Researching African American Genealogy in Alabama: A Resource Guide

by Frazine K. Taylor, James M. Rose (Foreword by)

Overview

Over the past two decades, in workshops and personal consultations, thousands of persons have received the expertise and knowledge of author Frazine Taylor about Alabama genealogical research. In addition, she has taught the art to hundreds of students. As Dr. James Rose notes, all genealogists looking for the family tree in Alabama sooner or later come across Frazine.

And now they have her book, Researching African American Genealogy in Alabama: A Resource Guide. In the book, she provides the information and guidance to help locate the resources available for researching African American records in archives, libraries, and county courthouses throughout the state. The idea for this guidebook rose out of her lecturing throughout the country and having noticed that reference guides on African American family history resources seemed to exist for every state except Alabama. This was regrettable not merely for researchers on African American history in Alabama. In fact, Alabama’s records play an especially important role in U.S. family history research because of the migration patterns of Alabama’s freedmen, first to urban areas of Alabama and then to northern cities, a trend that continued throughout the first part of the twentieth century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781603060943
Publisher:	NewSouth Books
Publication date:	05/01/2008
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	168
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

FRAZINE K. TAYLOR has over twenty years experience as a librarian, archivist, lecturer and writer and has received numerous awards during her career including Employee of the Year from the Alabama State Employee Association. She is the former Head of Reference for the Alabama Department of Archives and History (ADAH) and was an expert on Alabama records at ADAH. She is a member of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society and serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society. She is the President of the Elmore County Association of Black Heritage, Chair of the Black Heritage Council of the Alabama Historical Commission, a member of BBAAGHS and of the Society of Alabama Archivists, and serves on the Board of Directors of the Alabama Historical Association. Ms. Taylor is the author of Researching African American Genealogy in Alabama: A Resource Guide (2008) and researched Tom Joyner’s and Linda Johnson Rice’s family roots and ties to Alabama for the PBS series, African American Lives 2.

Editorial Reviews

With the upsurge of interest in family heritage in the past few decades, many are seeking records of births, deaths, and marriages but are finding it slow going. For African Americans, the search is particularly difficult, in part because reference guides were not available for Alabama. Here Taylor comes to the rescue with this study, based upon her significant experience in the field and many years of lecturing on genealogy. Taylor is particularly qualified to prepare this guide because she is also the head of reference for the Alabama Department of Archives, and the result is a model of organization and comprehensiveness. Particularly impressive is her work on the massive migration of Alabama's freedman to urban areas of Alabama and to northern cities through most of the twentieth century.

Book News, Inc. - Shannon Hendrickson