property in 1956 and turned the space into a parking lot. Colonial Williamsburg had covered the costs of building First Baptist's current church house. But for decades it failed to tell the church's pioneering history and the stories of other colonial Black Americans. In recent years, the museum has placed a growing emphasis on telling a more complete story about the nation's founding. Colonial Williamsburg's rebuilding of the church is an opportunity to tell Black history and resurrect the stories of those who originally built it. Rebuilding First Baptist's original meetinghouse will fill an important historical gap, while bolstering the museum's depiction of Virginia's 18th century capital through interpreters and restored buildings. More than half of the 2,000 people who lived in Williamsburg at the time were Black, many of them enslaved. Rev. James Ingram is an interpreter who has for 27 years portrayed Gowan Pamphlet, First Baptists' pastor when the original church structure was built. Pamphlet was an enslaved tavern worker who followed his calling to preach, sermonizing equality, despite the laws that prohibited large gatherings of African Americans out of fear of slave uprisings. 'He is a precursor to someone like Frederick Douglass, who would be the precursor to someone like Martin Luther King Jr.,' Ingram said. 'Gowan Pamphlet was leading the charge.' The museum's archaeologists uncovered the original church's foundation in 2021, prompting Pastor Davis to say then that it was 'a rediscovery of the humanity of a people.' 'This helps to erase the historical and social amnesia that has afflicted this country for so many years,' he said. The archaeologists also located 62 graves, while experts examined three sets of remains and linked them to the congregation. Scientists at William & Mary's Institute for Historical Biology said the teeth of a Black male in his teens indicated some kind of stress, such as malnutrition or disease. 'It either represents the conditions of an enslaved childhood or far less likely — but possibly — conditions for a free African American in childhood,' Michael Blakey, the institute's director, said in 2023. In the early 1800s, the congregation acquired the property for the original church from a local white merchant. The land was low, soft and often soggy — hardly ideal for building, said Jack Gary, Colonial Williamsburg's executive director of archaeology. But the church's congregants, many of whom were skilled tradespeople, made it work by flipping bricks on their side and making other adjustments to lay a level foundation. 'It was a marvel that they were able to build a structure there, but also that the structure persists and even grows bigger,' Gary said, adding that the church was later expanded. Based on their excavation, archaeologists surmise there was no heat source, such as a fireplace, no glass in the windows and no plaster finish, Gary said. About 50 people could have sat comfortably inside, possibly 100 if they were standing. The congregation numbered about 500, which included people on surrounding plantations. Services likely occurred outside the church as well. White planters and business owners were often aware of the large gatherings, which technically were banned, while there's documentary evidence of some people getting caught, Gary said. Following Nat Turner's rebellion in 1831, which killed more than 50 white people in Virginia's Southampton County, the congregation was led by white pastors, though it was Black preachers doing the work, Gary said. The tornado destroyed the structure a few years later. The museum is rebuilding the 1805 meetinghouse at its original site and will use common wood species from the time: pine, poplar and oak, said Matthew Webster, the museum's executive director of architectural preservation and research. The boards are already being cut. Construction is expected to finish next year. The windows will have shutters but no glass, Webster said, while a concrete beam will support the new church directly over its original foundation, preserving the bricks. 'When we build the earliest part of the church, we will put bricks on their sides and will lay them in that strange way because that tells the story of those individuals struggling to quickly get their church up,' Webster said. 'And then when we build the addition, it will be this formal foundation that really shows the establishment of the church.' Janice Canaday, who traces her lineage to First Baptist, said Williamsburg's Black community never forgot its original location or that its graves were paved over in the 1950s. 'They will never be able to expunge us from the landscape,' said Canaday, who is also the museum's African American community engagement manager. 'It doesn't matter if you take out the building. It doesn't matter if you ban books. You will never be able to pull that root up because that root is so deep.' Finley writes for the Associated Press.
Fast Company
3 hours ago
- Fast Company
What's open and closed on Juneteenth 2025? Banks, stock markets, stores, post office, pharmacies, more
Any student of American history knows that there are hard truths to ponder about our past. Slavery certainly falls into this category. Today (Thursday, June 19, 2025), the United States commemorates the end of that horrific institution and wrestles with its lasting impact. As this occasion has only been formally established as a federal holiday since 2021, it may be confusing to know what will be open and closed. Let's take a deeper look so you can plan ahead. A brief history of Juneteenth Juneteenth celebrates the end of slavery in the United States. The holiday is always held on June 19 because this is the anniversary of the day that federal troops reached Galveston, Texas, in 1865. Under the leadership of General Gordon Granger, troops took control of the state and made sure that enslaved people were freed in accordance with the Emancipation Proclamation, which was enacted two and a half years prior. Although celebrations of the holiday date back to 1866, the landmark day did not become a federal holiday until 2021 under President Biden. Are banks open on Juneteenth? No. Juneteenth is considered a bank holiday. The Federal Reserve along with most major banks such as Bank of America, Chase, and Wells Fargo will be closed. Are ATMs open on Juneteenth? Yes. If you find yourself in a bind and need to complete some transactions on Juneteenth, ATMs located outside branches and online banking are available. Is the post office open on Juneteenth? No. The U.S. Postal Service locations are not open on the holiday. If you need to buy stamps, some grocery or convenience stores sell them. Additionally, you can buy them online at Is mail delivered on Juneteenth? No. You will not receive letters or written invitations sent through the mail on Juneteenth. The silver lining of this is that you won't get any paper bills either. The only exception is Priority Mail Express, which is delivered 365 days a year, including federal holidays. Are FedEx and UPS operating on Juneteenth? Yes. According to its website, UPS is open for business as usual on Juneteenth. This includes store locations and deliveries. The same can be said for FedEx locations and deliveries. Is the stock market open on Juneteenth? No. It's not possible to buy or sell stocks on Juneteenth. The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the Nasdaq exchange are closed for the day. You can still trade Bitcoin to your heart's content. Are schools open on Juneteenth? No. Because Juneteenth falls during the summer holiday, most schools are out of session already. Check in with your local summer camps or year-round institutions to double check how they are handling the holiday. Are restaurants, pharmacies, and grocery stores open on Juneteenth? Yes. Speaking in general terms, most retail locations will be open on Juneteenth. Target, Costco, and Aldi will all remain open. Olive Garden will serve its famous breadsticks. Major pharmacy chains such as CVS and Walgreens will be open, although they might be operating under limited hours—so check your local pharmacy hours to be sure. Smaller mom-and-pop shops, meanwhile, might close for the day, so it is a good practice to double check those. The final deadline for Fast Company's Next Big Things in Tech Awards is Friday, June 20, at 11:59 p.m. PT. Apply today.
USA Today
4 hours ago
- USA Today
Juneteenth across America
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