How can i trace my family back to Africa?

Question

Want to know my family tree

Answer 1

You probably can't but that does not mean you can't go that far.  The question is how much effort do you want to put into the research. European lineage can be difficult but most people are successful in it.  African lineage is a different story.

You would have to find out:

Were they immigrants or were they slaves? Not all African Americans are descended from slaves. Some immigrated, but not many.

If immigrants, what port did they come through? What ship?

If slaves, who enslaved them? The Spanish, English, or Dutch? Or maybe the Portuguese?

Who owned them? How did they become free?  Emancipation Proclamation? Or Probate? Or an act of benevolence? Or did they run away, through the Underground?

Did they take on the surname of their former owners? or did they simply take the name Freeman or Freedman?

Did they serve in the Union Army? WWI? WWII?

Good luck.

Answer 2

You probably can't, sadly. You should be able to get back to 1870, the first year they asked black people their names, if you can find a library or FHC with census access. Before that you would have to start digging through wills in courthouses, on paper, by hand, hoping your slave ancestors were named in them.

You'd start with your grandparents or great grandparents and work back, one generation at a time.

Answer 3

Angola 23%

Democratic Republic of Congo 20%

Nigeria 15%

Ghana: 10%

Republic of Congo 6%

Cameroon: 5%

Senegal: 4%

Benin: 3%

Mozambique 3%

Guinea 2.4%

Togo 2%

Equatorial Guinea: 2%

Madagascar: 1%

Sierra Leone: 1%

Cote d' Ivoire: 1%

The Gambia: 0.6%

Liberia 0.5%

Gabon: 0.5%

Guinea-Bissau 0.2%

Are the countries today where slaves imported to the USA came from.

You can trace your ancestry using DNA back to Africa but to trace your whole family tree would be impossible.

Slaves left Africa naked and mixed up with other ethnic groups so nothing survived in the Americas except the people. Language, names, tradition etc were lost by the second generations.of American borns.

Its hard also to do so because your ancestors came to the Americas before these countries existed and your are more likely to be from more than one of these countries also mixed ancestry.

Example

Chris Tucker traced his ancestry through dna his results were:

83% African (Angola & Cameroon)

10% Native American

7% European

So sorry it would be impossible almost to complete your family but you never know if you try hard.

Answer 4

The first thing anyone needs to do to go back to their family's original homeland is to find out as much as you can about your family.

You will need to begin building a family tree, if you do not have one.  The farther back you can go, the more surnames you can locate, the more states/towns that you are aware of - will make the task more reachable.

In doing a search of the internet, I located this site,  http://www.afrigeneas.com/surnames/ . I am not sure if it will be helpful or not.  It does look like you can search some of your surnames and see if someone researching their African American roots is searching the same surname. It appears that you can email those researchers.

If your family is/was from Louisiana, here is an interesting database (1780-1820) at: http://www.ibiblio.org/laslave/fields.ph...

The LDS (Mormon Church) pilot site is at: http://pilot.familysearch.org/recordsear... and it is being changed frequently as more databases are being transcribed.

Prior to 1870 there are some sources that might be of assistance to you and some can be located at the LDS Pilot Site.  The Freedman's Bureau has records from accounts established by former slaves.  There is much genealogical information w/in some of the account summaries.

Once at the LDS site, go to the left side of the page under "Court and Legal Records" and click on "Freedman Bank  Records - 1865-1874" (this database includes over 67,000 people who opened accounts with the Freedman's Savings and Trust Co.)

Under "Vital Records" click on "Freedmen's Bureau Virginia Marriages ca. (circa)1815-1866" (database of legalized marriages of former slaves)

You should, also, go to http://www.cyndislist.com/african.htm and check the Category Index on the left.  I, imagine, there are several major websites that focus on African American genealogy.  This may be a way to locate them.

If you can find the towns some of your relatives lived in during the late 1800s , this could provide you a clue, as well.  This might take you on a path of discovering the plantations in the area that your relatives may have lived.  

There are records for many of these plantations. They could include all kinds of information.  You might find inventory lists with only first names and ages, but once you do some more research the grouping of names may be recognized as belonging to your family.

Your goal of actually tracing your famiy back to Africa may need to be one tiny baby step at a time and may never be reached.  But, each person found and taking his/her place on your tree is like making your family history come alive and these folks  will no longer be forgotten.  At least that is what it feels like to me.