African American Resources for Tennessee: Difference between revisions

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==Introduction==
==Introduction==
==Online Resources==
==Online Resources==
*[http://www.discoverfreedmen.org/ Discover Freedmen] - this site searches all of the Freedmen's Bureau record collections on FamilySearch altogether (and redirects there)
*[https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/1417695 Freedman's Bank Records, 1865-1874]
*[https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/1414908 United States, Freedmen's Bureau Marriages, 1861-1872]
*[https://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=1231 U.S., Freedmen’s Bureau Marriage Records, 1846-1867 ($)]
*{{RecordSearch|2333777|Tennessee, Freedmen's Bureau Field Office Records, 1865-1872}} Images only.
*{{RecordSearch|2333777|Tennessee, Freedmen's Bureau Field Office Records, 1865-1872}} Images only.
*[http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=61568 U.S., Freedmen's Bureau Records of Field Offices, 1863-1878] ($) index and images
*[http://www.spiny.com/runaway/ Runaway Slave Blog]


Resources for African-American research fall into two periods: pre- and post-Civil War. A great starting point is Afrigeneas's [http://afrigeneas.org/states/tn/ "African Ancestry in Tennessee."]  
Resources for African-American research fall into two periods: pre- and post-Civil War. A great starting point is Afrigeneas's [http://afrigeneas.org/states/tn/ "African Ancestry in Tennessee."]  
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====Freedman’s Bank====
====Freedman’s Bank====
An excellent source is the Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company (visit the [[African American Freedman's Savings and Trust Company Records]] page to learn more). This company was created to assist African American soldiers of the Civil War and freed slaves. Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company signature cards or registers from 3 March 1865 to 25 July 1874 may list the name of the depositor, date of entry, age, birthplace, residence, complexion, name of employer or occupation, wife or husband’s name, death information, children’s names, name of father and mother, brothers’ and sisters’ names, remarks, and signature. Early books sometimes contained the name of the former master or mistress and the name of the plantation. Copies of death certificates were sometimes attached to the entries. The collection is organized alphabetically by state, then city where the bank was located, then date the account was established, then account number.<br>
Online collections of Freedman's Bank records:
*[https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/1417695 United States, Freedman's Bank Records, 1865-1874]
*[https://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=8755 U.S., Freedman's Bank Records, 1865-1871 ($)]
====Freedmen's Bureau====
====Freedmen's Bureau====
The Freedmen’s Savings and Trust Company signature cards or registers may list a depositor’s birth date, birthplace, occupation, residences, death information, parents, children, spouses, siblings, or former masters. Tennessee had two branches of this bank at:
The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands was created by the US government in 1865 until 1872 to assist former slaves in the southern United States. The Bureau created a wide variety of records extremely valuable to genealogists.  Such documents include censuses, marriage records, and medical records.  These records often include full names, former masters and plantations, and current residences.<ref>"African American Records: Freedmen's Bureau," "African American Heritage," ''National Archives'', accessed 11 May 2018. </ref> For 1865 and 1866, the section on abandoned and confiscated lands includes the names of the owners of the plantations or homes that were abandoned, confiscated, or leased. It gives the county and location, a description of the house, the number of acres owned, and the number of cabins of former slaves. These films do not appear to contain the names of former slaves.


Tennessee had two branches of this bank at:
*Memphis 1865–1874 - Accounts 1–6298  
*Memphis 1865–1874 - Accounts 1–6298  
*Nashville 1871–1874 - Accounts 4174–6189
*Nashville 1871–1874 - Accounts 4174–6189  


The signature registers for these branches are microfilmed:  
The signature registers for these branches are microfilmed:  


*Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company (Washington, D.C.). ''Registers of Signatures of Depositors, 1871–1874''. National Archives Microfilm Publications, M0816. Washington, D.C.: National Archives, 1969. {{FHL|709470|item|disp=FHL fikm928590}}.
*Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company (Washington, D.C.). ''Registers of Signatures of Depositors, 1871–1874''. National Archives Microfilm Publications, M0816. Washington, D.C.: National Archives, 1969. {{FHL|709470|item|disp=FHL fikm928590}}
 
Other types of records were kept by The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, otherwise known as the Freedmen’s Bureau. An Internet site has resources for African-American research in Tennessee and other states:


