African American Digital Bookshelf

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United States

African American Genealogy

African American Digital Bookshelf

Introduction

Welcome to the African American Digital Bookshelf!

This is a curated list of virtually accessible books that provide information on specific African American ancestors, historical context, and guidance to other resources.

The digital books are organized geographically, with books pertaining to the entire U.S. or multiple states listed under "U.S." followed by books for particular states. The digital access to these books may come from FamilySearch or elsewhere (see the "Access" column in the table). To access the FamilySearch books, users must have an account here. The books from the other websites do not require an account to read them, except for a few located at Internet Archive. You can create your free Internet Archive account here.

This table will continue to grow, so please come back often. The Family History Library also houses hundreds of books on the shelves that contain valuable information for African American genealogy and research.

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Digital Books

U.S./State	Title	Access
U.S.	African American genealogy: a bibliography and guide to sources	FamilySearch
	African American slave narratives Vol I	Internet Archive
	African American slave narratives Vol II	Internet Archive
	African American slave narratives Vol III	Internet Archive
	African-Americans and the Gettysburg campaign	Internet Archive
	Afro-American encyclopaedia : or, the thoughts, doings, and sayings of the race, embracing addresses, lectures, biographical sketches, sermons, poems, names of universities, colleges, seminaries, newspapers, books, and a history of the denominations, giving	FamilySearch
	Before the Mayflower : a history of the Negro in America, 1619-1964	Internet Archive
	Black courage 1775-1783: Documentation of Black participation in the American Revolution	Internet Archive
	Black genesis : a resource book for African-American genealogy	Internet Archive
	Black Indian genealogy research	Internet Archive
	Black slavery emancipation research in the Northern States	FamilySearch
	Compiled military service records of volunteer soldiers who served with the United States Colored Troops : 1st through 5th United States Colored Cavalry, 5th Massachusetts Cavalry (Colored), 6th United States Colored Cavalry : pamphlet describing M1817	Internet Archive
	Compiled military service records of volunteer Union Soldiers who served with the United States Colored Troops, 2nd through 7th Colored Infantry: including 3rd Tennessee Volunteers (African Descent), 6th Louisiana Infantry (African Descent), and 7th Louisiana Infantry (African Descent).	Internet Archive
	Compiled military service records of volunteer Union Soldiers who served with the United States Colored Troops, infantry organizations, 14th through 19th	Internet Archive
	Finding a place called home : a guide to African-American genealogy and historical identity	Internet Archive
	Forgotten patriots : African American and American Indian patriots of the Revolutionary War : a guide to service, sources, and studies	Daughters of the Revolution
	Free Negro owners of slaves in the United States in 1830, together with Absentee ownership of slaves in the United States in 1830	Google Books
	Generations past : a selected list of sources for Afro-American genealogical research	FamilySearch
	Great slave narratives	Internet Archive
	History of the American negro and his institutions	FamilySearch
	History of the American Negro in the great world war : his splendid record in the battle zones of Europe, including a resume of his past services to his country in the wars of the revolution, of 1812, the war of the rebellion, the Indian wars on the front	HathiTrust
	Judicial cases concerning American slavery and the Negro (Vol. 1. Cases from the courts of England, Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky)	FamilySearch
	Judicial cases concerning American slavery and the Negro (Vol. 2. Cases from the courts of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee)	FamilySearch
	Judicial cases concerning American slavery and the Negro (Vol. 3. Cases from the courts of Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana)	FamilySearch
	Judicial cases concerning American slavery and the Negro (Vol. 4. Cases from the Courts of New England, the Middle States, and the District of Columbia)	FamilySearch
