Finding a
Place Called Home: A Guide to African-American Genealogy and Historical Identity
(click to buy this book online now)
Format: Hardcover, 1st ed., 452pp.
ISBN: 037540595X
Publisher: Random House Reference & Information Publishing
Pub. Date: January 1999
ABOUT THE BOOK
Reclaiming a lost heritage is a task requiring a solid road map. African-American
genealogy circles are abuzz, excited byFinding a Place Called Home , a new volume
that teaches readers how to sort out their racial and cultural identities, as well as how
to begin the step-by-step process of searching for one's family roots. Advising readers on
ways to sidestep roadblocks that often hinder black genealogists, Woodtor explains how to
access and use census reports, slave schedules, courthouse records, the Internet, and
other sources to trace a family tree. She also shares many personal stories of
African-Americans who have gone through this experience. And she details the importance of
probing the immediate family history with an emphasis on the oldest generation. Once the
extended living members are marked on the family tree, the ancestral limbs and trunk must
be found through interviews, courthouse documents, grave markers, periodicals, and church
records. This book also includes a special section on tracing Caribbean ancestry. For
anyone wishing to retrace an African-American family history, Woodtor's fine effort
"I teach the kings of their ancestors so that
the lives of the ancients might serve them as an example, for the world is old but the
future springs from the past."
Mamadou Kouyate "Sundiata", An Epic of Old Mali, a.d. 1217-1257
Two major questions of the ages are: Who am I?
and Where am I going? From the moment the first African slaves were dragged onto these
shores, these questions have become increasingly harder for African-Americans to answer.
To find the answers, you first must discover where you have been, you must go back to your
family tree--but you must dig through rocky layers of lost information, of slavery--to
find your roots.
During the Great Migration in the 1940s, when African-Americans fled the strangling hands
of Jim Crow for the relative freedoms of the North, many tossed away or buried the painful
memories of their past. As we approach the new millennium, African-Americans are reaching
back to uncover where we have been, to help us determine where we are going.
Finding a Place Called Home is a comprehensive guide
to finding your African-American roots and tracing your family tree. Written in a clear,
conversational, and accessible style, this book shows you, step-by-step, how to find out
who your family was and where they came from.
Beginning with your immediate family, Dr. Dee Parmer Woodtor gives you all the necessary
tools to dig up your past: how to interview family members; how to research your past
using census reports, slave schedules, property deeds, and courthouse records; and how to
find these records. Using the Internet for genealogical research is also discussed in this
timely and necessary book.
Finding a Place Called Home helps you find your family tree, and helps place it in the
context of the garden of African-American people. As you learn how to find your own
history, you learn the history of all Africans in the Americas, including the Caribbean,
and how to benefit from a new understanding of your family's history, and your people's.
Finding a Place Called Home also discusses the growing family reunion movement and other
ways to clebrate newly discovered family history.
Tomorrow will always lie ahead of us if we don't forget yesterday. Finding a Place Called
Home shows how to retrieve yesterday to free you for all of your tomorrows.
Finding a Place Called Home: An African-American Guide to
Genealogy and Historical Identity takes us back, step-by-step, including:
Methods of searching and interpreting records, such as marriage, birth, and death
certificates, census reports, slave schedules, church records, and Freedmen's Bureau
information.
- Interviewing and taking inventory of family members
- Using the Internet for genealogical purposes
- Information on tracing Caribbean ancestry
Review from
Library Journal
Woodtor (DePaul Univ.) has written a detailed and easily accessible guide for readers
searching for their African roots. After a general introduction to African American
genealogy and the importance of family history, she sets readers on the path of
researching their own family history. "If you are of African American ancestry,"
she writes, "you should know that most of your ancestors had arrived in the United
States by the year 1790. Your American ancestry runs deep--in fact, deeper than that of
the majority of Americans." Much of the book focuses on finding information from the
Reconstruction era, locating military records from the Civil War, and analyzing the
schedules of slave owners, old newspaper notices, and county registers to trace ancestors
who lived as slaves. Throughout, Woodtor clearly explains what to expect from various
sources and gives many intriguing examples from the field. While the reader may need to
check other guides for locating information about other eras (e.g., African Americans in
World War I), this book is highly recommended for all genealogy and African American
history collections.
-- Linda L. McEwan, Elgin Community Coll., IL
