| United States > African American Research 
 African American Genealogy[edit | edit source]
|  |   African American counties in dark purple. |  African American is the most common ancestry in: Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana.The Freedman's Bank and the Freedmen's Bureau were separate organizations, from different government branches, in separate National Archives record groups.Ten percent of the African American population was free before the Civil War.Only 15 percent of freed slaves used the family name of a former owner.From 1865 to 1875 many African Americans changed their family name.The first Africans to arrive in the U.S. were sold as indentured servants in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619, before the Piligrims landed at Plymouth Rock. They were freed 7 years later.
 Extinct or Renamed Counties: Charles (old) | Durham | Patuxent | Worcester (old) 
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