African American Archives and Libraries

United States African American Research  Archives and Libraries 

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 * [[Image:National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.jpg|thumb|right|350px|National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, Cincinnati]]Most archives and libraries collect records about local residents (biographies, family histories, local histories) and about nearby places (maps, gazetteers, place-finding aids). They often compile reference helps and special indexes to important local sources. In many communities they serve as a meeting place for local historical and genealogical societies, and may provide referrals to people who are willing to look up information in local records. Before you visit an archive or a library, contact them and ask for information on their collection, hours, services, and fees.

When one of these institutions is referred to elsewhere in the African American Research Wiki pages, return to this section for the address.

The Family History Library has copies of many of the records found in archives and libraries, but most repositories will have additional sources.

The following archives, libraries, centers, institutes, and museums preserve sources, maintain indexes, and provide services to help genealogists document their African American ancestors.

Wiki Articles on Major Repositories for African Americans
Allen County Public Library· Family History Library· Library of Congress· National Archives I· National Archives Regional Branches· National Underground Railroad Freedom Center· Birmingham Civil Rights Institute· Black Archives of Mid-America· Duke Univeristy Rubenstein Library· Family History Centers· Godfrey Memorial Library· Kalamazoo College Black History Mobile Museum· New England Historic Genealogical Society· Newberry Library· John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library at Colonial Williamsburg· Schomburg Center For Research In Black Culture· Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum· University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Libraries· University of Pennsylvania African Studies Center· University of Pittsburgh Hillman Library

Online Records for African American Research
Links to online databases and indexes that may include vital records, biographies, cemeteries, censuses, histories, immigration records, land records, military records, naturalizations, newspapers, obituaries, or probates. {| style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; border: none;"
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 * [[Image:Allen County Public Library.jpg|thumb|right|155px|Allen Co Public Lib in IN]]

Allen County Public Library
Allen County Public Library 900 Library Plaza Fort Wayne, IN 46802 Telephone: 260-421-1225 E-mail: [mailto:genealogy@acpl.info genealogy@acpl.info] Website: Genealogy Center ACPL


 * Allen County Public Library is the second-largest genealogy collection in the United States and the largest genealogy collection in a public library. Its holdings include more than 350,000 printed volumes and 513,000 items on microfilm and microfiche. It has a premier genealogical periodical collection, local histories, genealogies, databases, military, censuses, directories, passenger lists, ethnic sources including African Americans, and Canadians. They have a great African American collection.


 * }

Family History Library
Family History Library 35 N. West Temple St. Salt Lake City, Utah 84150 Telephone: 801-240-6996 or 1-866-406-1830 E-mail: [mailto:https://familysearch.org/ask/help Ask help (Send a message)] Website: FamilySearch
 * They have federal and state censuses showing where African Americans lived, vital records, biographies, cemeteries, church records, Freedman's Bank, Freedmen's Bureau, court records, directories, genealogy, local histories, land and property (may include lists of free Blacks and slaves, bills of sale), manumissions, maps, military records, newspapers, obituaries, periodicals, probate records (may list slaves freed or bequeathed), slavery and bondage, and societies. Holds 450 computers, 3,400 databases, 3.1 million microforms, 4,500 periodicals, 310,000 books of worldwide family and local histories, civil, church, immigration, ethnic, military, and Mormon records.

Library of Congress
Library of Congress 101 Independence Ave. SE Thomas Jefferson Building, LJ G4 Washington, D.C. 20540-4660 Telephone: Reading Room: 202-707-5537 Fax: 202-707-1957 E-mail: Ask a Librarian form Website: Library of Congress
 * See the tutorial at the FamilySearch Learning Center on "African American Genealogical Research at the Library of Congress". The Library of Congress "Local History and Genealogy Reading Room" has moved to the main reading room, but services are unchanged. They are part of the world's largest library including 50,000 genealogies, 100,000 local histories, and collections of manuscripts, microfilms, maps, newspapers, photographs, and published material, strong in North American (including African Americans), British Isles, and German sources.
 * The African-American Mosaic: A Library of Congress Resource Guide for the Study of Black History & Culture

National Archives I
National Archives and Records Administration (Archives I) 700 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington DC Telephone: 1-866-272-6272 Fax: 301-837-0483 E-mail: National Archives and Records Administration inquiry form Website: National Archives
 * Nationwide censuses, pre-WWI military service and pensions, passenger lists, naturalizations, passports, federal bounty land, homesteads, bankruptcy, ethnic sources (including African Americans), prisons, and federal employees. The National Archives Building in Washington, DC (Archives I), houses textual and microfilm records relating to genealogy, American Indians, pre-World War II military and naval-maritime matters, the New Deal, the District of Columbia, the Federal courts, and Congress.

National Archives Regional Branches
National Archives Regional Branches Website: National Archives Locations Nationwide
 * There are 2 main branches, 11 regional branches, 16 records centers, 2 personnel records centers, and 15 presidential libraries nationwide, as well as "affiliated archives." Each regional branch has copies of key records in Washington, as well as their own regional records. For example, the Atlanta Regional Branch for the Southern States region preserves records of Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Movement, and African American history.