'''The Freedmen’s Bureau Online.''' This site includes lists of freedmen, marriage records, labor records, other types of records, and links to related sites.<br>[http://www.freedmensbureau.com/tennessee/index.htm www.freedmensbureau.com/tennessee/index.htm]
To find Freedmen's Bureau records:
*[http://www.discoverfreedmen.org/ DiscoverFreedmen] - the search on this site will utilize all of the Freedmen's Bureau records on FamilySearch, including:
**{{RecordSearch|2432941|United States, Freedmen's Bureau Claim Records,1865-1872}}
**{{RecordSearch|2432992|United States, Freedmen's Bureau Hospital and Medical Records, 1865-1872}}
**{{RecordSearch|2475025|United States, Freedmen's Bureau Labor Contracts, Indenture and Apprenticeship Records, 1865-1872}}
**{{RecordSearch|1414908|United States, Freedmen's Bureau Marriages, 1861-1872}}
**{{RecordSearch|2431759|United States, Freedmen's Bureau Ration Records,1865-1872}}
**{{RecordSearch|2515868|United States, Freedmen's Bureau Records of Persons and Articles Hired, 1865-1872 }}
**{{RecordSearch|2515865|United States, Freedmen's Bureau, Freedmen's Court Records, 1865-1872 }}
**{{RecordSearch|2515867|United States, Freedmen's Bureau, Land and Property Records, 1865-1872 }}
**{{RecordSearch|2492627|United States, Freedmen's Bureau, Records of Freedmen's Complaints, 1865-1872 }}
**{{RecordSearch|2427894|United States, Freedmen's Bureau, Records of the Superintendent of Education and of the Division of Education, 1865-1872 }}
Other FamilySearch collections not included:
*{{RecordSearch|2333777|Tennessee, Freedmen's Bureau Field Office Records, 1865-1872 }}
*{{RecordSearch|2575789|United States Freedmen's Bureau Miscellaneous Records,1865-1872 }}
*{{RecordSearch|2721171|United States Freedmen's Bureau, Records of Freedmen, 1865-1872 }}
*{{RecordSearch|2427901|''United States, Freedmen's Bureau, Records of the Assistant Commissioner, 1865-1872'' }} Images only. These reports primarily contain statistical and historical information.  
*More collections are available in the FamilySearch Catalog. Search for "FREEDMEN - INDIANA" in the Subjects search bar to find.


The [[African American Freedmen's Bureau Records|Freedmen’s Bureau records]] do not normally include family information. In the FamilySearch Catalog’s Subject Search, look under:
Other websites include:
*[http://www.freedmensbureau.com/tennessee/index.htm The Freedmen's Bureau Online: Tennessee]  


FREEDMEN - TENNESSEE
Visit the [[African American Freedmen's Bureau Records]] page to learn more about utilizing these records.<br>


===School Records===
===School Records===
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====Birth====
====Birth====
====Marriage====
====Marriage====
The Freedmen's Bureau (1865-1872) was created by the US government to assist former slaves in the southern United States. One of their responsibilities was to record the marriages (past and present) of the former slaves. These records can be found in the collections below and include the lists of marriages that occurred previously, marriage certificates, and marriage licenses.  The information contained on the records may include the name of the husband and wife/groom and bride, age, occupation, residence, year or date of marriage, by whom, number of children, and remarks.
*[https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/1414908 United States, Freedmen's Bureau Marriages, 1861-1872]
*[https://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=1231 U.S., Freedmen’s Bureau Marriage Records, 1846-1867]
====Death====
====Death====
====Divorce====
====Divorce====
===Voting Registers===
===Voting Registers===
==Archives and Libraries==
==Archives and Libraries==
[https://www.civilrightsmuseum.org/ '''National Civil Rights Museum''']<br>
450 Mulberry St.<br>
Memphis, TN 38103<br>
Phone: (901) 521-9699<br><br>
[http://www.bessiesmithcc.org/ '''Bessie Smith Cultural Center''']<br>
200 E. Martin Luther King Boulevard<br>
Chattanooga, TN 37403<br>
Email: info@bessiesmithcc.org<br>
Phone: (423) 266-8658<br><br>
==Societies==
==Societies==


==References==
==References==
<references />
<references />




Revision as of 11:29, 28 September 2018

Tennessee Wiki Topics
Tennessee flag.png
Beginning Research
Record Types
Tennessee Background
Cultural Groups
Local Research Resources

{{{link}}}

Introduction[edit | edit source]

Online Resources[edit | edit source]

Resources for African-American research fall into two periods: pre- and post-Civil War. A great starting point is Afrigeneas's "African Ancestry in Tennessee."

