👋 Introductions
📌
Welcome Home — Introduce Yourself & Your Family
Welcome, family.
You have arrived at a space built for us — for those of us doing the sacred, sometimes heartbreaking, always meaningful work of tracing African American ancestry.
Whether you foun
🔍 Research
The 1870 Wall — Strategies for Breaking Through the Most Common Barrier in African American Genealogy
If you are researching African American ancestry, you have almost certainly heard of the 1870 wall. It is the moment in your research when your ancestors appear — by name, for the very first time �
🧬 DNA
Your DNA Results Are Not Just Percentages — A Guide to Understanding African American Genetic Genealogy
When your AncestryDNA or 23andMe results come back and you see "Nigeria — 28%" or "Benin & Togo — 17%" — those are not just numbers. Those are ancestral homelands. Those are the places your peop
📅 Events
Upcoming Events, Conferences & Resources for African American Genealogy Researchers
This thread is the central calendar for events, conferences, webinars, archive openings, DNA kit sale announcements, and other opportunities relevant to African American family history research.
Post
❓ Help
Ask Anything — No Question Is Too Small or Too Difficult
This thread — and this entire category — exists for one purpose: to make sure no one gets stuck alone.
African American genealogy is hard. It requires navigating records that were designed to obs
💬 General
The Moment You Found Them — Share the Record That Changed Your Research
Every researcher has a moment.
The moment when a name appears on a page — or a face stares out from a photograph — and suddenly the abstract project of "tracing your ancestry" becomes something e