National Underground Railroad Freedom Center
National Underground Railroad Freedom Center 50 East Freedom Way Cincinnati, Ohio 45202 Telephone: 513-333-7500 or toll free 877-648-4838 E-mail: Contact Us form Website: National Underground Railroad Freedom Center
 * The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center is more a museum (few original manuscripts) than an archive. However, it has a family history center for ordering microfilms, and Ancestry.com access on the Internet. They tell the history of the guides, safe houses, and transportation network used to smuggle runaway enslaved African Americans out of the slave states to freedom in the North before the American Civil War. The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center reveals stories about freedom’s heroes: the men, women and children who challenge inequities to pursue greater freedom for their brothers and sisters.

Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
Birmingham Civil Rights Institute 520 Sixteenth Street North Birmingham, Alabama 35203 Telephone: 205-328-9696 ext. 203 Telephone toll free: 1-866-328-9696 Fax: 205-251-6104 E-mail: [mailto:bcri@bcri.org bcri@bcri.org] Website: Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
 * Papers of civil rights activist leaders (ministers, organizers, judges, politicians, newspaper editors, educators), school desegregation, 500 desegregation oral history interviews, 1,260 Jim Crow era oral histories, vertical files, TV documentaries, and legal cases collection.

Black Archives of Mid-America
Black Archives of Mid-America 1722 E. 17th Terrace (PO Box 270333) Kansas City, MO 64127 Telephone: 816-221-1600 Email: [mailto:info@blackarchives.org info@blackarchives.org] Website: Black Archives of Mid-America homepage
 * By appointment only. Resources regarding the social and cultural experience of African Americans in the Kansas City metropolitan area and in the surrounding region. This includes oral histories, valuable rare books, and a reference collection, personal papers, records of civil and health service organizations, schools, churches, political organizations, sports groups, and clubs and other voluntary associations.

Duke University Perkins Library
Duke University Perkins Library Franklin Research Center Durham, North Carolina 27708-0185 Telephone: 919-660-5922 Fax: 919-660-5934 E-mail: [mailto:franklin-collection@duke.edu franklin-collection@duke.edu] Website: John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture
 * Largest manuscript collection in the South, including newspapers, county records, Bibles, and journals. They also have many census records originally at the National Archives.
 * Nannie M. Trilley, and Noma Lee Goodwin, Guide to the Manuscript Collections in the Duke University Library (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1947). . This guide lists about 8,000 names of individuals, families, and historical subjects, and it is indexed.
 * John Hope Franklin Research Center collects, and preserves published and unpublished primary sources for understanding the history and culture of Africa and people of the African Diaspora in the Americas. The Franklin Center is part of the Rubenstein Special Collections Library on the 3rd floor of the Perkins Library.

Family History Centers
Family History Centers (FHCs) have premium online services for genealogists for free, offer research suggestions, and can order microfilms from the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. These microfilms include a good collection of African American records including censuses, vital records, cemeteries, church records, biographies, Freedman's Bank, Freedmen's Bureau, funeral homes, military records, oral history, probate records, slavery and bondage records, and the Southern Claims Commission records.

There are more than 4,700 FHCs in 134 countries. There is no cost to visit a Family History Center or Family History Library. They are open to anyone with an interest in genealogical research. They are operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). Click on Find a family history center to locate the the center nearest you.

Each center has unique hours of operation, and may have changed from the hours posted on our site. It is a good idea to call the center for their scheduled hours before you visit.

Godfrey Memorial Library
Godfrey Memorial Library 134 Newfield St. Middletown, Connecticut 06457 Telephone: 860-346-4375 Fax: 860-347-9874 E-mail: [mailto:Sharon@godfrey.org Sharon@godfrey.org] Reference Librarian Website: Godfrey Memorial Library
 * Their collection features digital copies of six African American newspapers in the 1800s. The overall collection is national in scope with many online records in addition to its physical collection. They compiled the including many African American biographies and autobiographies. This library is an excellent genealogical facility including many New England town records, guidebooks, indexes, biographies, and genealogies.

John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library
John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library at Colonial Williamsburg PO Box 1776 313 First Street Williamsburg, VA 23187-1776 Telephone: 757-565-8542 Fax: 757-565-8548 E-mail: [mailto:libref@cwf.org libref@cwf.org] Website: John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library
 * Emphasis is on the history of colonial British America, the American Revolution, and the early United States with books, manuscripts, images, Civil War materials, family Bibles, and databases for research in the political and economic life of the thirteen colonies, the new republic, and African American studies.

Kalamazoo College Black History Mobile Museum
Kalamazoo College Black History 101 Mobile Museum 1200 Academy Street Kalamazoo, Michigan 49006 Telephone: 269-337-7000 Website: Facebook: Black History 101 Mobile Museum History Museum
 * Prominent artifacts include documents signed by Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, Booker T. Washington, Fredrick Douglas, Dorothy Height, Elijah Muhammad, Ralph Bunche, Coretta Scott King, Michael Jackson, Muhammad Ali, Shirley Chisholm, Barbara Jordan, and Angela Davis.