[[Image:

TVA worker at a phosphate furnace 1942

]]

Research Strategy[edit | edit source]

The Tennessee State Library and Archives in Nashville offers several free online research guides for tracing Tennessee African Americans in their collection:

History[edit | edit source]

  • Lamon, Lester C. Blacks in Tennessee, 1791-1970. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1981. book 976.8 F2L. This indexed book deals with the African-American experience in Tennessee with chapters arranged by 20- to 50-year time periods.
  • "Negroes in Tennessee" chapter 10 of the online book Tennessee: A Guide to the State. Compiled and Written by the Federal Writers' Project of the Work Projects Administration for the State of Tennessee. American Guide Series. (No Place: New Deal Network, 1996) Original published: Tennessee: State of Tennessee. Department of Conservation, Division of Information, 1939. This chapter provides a concise introduction to African Americans in Tennessee.
  • Patterson, C. Perry. The Negro in Tennessee, 1790-1865. Austin, Texas: The University of Texas, 1922. Free digitized copy.  Written in 1922, this book can be viewed as treating slavery without a degree of compassion and understanding, but it is valuable for its information about the slavery system and laws in Tennessee.
  • Profiles of African Americans in Tennessee, Editors Bobby L.Lovett and Linda T. Winn. Nashville, Tennessee: Annual Local Conference on Afro-American Culture and History, 1996. This online publication contains short biographies of 70 members of the Tennessee General Assembly between 1873-1995.
  • Works Projects Administration. Slave Narratives - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves.Washington, 1941. Free digital copy.

Resources[edit | edit source]

Biographies[edit | edit source]

  • Works Projects Administration. Slave Narratives - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Tennessee Narratives.Washington, 1941. Free digital copy, courtesy: Internet Archive.

Cemeteries[edit | edit source]

African Americans were generally buried in race-specific cemeteries.

Census Records[edit | edit source]

The first Tennessee census that included the names and identities of freed slaves was taken in 1870.

Church Records[edit | edit source]

African Americans typically worshiped apart from white congregations in their own churches.

Emancipation Records[edit | edit source]

Funeral Homes[edit | edit source]

Genealogies[edit | edit source]

Land and Property[edit | edit source]

Plantation[edit | edit source]

Oral Histories[edit | edit source]

Other Records[edit | edit source]

Maps

Charles A. Reeves Jr. has created a detailed map, based on the 1860 U.S. Federal Census, illustrating the distribution of slaves throughout Tennessee just before the Civil War broke out. It may be purchased for a small fee through his website, which includes a scaled-down image of the map:

  • Tennessee Slave Population As Reported in the 1860 Census

Military Records[edit | edit source]

For pensions of African Americans who fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War, see:

Newspapers[edit | edit source]

Probate Records[edit | edit source]

Reconstruction Records[edit | edit source]

Research consists of consulting the same record types as for non-African Americans. In addition, there are some types of records specific to African-American research, such as emancipation records, apprenticeship bonds for freedmen, and the other types of records.

Freedman’s Bank[edit | edit source]

An excellent source is the Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company (visit the African American Freedman's Savings and Trust Company Records page to learn more). This company was created to assist African American soldiers of the Civil War and freed slaves. Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company signature cards or registers from 3 March 1865 to 25 July 1874 may list the name of the depositor, date of entry, age, birthplace, residence, complexion, name of employer or occupation, wife or husband’s name, death information, children’s names, name of father and mother, brothers’ and sisters’ names, remarks, and signature. Early books sometimes contained the name of the former master or mistress and the name of the plantation. Copies of death certificates were sometimes attached to the entries. The collection is organized alphabetically by state, then city where the bank was located, then date the account was established, then account number.

Online collections of Freedman's Bank records:

Freedmen's Bureau[edit | edit source]

The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands was created by the US government in 1865 until 1872 to assist former slaves in the southern United States. The Bureau created a wide variety of records extremely valuable to genealogists. Such documents include censuses, marriage records, and medical records. These records often include full names, former masters and plantations, and current residences.[1] For 1865 and 1866, the section on abandoned and confiscated lands includes the names of the owners of the plantations or homes that were abandoned, confiscated, or leased. It gives the county and location, a description of the house, the number of acres owned, and the number of cabins of former slaves. These films do not appear to contain the names of former slaves.

Tennessee had two branches of this bank at:

  • Memphis 1865–1874 - Accounts 1–6298
  • Nashville 1871–1874 - Accounts 4174–6189

The signature registers for these branches are microfilmed:

  • Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company (Washington, D.C.). Registers of Signatures of Depositors, 1871–1874. National Archives Microfilm Publications, M0816. Washington, D.C.: National Archives, 1969. FHL fikm928590

To find Freedmen's Bureau records:

Other FamilySearch collections not included:

Other websites include:

Visit the African American Freedmen's Bureau Records page to learn more about utilizing these records.

School Records[edit | edit source]

Slavery Records[edit | edit source]

Records consist of slave importation declarations, plantation records, Tennessee hiring practices, census records, white family records, church and cemetery records, military records, vital records, and numerous Tennessee court records.

African-American vital records were usually recorded in separate books for many years. Slaves are sometimes mentioned in deeds, wills, tax records, or court order books. A few parish registers list slaves who attended church with their masters.

See the Land and Property, Probate Records, Taxation, Court Records, and Church Records wiki articles for Tennessee.

