On June 19, FamilySearch announced The Freedmen’s Bureau Project at a news conference held in the California African American Museum in Los Angeles. This project will connect African Americans with their Civil War-era ancestors through the release of 1.5 million digitized images containing 4 million names from the Freedman’s Bureau.
The Freedmen’s Bureau Project was created as a set of partnerships between FamilySearch International and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society (AAHGS), and the California African American Museum.
Sherri Camp, vice president of genealogy of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society, said her group’s 30 chapters across the country are excited to participate in the indexing project. “We’re partnering with FamilySearch to get volunteers in all of our chapters across the country to have indexing groups so that we can get these records done.”
Bernice Bennett, founder of the WDCFHC African American Focus Group, shared this information about the WDCFHC initiative to support this project:
The African American Special Interest Group of the Washington DC Family History Center hosted a meeting today [June 22] on The Discover Freedmen Indexing Project. In attendance were representatives of five AAHGS Chapters (Baltimore County, Prince Georges County, Central Maryland, Montgomery County and Washington, DC). Also present were representatives from the Maryland State Archives and the general community. Following the meeting, we agreed to continue to offer indexing training and support every second Monday for anyone interested in participating in the project.
For information about the Project and how to volunteer, go to https://www.discoverfreedmen.org/
To contact the WDCFHC African-American Focus Group, send an email to: AFAMGG@G-mail.com
To read the Washington Post’s article about this initiative, click here.
Photos courtesy of Bernice Bennett.