New England Historic Genealogical Society
New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) 101 Newbury Street Boston, Massachusetts 02116-3007 Telephone: 617-536-5740; Library 617-226-1231 Fax:  617-536-7307 E-mail:  [mailto:info@nehgs.org info@nehgs.org] Website: AmericanAncestors.org


 * Best overall collection for New England vital records and probates, and excellent collection for Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, and Europe. The manuscript collection for members-only has diaries, letters, account books, business papers, church and town records, sermons, maps, wills, deeds, unpublished town and family genealogies, photos, and papers of the region's best genealogists since 1850. See the tutorial at the FamilySearch Learning Center on "African American Resources at NEHGS"

Newberry Library
Newberry Library 60 West Walton Street Chicago, IL 60610 Telephone: 312-255-3512 E-mail:   [mailto:genealogy@newberry.org reference@newberry.org.] Website: Newberry Library Genealogy and Local History
 * The Newberry is a private, non-circulating library free and open to the public. It is a research library for humanities and social sciences with 1.5 million books, 5 million manuscript pages, and 500,000 maps. This includes good African American, American Indian, railroad archives, Chicago history, and cartography collections. Note: Microfilms from the Family History Library can be ordered at this library.
 * Jack Simpson and Matt Rutherford, A Bibliography of African American Family History at the Newberry Library (Chicago: The Newberry Library, ©2005). PDF version online. ..



Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
Schomburg Center For Research In Black Culture A Unit of the New York Public Library 515 Malcolm X Blvd New York, NY 10037 Telephone:917-275-6975 Website: Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
 * The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture located in Harlem, New York, is a research unit of The New York Public Library system. It focuses exclusively on African-American, African Diaspora, and African experiences. It accomplishes this through art, artifacts, research and reference collections, manuscripts, archives, rare books, photos, moving images, sound recordings, educational programs, and digital collections.



Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum
Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum 1901 Fort Place SE Washington, D.C. 20020 Telephone: 202-633-4820 Website: Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum
 * The Anacostia Museum Branch Library has over 5,000 books, and close to 100 periodical titles in various formats. It collects materials relating to the preservation of family and community history through education, advocacy, and documentation. Primary focus is on east of the Potomac River communities. Their new focus is community museology, urban communities, issues that impact urban communities, and the people who reside in urban communities.



University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Libraries
University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Libraries
 * Wilson Special Collections Library 200 South Road Wilson Library (Campus PO Box #3948) UNC Chapel Hill, NC 27515-8890 Telephone: 919-962-1172 E-mail: [mailto:nccref@unc.edu nccref@unc.edu]


 * Davis Library 208 Raleigh Street (Campus PO Box #3916) UNC Chapel Hill, NC 27599 Telephone: 919-962-1151 E-mail: E-mail a Question form

Website: UNC Chapel Hill Libraries


 * Wilson Special Collections Library  is home to: the famed Southern Historical Collection with strengths in plantation records, slavery, the Civil War, Civil Rights, communities, family, race relations, and religious communities ; the North Carolina Collection of published works on North Carolina and its people and biographical index ; the Rare Book Collection; the Southern Folklife Collection; the Manuscript Department  collection of personal papers, letters, and diaries of early North Carolina residents; and the Map Department.


 * Davis Library  has humanities, and foreign language materials, maps, a federal documents depository, and microforms.


 * Digital Online: Documenting the American South digital project description, and Collections descriptions of 16 thematic digitized collections.

University of Pennsylvania African Studies Center
University of Pennsylvania African Studies Center 647 Williams Hall 255 S 36th Street Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-6305 Telephone: 215-898-6971 Fax: 215-573-7379 Email: [mailto:africa@sas.upenn.edu africa@sas.upenn.edu] Website: The Africa Center Home
 * The African Studies Center coordinates course offerings in anthropology, demography, economics, history, language, literature, politics, religion, and sociology. The Van Pelt Library holds most of the African collection. For more details see African Collection at Penn.



University of Pittsburgh Hillman Library
University of Pittsburgh Hillman Library 3960 Forbes Avenue Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260 Telephone: 412-648-7756 Website: University of Pittsburgh Library System African American Collection
 * The library houses material on the African Americans, Africans, and Caribbean cultures in the following disciplines: Arts, Education, History, Literature, Philosophy, Politics, Religion, Sociology, Sports, and Religion.

Various State Archives and Libraries
See also the state "Archives and Libraries" wiki articles (links below) for descriptions of repositories with further African American material in each respective state.

Archives and Libraries in Each State  Territories and Federal District

Guides

 * Tony Burroughs, Black Roots: A Beginner's Guide to Tracing the African American Family Tree (New York: Fireside Book, ©2001). ..
 * Dee Parmer Woodtor, Finding a Place Called Home: An African-American Guide to Genealogy and Historical Identity (New York: Random House, ©1999). ..