My favorite Google Chrome Extensions

Google Chrome Extensions

Are you interested in learning about a few of the Google Chrome Extensions that I have tried that make communicating and collaborating on social media much easier? Do you create tutorials on a regular basis? Do you blog and want to reach more people with out spending a lot of time sharing on different platforms? Check out this review of a few of my most used Google Chrome Extensions.

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29. Tuesday Tip: Search Reconstruction records to learn more about an emancipated ancestor

African American History Monument on The State House grounds
Columbia, South Carolina

Many Reconstruction Era resources can help you identify the following important information about your ancestor:  former slave owner’s identity, land ownership, military experience, occupation, family life, and more.  

Search the local library for books about Reconstruction.  Search the local university libraries and the local archives.  Search "Reconstruction" at Google Books as well as the name of your ancestor along with the county
and state where he lived.


During Reconstruction, most newly emancipated African Americans became Republicans and the white farmers (Red Shirts) who were mostly Democrats sorely persecuted the former slaves.  This is an excerpt of one of Beverly's testimony which I found:

THE MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS OK THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE SECOND SESSION OF THE FORTY-FOURTH CONGRESS IN SIX VOLUMES:

BEVERLY VANCE—ABBEVILLE COUNTY. (page 417)

Columbia, S. C, December 22,1876. Beverly Vance (colored) sworn and examined.

By Mr. Cameron : Question. Where do you live ?—Answer. I live in Abbeville when I am at home. Q. What township or precinct -?—A. I live in Cokesbury township. Q. What is your age?—A. I am forty-four. Q. Are you republican ?—A. Yes, sir.

Q. How long have you belonged to the republican party ?—A. Ever since the emancipation.


Q. Where were you on the day of election ?—A. I was at the ballotbox at Cokesbury precinct.
Q. Yon may state whether or not there were any armed democrats at that polling-place on the day of the election.—A. Well, there were men armed there with pistols.


Q. You may state whether or not they had guns when there.—A. Yes, sir; they bad guns. Some had double-barreled shotguns in their wagons, I suppose, I will say, in from thirty five to one hundred yards of the polling place; they had some of these old muskels, old Army guns, about three hundred yards from there, in Mr. Conner's store.


Q. What else did the democrats have there that day ?—A. Well, sir, they had a good deal of whisky, and one thing and another around there. They had a barrel of whisky in about fifty yards, in Mr. Conner's store, and then they had some jugs in their wagons where they camped tbe night before. There was a good, large crowd of them camped there, and they had a barrel of whisky and a big supper, and was eating and drinking the night before the election.

Q. You may state whether or not the whites threatened the republicans before the election in any way.—A. O, yes, sir; they did that a great deal in every direction, 1 suppose, three months before the elec tion. Myself was threatened the night before the election. I had to have a body-guard around me the whole night. We laid out the whole night. We were expecting them. They had sworn they would kill me.

I also found Beverly in  a 1869 Militia Enrollment for South Carolina and on a 1868 SC Voter's Registration in Abbeville County.  See US Reconstruction Era records help to document ancestor's and link to slavery.

Each type of record will vary according to geographical location.  Here are the results I received from searching Google for South Carolina Reconstruction records:  Click here.  This search led to several great resources that I did not know existed.

If we are to have any hope of finding out more about an ancestor who lived during slavery, we must uncover all we can to document them between 1865 and 1877.

Sources:  THE MISCELLANEOUS DOCUMENTS OF THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE SECOND SESSION OF THE FORTY-FOURTH CONGRESS IN SIX VOLUMES; SC Department of Archives and History; Hurrah for Hampton!: Black Red Shirts in South Carolina during Reconstruction,  By Edmund L. Drago

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27. Open Thread Thursday: Share information about resources that helped you

Old Bethel AME Church in downtown Columbia, SC by Robin Foster

Many people searching for clues about their ancestry are out on the internet searching for connections and resources.  When we share photos with captions and blog posts with descriptive titles, we are helping others to connect and locate helpful resources.

Our information is even more easily accessed with the new Google Real-time Search. 

See  Awesome! Keep up with everything genealogy with Google Realtime Search 

When we share specific information about the historical collections we use and where we discovered them, visitors who are researching similar areas learn a lot when they follow us.  Old Bethel AME Church on the corner of Taylor and Sumter Streets in downtown Columbia is being rennovated and will reopen as a historical museum. I have been researching the history of Bethel and have discovered several resources that document my family and many others.

Some of the place are the South Caroliniana Library and  WorldCat.  On a visit to the library, I discovered old tithing records which document my ancestors and collateral lines.  I searched WorldCat and found other sources for Bethel such as this old 1923 church program:

Official program of the mid-winter session of the Bishops' Council of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, February 14, 1923

I went over to the online catalog for the South Carolinina Library Manuscript Division and found a link to the actual online version of the file:  

Official program of the mid-winter session of the Bishops' Council of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, February 14, 1923 . The 56 page program is a great piece of history and  because it includes biographical information and photos of several leaders at that time.

Cornerstone of Bethel AME by Robin Foster

Bethel was established in 1860, and the first site burned.  The 1923 program was published just after the new building was established with the help of the first registered African American architect, James Anderson Lankford (b. 1874)

 

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