	Judicial cases concerning American slavery and the Negro (Vol. 5. Cases from the Courts of States North of the Ohio and west of the Mississippi Rivers, Canada and Jamaica)	FamilySearch
	List of Black servicemen compiled from the War Department collection of Revolutionary War records	FamilySearch
	List of free black heads of families in the first census of the United States, 1790	FamilySearch
	Memorials of Lieut. George H. Walcott, late of the 30th U.S. Colored Troops	HathiTrust
	Missing pages in American history : revealing the services of Negroes in the early wars in the United States of America, 1641-1815	Google Books
	Negro population in the United States, 1790-1915	HathiTrust
	Noted Negro women : their triumphs and activities	FamilySearch
	Patriots of color: a peculiar beauty and merit : African Americans and Native Americans at Battle Road & Bunker Hill	HathiTrust
	Progress of a race, or, The remarkable advancement of the American Negro : from the bondage of slavery, ignorance, and poverty to the freedom of citizenship, intelligence, affluence, honor and trust	FamilySearch
	Recollections of a colored troop	Library of Congress
	Record of the services of the seventh regiment U.S. colored troups	FamilySearch
	Reminiscences of my life in camp with the 33rd United States Colored Troops, late 1st S.C. Volunteers	Google Books
	Report to the Freedmen's Inquiry Commission, 1864 : the refugees from slavery in Canada West	HathiTrust
	Services of colored Americans in the wars of 1776 and 1812	FamilySearch
	Slavery in the courtroom: an annotated bibliography of American cases	HathiTrust
	The colored patriots of the American Revolution	Google Books
	The colored patriots of the American Revolution, with sketches of several distinguished colored persons : to which is added a brief survey of the condition and prospects of colored Americans	Google Books
	The Forty-Third Regiment United States Colored Troops	Gutenberg
	The National cyclopedia of the colored race	Google Books
	The negro as a soldier in the war of the rebellion	Library of Congress
	The Negro soldier : a select compilation	FamilySearch
	The underground rail road : a record of facts, authentic narratives, letters, &c. narrating the hardships hair-breadth escapes and death struggles of the slaves in their efforts for freedom, as related by themselves and others, or witnessed by the author	HathiTrust
	The Underground railroad from slavery to freedom	Gutenberg
	Two colored women with the American Expeditionary Forces	FamilySearch
	Who's who in colored America : an illustrated biographical directory of nolable living persons of African descent in the United States	FamilySearch
Alabama	Report of the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States, made to the two Houses of Congress February 19, 1879	Internet Archive
	Report of the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States, made to the two Houses of Congress February 19, 1880	Internet Archive
	Report of the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States, made to the two Houses of Congress February 19, 1881	Internet Archive
	Slavery in Auburn, Alabama	FamilySearch
	The Cyclopedia of the colored Baptists of Alabama, their leaders and their work	Internet Archive
	The large slaveholders of the deep South, 1860	FamilySearch
	No land -- only slaves (Vol. 6)	FamilySearch
	No land -- only slaves (Vol. 18)	FamilySearch
California	Slavery era insurance registry	California Dept of Insurance
	The Negro trail blazers of California : a compilation of records from the California Archives in the Bancroft Library at the University of California, in Berkeley, and from the diaries, old papers and conversations of old pioneers in the state of Californ	FamilySearch
Connecticut	Chains unbound : slave emancipations in the town of Greenwich, Connecticut	FamilySearch
Florida	Florida plantation records from the papers of George Noble Jones	FamilySearch
	Report of the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States, made to the two Houses of Congress February 19, 1884	Internet Archive
Georgia	Gwinnett County, Georgia book B marriage licenses of free persons of color, 1866-1884	FamilySearch
	Names from Georgia, 1865-1866, Freedmens Bureau letters	FamilySearch
	Report of the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States, made to the two Houses of Congress February 19, 1877	Internet Archive
	Report of the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States, made to the two Houses of Congress February 19, 1878	Internet Archive
	Savannah River plantations	FamilySearch