Occasionally slaves are mentioned in records of the plantations where they served. A collection of plantation records is:

  • Stamp, Kenneth M. Records of Ante-Bellum Southern Plantations from the Revolution through the Civil War. Frederick, Maryland: University Publications of America, 1989–1992. The records of several plantations were microfilmed in several series. They are indexed with Family History Library film numbers in Family History Library Bibliography of African American Sources: As of 1994, mentioned below.

An index to records at the Family History Library containing the names of African Americans is:

  • Taylor, Marie. Family History Library Bibliography of African American Sources: As of 1994. Salt Lake City, Utah: Family History Library, United States Reference, 2000. (Family History Library book [1]; [this link allows access to a digital image].) Includes information taken from church, court, slavery, and vital records, as well from the Kenneth Stamp collection of Southern plantation records.

A list of slaves that were impressed to work on the railroads is in:

  • Bamman, Gale Williams. "African-Americans Impressed for Service on the Nashville and North Western Railroad, October 1863." National Genealogical Society Quarterly, September 1992, 204-210. Includes: name, age, height, complexion, name of owner, county, town, and other remarks.

Slaves were gradually emancipated by Tennessee law beginning in 1865.

Not all black residents of Tennessee were slaves before the Civil War. The following is a list of free black heads of household living in Tennessee counties at the time the 1820 U.S. Federal Census was taken (census records do not survive for all counties that year):

Gale Williams Bamman, CG located the following statistics in a book by Historian Ira Berlin:[2]

Free African American Population in Antebellum Tennessee

Year Number
1820 2,727
1860 7,300

Vital Records[edit | edit source]

Birth[edit | edit source]

Marriage[edit | edit source]

The Freedmen's Bureau (1865-1872) was created by the US government to assist former slaves in the southern United States. One of their responsibilities was to record the marriages (past and present) of the former slaves. These records can be found in the collections below and include the lists of marriages that occurred previously, marriage certificates, and marriage licenses. The information contained on the records may include the name of the husband and wife/groom and bride, age, occupation, residence, year or date of marriage, by whom, number of children, and remarks.

Death[edit | edit source]

Divorce[edit | edit source]

Voting Registers[edit | edit source]

Archives and Libraries[edit | edit source]

National Civil Rights Museum
450 Mulberry St.
Memphis, TN 38103
Phone: (901) 521-9699

Bessie Smith Cultural Center
200 E. Martin Luther King Boulevard
Chattanooga, TN 37403
Email: info@bessiesmithcc.org
Phone: (423) 266-8658

Societies[edit | edit source]

References[edit | edit source]

  1. ↑ "African American Records: Freedmen's Bureau," "African American Heritage," National Archives, accessed 11 May 2018.
  2. ↑ Gale Williams Bamman, "Research in Tennessee," National Genealogical Society Quarterly, Vol. 81, No. 2 (Jun. 1993): 105. FHL US/CAN Book 973 B2ng v. 81 (1993), citing Ira Berlin, Slaves without Masters: The Free Negro in the Antebellum South (New York: Pantheon Books, 1974), 136-137.


Template:Adoption TNGenWeb

v • d• e
Links to African American Research-related articles
Topics
Repositories
Allen County Public Library · FamilySearch Library · Library of Congress · National Archives I · National Archives Regional Branches · National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, John Parker Library · Birmingham Civil Rights Institute · Black Archives of Mid-America · Duke Univeristy Rubenstein Library · FamilySearch Centers · Godfrey Memorial Library · Kalamazoo College Black History Mobile Museum · New England Historic Genealogical Society · Newberry Library · John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library at Colonial Williamsburg · Schomburg Center For Research In Black Culture · Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum · University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Libraries · University of Pennsylvania African Studies Center · University of Pittsburgh Hillman Library
States


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Migration
Routes
Cumberland River · Mississippi River · Tennessee River · Cumberland Trace · Black Fox Trail · Bolivar and Memphis Trail · Butterfield Overland Mail · Catawba Trail · Chattanooga-Willstown Road · Nickajack Trail · Cisco and Middle Tennessee Trail · Cumberland and Great Lake Trail · Cumberland and Ohio Falls Trail · Federal Road · Great Indian Warpath · Great South Trail · Great Trading Path · Great Valley Road · Jackson's Military Road · Jonesboro Road · Kentucky Road · West Tennessee Trail · Maysville Turnpike · Memphis, Pontotoc and Mobile Trail · Mississippi and Tennessee River Trail · Nashville Road · Nashville-Saline River Trail · Chickasaw Trail · Old Cherokee Path · Tennessee, Ohio and Great Lakes Trail · Unicoi Trail · West Tennessee Chickasaw Trail · Wilderness Road · Illinois Central Railroad

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