African American Digital Bookshelf

Introduction
Welcome to the African American Digital Bookshelf! This is a curated list of virtually accessible books that provide information on specific African American ancestors, historical context, and guidance to other resources. The digital books are organized first by access (FamilySearch Digital Access and Other Digital Access Sites), then by state. To access the FamilySearch books, users must be signed in to an account. You can create a free account here.

Other Digital Access Sites includes sources such as Internet Archive, Hathi Trust Digital Library, and Google Books. The books listed in this category do not require an account in order to read them, with the exception of a few books located at Internet Archive. However, an Internet Archive account is also free and you can create one here.

Note this is not an exhaustive list of books relevant to African American research available online or at FamilySearch. The Family History Library houses hundreds of books on the shelves that contain genealogically valuable information for African American genealogy. This list will grow as we become aware of additional digitized books.