Just wanted to ask all my brothas and sistas if they knew how Deepthey're ancestry is; how many generations can you trace back?

Also if you know any information on how I, as well as anyone else who would like to know there ancestry; can go about tracing back they're ancestry?

A cousin of mine made an attempt but didn't get very far. I'm planning on trying to pick-up where my cousin left off.

Hey BlackChild,

clp)Good post! I've been looking at this too and am just at the beginning stages.

Do you have any elders that may be able to give you names of those in your family? This is where I started an have managed to get as far back as Ivory Coast (5th generation).

There are apparently links we can check out through the bbc website, http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?q=tracing+african+family&uri=%2Fhis tory%2Ftrail%although I haven't checked it all out yet and am not sure how far you can trace but it's a start.

The problem I think we may have is finding out the original names of our ancestors. The last person I can tracewas afree slave who was a slave name.

It's a good thing to research though, so good luck!

@Black_power: It's mad isn't it! My tree looks quite scatty right now too. It seems to go wild when you try and write in both partners and generations of each.

It's exciting to hear though that you have managed to get back to Scotland too. Did you know that the Mc or Mac clansof Scotland were orginally us? The Macs are the Moors or Blackamoors who resided in England. You may find that some of your family were around in that time too.

It's very hard to find information on the Moors as we originally were, as you now have the pale Arabs known more commonly now as Moors today, but that is as a result of tying into the vine. You may find evidence of them on coats of arms. It would be good to get more points of references on this line though....

http://www.movinghere.org.uk/galleri...ts/default.htm

http://www.familysearch.org/

Carib specific

http://www.rootsweb.com/~caribgw/mailinglist.html

http://www.movinghere.org.uk/galleri...addresses.htm#

http://www.candoo.com/surnames/index.html

A good idea when doing your own research is to also record any names/families that you continually come across inorder to help others. Good Luck

Hey BlackChild

There are many websites out there that have the US Census Records from 1790-1930 available (The Federal Gov't didn't start doing a serious Census of black people nationwide until 1890), some are free and maybe give you a taste of info, like:

http://www.census-online.com/links/

but most charge fees, as do the Health and Vital Records departments of most states that have birth, marriage, and death records. But, if you are willing to spend the money,maybe it's worth a shot.

As for my family tree:

Well,on my mom's side of the family (rural, Deep South African American)we can tracethe family tree all the way to the late 1800's, post-Civil War. Mainly African American and Creek-Native American (but there are a couple elderly relatives in my family with light skin and green eyes, so you know who's been dippin' into the gene pool). In my mom's hometown there's a old cemetery, the only place where blacks could get buried during the segregation era.

So when I went to my great-aunt's funerala few years back (she had paid for her burial plot at that cemetery a long time ago), I was able to see the tombstones of many of my ancestors and late distant relatives all in one place.My great-grandmother will turn 100 next spring and one of my uncle's is working onrecording herand our family history. She used to tell us stories about her grandmother, who was a slave.

On my dad's side (Nigerian-Yoruba), my dad, while a very proud African man, really wasn't big on tracking family trees. Outside of my paternal grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, me and my siblings don't know of any other relatives more than two generations back. Also relations between my family here in the States and in Ibadan are a bit rocky now because of a financial dispute (l-o-o-o-ng story).

BlackChild, good luck in your search!!

Ms Abi1

Thanks for the links guys I appreciate it. blkthumbsupGreat to hear that some of you guys

have been able to reach as far back as the 1800's. So far in my progress we've been

able to trace back3 generations to a plantation in Texas. I have found some
ancestry within the Native American Cherokee IndianTribes. It's pretty exciting!clp)

I would like to tracemy ancestry all the way back to the motherland. I feel as if I

will find some closure to my true identity as an 'African' ifI am able to trace back that
far. But I'll keep going as far as I can.



P.S. All this digging for my roots has got me thinking of taking Swahili lessons?

I think I might do that! I don't know. Just popped into my head at the moment.

Well surprisingly I am Egyptian.....born and breed all my ancestory is there too and I am VERY proud of it and the people there.

My roots go back to the bushes of Africa, in Somalia where my ancestors were a nomadic people.