Ancestry Academy  > Education  >  Black History Month Wrap-up

 

In this inspiring and highly practical virtual event, Ancestry’s Nicka Sewell-Smith tackles the common challenge of genealogical brick walls, specifically within African American family history. Using her own great-grandmother, Theresa Holmes Sewell (affectionately known as Nanny), as a detailed case study, Sewell-Smith demonstrates how researchers can move beyond traditional name-based searches. The key objective of the session is to teach viewers how to use unorthodox research methods by thoroughly mining the records they already have to uncover hidden "breadcrumbs"—proving that sometimes the secret to breaking a brick wall isn't finding new records, but better utilizing existing ones.

The webinar's structure follows Nicka's real-time research methodology, beginning with gathering known facts and extracting specific street addresses from census records, city directories, and even early 20th-century New Orleans arrest records. A pivotal strategy discussed is searching historical newspaper databases by street address rather than by an ancestor's name. This unique approach uncovered classified work ads placed by her ancestors and led to a crucial 1910 obituary for a formerly enslaved man named Andrew Jackson Murray. By connecting these address-based clues with anomalies in the 1900 and 1910 censuses, Sewell-Smith successfully traces her family's migration and identifies potential former enslavers, concluding with an empowering message to pursue unconventional avenues in research.

 

Chapters:

- The Brick Wall

- Mining Records for Breadcrumbs

- The Power of Address Searching

- Navigating Census Anomalies

- Connecting to Enslaved Ancestors

 

Revisit the historical records already saved in your family tree to extract street addresses, and search those locations in historical newspapers to uncover the hidden stories of your ancestors' daily lives.