Bring us the ancestor, record, location, DNA match, family story, or research problem that has stopped your progress. The guided intake organizes what you know and sends it directly to Reparative Genealogy for professional review.
Choose the type of help you need, identify the family line, describe what you are trying to prove, and securely attach supporting records. A reference number is issued after submission.
Ask a GenealogistThe homepage now introduces the site. Detailed state resources and project histories live on their own pages.
Submit a quick question, brick wall, DNA problem, descendant-verification request, or full research project.
Begin the guided intake →Select the state where your ancestor lived. Only that state’s research resources will appear on its page.
Open the state directory →See how records, law, DNA, kinship, and historical context reconstruct African American family histories.
Explore documented projects →
Jaunty Underwood’s story moves from an eighteenth-century deed of gift and South Carolina chancery litigation to emancipation, migration, kinship, and family survival in Greene County, Alabama.
This dedicated landing page places the book and its research where visitors can actually find it.
Enter the Jaunty ProjectThese two accounts give you the working family-tree foundation — but they work differently, and knowing the difference saves money and frustration. 👤 FamilySearch is completely free: every record, every image, forever. 👤 Ancestry's account is free — you can build your tree, receive hints, and see what collections exist — but 💲 viewing most record images requires a paid subscription. Many public libraries offer Ancestry Library Edition free 🏛️, so check your library before you buy. The Hub then takes you beyond both platforms into deeds, probate, estate files, courts, tax records, newspapers, churches, and county archives.
Every record free with a 👤 free account. Build your tree, search historical records, and use the FamilySearch Catalog to find county-level deeds, probate, and church records — including microfilmed records that exist nowhere else online.
Open FamilySearch Account ↗The free tier builds your tree and shows which collections exist. Record images in most collections — wills and probate, county marriages, military files — need a subscription, or free 🏛️ library access through Ancestry Library Edition.
Open Ancestry Account ↗You don't need to buy anything to begin. Assemble these three layers in order — free tools first, then account-based tools, then the subscription and library resources — and you'll have the same working toolkit professional genealogists use.
No account, no cost. These alone can carry your research from today back to 1870 — and often beyond.
Free registration unlocks your tree, saved records, and most FamilySearch images.
Before paying, ask your public library — many offer these free 🏛️ from library computers.
Your first week of research costs nothing: interview your oldest relatives, write down every name, place, and church they remember, then open a free FamilySearch account and find your family in the 1950 census. When you're ready for a state's records, choose it in Research by State — every state page uses the same icons and star ratings you see in the legend above.
Go beyond one research question. Members enter a continuing workspace with live help, research planning, AI-guided suggestions, workshops, county resources, cultural collections, educator materials, reparations updates, and community directories.
Membership turns the site from a collection of links into an ongoing relationship with guidance, learning, and community.
The Member Portal is now presented as a complete visual website experience with a Research Desk, AI guidance prototype, cultural collections, workshops, county resources, and member research chat.
The platform gives members a reason to come back: their research project, live help, new workshops, cultural resources, and continuously expanding county collections.
Each collection opens independently. Visitors no longer encounter every option on the homepage.
State-specific records, institutions, and African American genealogy pathways.
Open South Carolina →Explore the developing discovery and descendant-reconnection project.
Open the project →Visit Kellie M. Farrish’s professional genealogy practice for research, descendant verification, reparations work, and institutional projects.
Visit the main website ↗