Illinois	Gallatin County, Illinois slave register 1815-1839	FamilySearch
	The Negro family in Chicago	HathiTrust
Indiana	Admission record, Indianapolis Asylum for Friendless Colored Children, 1871-1900	FamilySearch
	Enumeration of white & colored males, Henry County, Indiana 1907	FamilySearch
	List of aliens who applied for citizenship in Jefferson County, Indiana : list of indentures of apprentices in Jefferson County	FamilySearch
	Register of negro slaves and masters for 1805-1807, Knox County, Indiana Territory	FamilySearch
	African Americans in and around Jefferson County	FamilySearch
Kentucky	Afro-American deaths of Boone thru Boyle County, Kentucky, 1852-1862	FamilySearch
	Biographical sketches of prominent negro men and women of Kentucky : with introductory memoir of the author	FamilySearch
	Biographical sketches of prominent negro men and women of Kentucky : with introductory memoir of the author, and prefatory remarks showing the difference between American and British slave holders; also opinions of leading thinkers of the race	HathiTrust
	Civil War African American soldiers from Taylor and Green Counties, Kentucky : in the 5th United States Colored Cavalry and the 107th and 108th Colored Infantry	FamilySearch
	Colored marriage bonds, Logan County, KY to 1900	FamilySearch
	Golden jubilee of the general association of Colored Baptists in Kentucky : the story of 50 years' work from 1865-1915 including many photos and sketches, compiled from unpublished manuscripts and other sources	FamilySearch
	Mt. Moriah Cemetery : a history and census of Bowling Green, Kentucky's African-American cemetery	FamilySearch
	Narrative of the life and adventures of Henry Bibb, an American slave	Internet Archive
	Weeden's History of the colored people of Louisville	FamilySearch
Louisiana	History of Louisiana Negro Baptists and early American beginnings from 1804 to 1914	University of North Carolina
	Louisiana's households of free people of color : residing outside of Orleans Parish & the city of New Orleans in 1810 & 1820	FamilySearch
	No land -- only slaves (Vol. 1)	FamilySearch
	No land -- only slaves (Vol. 2)	FamilySearch
	No land -- only slaves (Vol. 3)	FamilySearch
	No land -- only slaves (Vol. 5)	FamilySearch
	No land -- only slaves (Vol. 8)	FamilySearch
Maryland	A Listing of Slaves and Indentured servants in Somerset County, 1668-1720	Internet Archive
	A narrative of the life of Rev. Noah Davis: a Colored man	Internet Archive
	Manumissions and Sales of Slaves recorded in land records of Somerset and Worcester Counties, Maryland, 1859-1866	Internet Archive
	Maryland slave owners and superintendents	FamilySearch
	Slave statistics of Saint Mary's County, Maryland, 1864	Archives of Maryland
	The first colored professional, clerical, skilled and business directory of Baltimore City	HathiTrust
	The Hawk yearbook (1949)	Internet Archive
	The Hawk yearbook (1950)	Internet Archive
	The Hawk yearbook (1952)	Internet Archive
	The Hawk yearbook (1953)	Internet Archive
	1954 The Hawk yearbook (1954)	Internet Archive
	The Hawk yearbook (1956)	Internet Archive
	The life of John Thompson, a fugitive slave : containing his history of 25 years in bondage, and his providential escape	Google Books
	The price of freedom : slavery and manumission in Baltimore and early national Maryland	Google Books
Massachusetts	The narrative of Bethany Veney, a slave woman	Internet Archive
	The trial and execution, for petit treason, of Mark and Phillis : slaves of Capt. John Codman, who murdered their master at Charlestown, Mass., in 1755 ; for which the man was hanged and gibbeted, and the woman was burned to death ; including, also, some	FamilySearch
Michigan	Michigan manual of freedmen's progress	Western Michigan University
	Report of the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States, made to the two Houses of Congress February 19, 1882	Internet Archive
	Report of the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States, made to the two Houses of Congress February 19, 1883	Internet Archive
	The History of Negro Baptists in Mississippi	Internet Archive
Missouri	Index, nineteenth century black and associated white persons (a) named in primary records at Clay County Archives & Historical Library, Liberty, Missouri; (b) extracted from U.S. colored volunteer enlistments (Civil War) on file at the National Archives a	FamilySearch
New Jersey	Cases adjudged in the Supreme Court of New Jersey relative to the manumission of Negroes and others holden in bondage	HathiTrust
