CHARLOTTE — The process to research someone’s ancestry can be more challenging for Black families, especially when the search reaches back to slave times.
To offer some help, there is an upcoming event where genealogy experts will share their insights.
John Sadler attended a family reunion in the 1990s when he volunteered to do ancestry research.
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“Once I started doing it, especially once I started talking to my father, finding all these people who had lived around me, who I had never known, became a passion,” Sadler said. “I really wanted to know who my extended family was.”
He started off by interviewing older family members and over time, his search for information grew.
“I actually took a two-week vacation to go to the York County Courthouse to do research and also went to the South Carolina archives down in Columbia and did research,” he said.
Sadler learned the best way to search for his Black ancestors was to research slave owners.
“Once I found my great great-grandfather on the 1870 census, it became a passion,” he said. “I’ve got to find out where he came from, and luckily I did.”
Sadler has written about a half-dozen books and isn’t finished in his quest to find out more about his ancestors.
“On the end, I would like to know where I came from,” Sadler said.
Our news partner at the Charlotte Observer is hosting an event about the importance of Black family history.
The event, “Tracing Black roots: The process, challenges and emotional journey of exploring ancestry,” will be held on Thursday at 7 p.m.
For more information, click here.
The U.S. government also has online resources dedicated for people who want to research their ancestry.
(Watch the video below: The fourth oldest case in the U.S., Chiverella’s, is solved through DNA and genetic genealogy)
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