The Reparational Genealogy Project

The Reparational Genealogy Project is the product of years of trying to figure out how to provide reparations while having an empty bank account. I don’t have money, but I have skills. I’m fast on Ancestry and FamilySearch, and I can speak with the ancestors. I realized that giving people their ancestors’ names, and helping them to bootstrap up using enslavers’ public and private records, would aid descendants of the enslaved and free people of color to trace their ancestors’ migratory paths and, perhaps, find the names of the ancestors who were first kidnapped and brought here in crushing bondage. Doing that work was the first part.

The second part was teaching other White genealogists to welcome Black diasporic cousins, and showing them how different the research is for African Americans. Many White genealogists have to be taught about the inherent racism just below the surface in libraries and other institutions, as well. Learning about institutionalized racism is an act of shedding a lifetime’s disbelief.

The third part is now being realized: finding a group of people, volunteers of all ethnicities, who value these truths and this work as much as I do. Together, we are the Reparational Genealogy Project, and we are researching family trees of living people, people who were lynched (historically and in the present), and people who are honored and known in the Black community, but not in the White community.

This gives us a chance to work together, to teach and learn, and to create trees that we can present to the descendants of the main figure in any given tree. We transfer it from Ancestry to FamilySearch, where families can access it for free. Clients and descendants of public figures or lynching victims can add photos, documents and audio recordings there. Clients can celebrate their ancestors holistically, not focusing solely on the tragedies for which one family member might be known.

If you are a member of the LDS Church, Reparational work includes something that only we can do: transferring Black researchers’ trees from Ancestry to FamilySearch using a function that only we have. I can teach you how – it’s easy, and it’s a real service to those who want it and who are not members. The FamilySearch tree is majority N&W European, yet there are records available on FamilySearch (Freedmen’s Bureau records and records from Caribbean nations, for example) that researchers need but cannot access from Ancestry. Using the two sites together allows members of the African Diaspora to research their trees more fully, and in the case of FamilySearch, for free.

No reparational client need ever pay a penny to a White-owned company for research unless he or she wants to. We’ll teach clients whatever we can, introduce them to specialists, AND be on call as supporters and consultants for life.

If you believe in what we’re doing, please join us. I have a dedicated Facebook group and a Patreon.