	Manumission book of Monmouth County, New Jersey, 1791-1844	Monmouth County
New York	Quaker marriages, births, deaths, slaves, Nine Partners M.M., Dutchess CO, NY	Internet Archive
	The cradle of freedom : a history of the Negro in Rochester, western New York and Canada	FamilySearch
	Underground railroad in Tompkins County, (N.Y.)	FamilySearch
	Census of slaves, 1755	FamilySearch
North Carolina	A history of the Negro Baptists of North Carolina	Internet Archive
	Caswell County, North Carolina : land grants, tax lists, state census, apprentice bonds, estate records	FamilySearch
	Slavery in the State of North Carolina	Library of Congress
	Colored Charlotte : published in connection with the fiftieth anniversary of the freedom of the Negro in the county of Mecklenburg and the city of Charlotte, North Carolina	HathiTrust
	Enslaved ancestors abstracted from deed books, Granville county, North Carolina	Afrigeneas
	Mountain masters, slavery, and the sectional crisis in western North Carolina	Google Books
	Report of the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States, made to the two Houses of Congress February 19, 1873	Internet Archive
	Somerset homecoming: recovering a lost heritage	FamilySearch
Oklahoma	Oklahoma Creek freedman : my roots, 1858-1921	FamilySearch
	The Choctaw freedmen : and the story of Oak Hill Industrial Acadamy, Valliant, McCurtain County , Oklahoma, now called the Alice Lee Elliott Memorial	FamilySearch
	The final rolls of citizens and freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes in Indian Territory	National Archives
Pennsylvania	A comparison of negro and white labor in a charcoal iron community	FamilySearch
	A picture of slavery, drawn from the decision of southern courts	Internet Archive
	Pennsylvania Negro Business directory, 1910	HathiTrust
Rhode Island	An Historical inquiry concerning the attempt to raise a regiment of slaves by Rhode Island, during the war of the revolution	FamilySearch
	Report of the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States, made to the two Houses of Congress February 19, 1874	Internet Archive
	Report of the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States, made to the two Houses of Congress February 19, 1875	Internet Archive
	Report of the Joint Select Committee to Inquire into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States, made to the two Houses of Congress February 19, 1876	Internet Archive
Tennessee	History of Louisiana Negro Baptists: from 1804 to 1914	Internet Archive
	The Negro in Tennessee, 1790-1865	FamilySearch
Texas	Beaumont colored schools, 1880-1926	FamilySearch
	History of Negroes of Limestone County	FamilySearch
	Names and dates from grave markers in Evergreen Negro Cemetery, Houston, Texas : Eagle Scout Project	FamilySearch
	No land -- only slaves (Vol. 4)	FamilySearch
	No land -- only slaves (Vol. 7)	FamilySearch
	No land -- only slaves (Vol. 9)	FamilySearch
	No land -- only slaves (Vol. 10)	FamilySearch
	No land -- only slaves (Vol. 11)	FamilySearch
	No land -- only slaves (Vol. 12)	FamilySearch
	No land -- only slaves (Vol. 13)	FamilySearch
	No land -- only slaves (Vol. 14)	FamilySearch
	No land -- only slaves (Vol. 15)	FamilySearch
	No land -- only slaves (Vol. 16)	FamilySearch
	No land -- only slaves (Vol. 17)	FamilySearch
	No land -- only slaves (Vol. 19)	FamilySearch
Utah	The story of the Negro pioneer	FamilySearch
Vermont	Vermont's anti-slavery and underground railroad record, with a map and illustrations	HathiTrust
Virginia	Free people of colour : free Negroes, Indians, Portuguese and freed slaves	FamilySearch
	History of the colored volunteer infantry of Virginia 1871-99	FamilySearch
	Negro office holders in Virginia, 1865-1895	HathiTrust
	Princess Anne County guardian accounts: an index to enslaved and free African-Virginians in Princess Anne County (Vol. 1-5)	Internet Archive
	Princess Anne County guardian accounts: an index to enslaved and free African-Virginians in Princess Anne County (Vol. 6-18)	Internet Archive
	Registrations of free negroes commencing September court 1822, book no. 2 & register of free blacks 1835, book 3 : being the full text of the two extant volumes, 1822-1861, of registrations of free blacks now in the county courthouse, Fairfax, Virginia	FamilySearch
Virginia	Something to build on : genealogy of African American families of Henry County, Virginia and surrounding area with surnames A-Z	FamilySearch
Wisconsin	Negro slavery in Wisconsin	HathiTrust
Wyoming	Pack slaves of upper New River, West Virginia, and their families	FamilySearch