Want to trace your family history back even further than American slavery? Genealogical searches can be a frustrating maze of destroyed records and dead ends.
Crack your cold case with stacks of crumbling records like these, which you can gain free and searchable access to by volunteering!
The Center for Family History at the International African American Museum in Charleston, South Carolina is recruiting remote volunteers to help digitally log marriage records from Colleton County, SC in support of the Restore The Ancestors project.
The center encourages volunteers to not only organize records, but contribute documents of their own, and get involved in an exclusive Facebook group where fellow heritage enthusiasts trade notes and search methods.
As a volunteer, you might uncover who you are, where you come from, and what relationships you never knew existed within your bloodline - and help others do the same.
The center’s website emphasizes that “these records will be of value to those seeking African American ancestors in an area that has experienced significant record loss.”
Most importantly, preserving these records adds dignity to and reinforces the significance of otherwise neglected documentation of marriages, births, deaths, property sales and other events in the lives of Black folks from eras filled with subhuman treatment.
Restore the legacy of your family’s past today by visiting IAAM online.