Be Sure to Visit my new 1900 Galveston Storm Website at: http://freepages.genealogy.rootseb.com/~barnette 

 INTERVIEWS REVEAL LIFE DURING SLAVERY

 In 1929 students and faculty from Fisk University in Tennessee and Southern University in Louisiana began an effort to interview some of the former slaves who were then still living. This study was continued in 1934 by Kentucky State College and by the Federal Government through the aegis of the WPA, the Works Progress Administration from 1936-1939. In all, over 3500 former slaves were interviewed across the American South.

 Through their interviews the former slaves provided first hand accounts of their life experiences on plantations, in cities and on small farms. Their stories were transcribed for posterity in what has become known as the American Slave Narratives. The interviews were collected and published in the 1970's to reveal the fabric of life during a heart rending period of American history.

 Family researchers and historians, White and Black, will find the Slave Narratives interesting and informative. In their own dialectical speech patterns the former slaves answered the uniformly prepared questions of  interviewers. The interrogatives usually consisted of questions about labor, diet, marriage, punishment and relations with their masters. Some interviewers followed lists of questions more faithfully than did others.

 In recent years the voices of the former slaves have been rejuvenated as the Slave Narratives have come to life audibly, in print and on the Internet. The Library of Congress recently digitally salvaged some of the taped WPA interviews while Ancestry.Com, on their website at http://ancestry.com,  and for sale on CD-ROM, have made over 2,300 of the interviews available to researchers. Another good Internet source is the American Slave Narratives: An Online Anthology at http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/wpa/wpahome.html . The narratives are arranged by state and then alphabetically by the name of the former slave being interviewed.

BEGINNING GENEALOGY CLASS

 Paula Perkins Parke will teach a Beginning Genealogy Class at Grace Presbyterian Church, 10221 Ella Lee near the Sam Houston Tollway. The two part class will be held on Thursday February 15 from 1 P.M. to 6 P.M. The second class session, a week later,  will consist of a tour and hands-on census work at Clayton Library.

 To enroll or to learn more about this class, contact Michelle Schultz at the Grace Presbyterian Education office 713-267-5020.

SEMINAR IN BRYAN

 The Texas Research Ramblers of Bryan will host their annual seminar on Saturday 17 February from 8 A.M. to 4 P.M. The seminar will be held at the Sam Rayburn Middle School located on the feeder road just north of the Booneville exit of Highway 6 North in Bryan.

 Nationally known lecturer, Lloyd Bockstruck of the Dallas Public Library will be the featured speaker. His topics will include; "Identifying Maiden Names of Females"; "Finding Substitutes for Birth and Death Records"; "Researching Pennsylvania"; "Researching: The Plains, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma  & Texas".

 For more information contact the society at 8502 Amethyst Court, College Station, TX 77845-5539 or contact Kim Feldman by telephone at 979-693-5516 or by e-mail at feldman@tca.net. The society also has a website located at http://www2.txcyber.com/~ramblers/

NEWS FROM THE BOOKSHELF

 Those tracing their African heritage will be interested in David Thackery's recently released book, Finding Your African American Ancestors: A Beginner's Guide. This informative 168 page guide is available for $12.95 plus shipping from Ancestry.Com's regional representative, Paula Perkins Parke at P.O.Box 842052 Houston, TX 77284-2052 or by calling 281-550-7935.

 As curator of Local and Family History at the Newberry Library in Chicago for fifteen years, Thackery was at the forefront in the creation of Newberry's impressive African American collection. In addition, he was one of the pioneers who helped establish scholarly standards for modern African American research.

 According to Thackery, tracing and documenting African American families takes time, skill and dedication. The book is designed to give one a foothold into understanding the types of records and the methodology necessary to trace an African American family.

 Some of the topics covered in the book include: free Blacks, the Underground Railroad, records dealing with the transition from slavery to freedom, military records, the Slave Narratives, Internet sources and research facility addresses.

 In addition the book contains a list of published and microfilmed resources available at the Newberry Library. These sources include general, federal and state source guides, biographical compendia, manuscript sources and guides, periodicals, Slave Narratives, Liberian sources and military sources.