Category: Black_Heritage

Writing and Research Goals Coming Together

So excited that my personal goals are overlapping with priorities for the DuPage County Genealogical Society and an active WikiTree Challenge.

I’ve set a personal annual goal of writing and submitting at least one genealogy article a year. Luckily my local society’s bi-annual magazine welcomes content, so I have a natural outlook for the article.

Unfortunately, my latest idea had been slow in coming together. Each time I thought I had a manageable focused topic, it would blow up and need more work.

Recently I came across a WikiTree Challenge that would be an easy way to support the WikiTree community, contribute to the DuPage County Genealogical Society, and meet my personal goal.

The US Black Heritage group started an 1880 Project to create profiles in WikiTree for every Black American that was enumerated in the 1880 Census. I decided to help with the project and focus on creating or checking profiles of Black Americans who were enumerated in DuPage County. I would then write up profiles highlighting the 1880 households and submit those profiles to The Review, DCGS’s magazine.

This article will bring recognition to those Black Americans and support the research efforts of their descendants.

Resources:
USBH 1880 Project post in G2G: https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/1698629/can-you-help-the-usbh-1880-census-project
DuPage County Genealogical Society: https://www.dcgs.org/

Juneteenth and WikiTree Black_Heritage Project

I’ve had the honor this year of researching a successful African American businessman. While I’m not able to share his name, I can share that I found him, his family, and the other people I “met” along the way to be fascinating.

During the research I found “African-American Business Leaders: A Biographical Dictionary” by John N. Ingham and Lynne B. Feldman published in 1994. This book hits on my combined interests in genealogy and careers. Since I thought it would be beneficial for other genealogists, I’ve started an index of the book that I’ll use to check whether there are matching profiles in WikiTree and whether the book is listed as a source. See my WikiTree US_Black_Heritage page.

I first learned about Juneteenth last year and have been wanted to do something to help tell the stories about african-american ancestors. Toward that end, I’ve joined the US_Black_Heritage project. I will use these biographies to guide my efforts.

REFERENCES
“African-American Business Leaders: A Biographical Dictionary” by John N. Ingham and Lynne B. Feldman published in 1994″ Google Books (https://www.google.com/books/edition/African_American_Business_Leaders/TTha3NavN-sC?hl=en : accessed 19 June 2021)

“Juneteenth” HAYSKA blog, 19 June 2020 (https://hayska.org/juneteenth : accessed 19 June 2021)