Ancestor's Footprints with Bernice Alexander Bennett

Frazine Taylor has helped people of all ethnic backgrounds to research their family history for over 25 years. However she has witnessed firsthand the frustration and disappointment of African-Americans when the research gets to the year of 1870, and for some, 1866, where they hit the predictable “brick wall.” You can’t go around it, get under it, or go through it, because there is no hope or help...

Scott Fisher - Extreme Genes is a natural for Fisher, a Connecticut native, who has been in radio since his youth, and has spent three decades of spare time as a passionate roots sleuth.  A long-time morning show host, Fisher is the author of New York City Methodist Marriages, 1785-1893,Picton Press, 1994.  He has also been published in the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society Journal (A...

Karen Batchelor will share the many unexpected twists and turns on her 40-year family history journey and how what she has learned from the past has changed her life. Karen started doing genealogy because of a New Year’s resolution in 1976 - before the Internet and computers. By 1977, she became the first known Black woman to be admitted for membership in Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR)...

Cultural Heritage in the Republic of Benin: What the country has to offer and it has in store for the years ahead. Nathalie Blanc Chekete is Haitian and Canadian (Afro-descendant) and has lived Haiti; Canada; France; Brasil and now Benin. She received a Bachelor of Commerce in Finance from the University of Quebec in Montreal and a Master’s degree in international marketing management (Boston Univ...

Have you ever considered searching records of incarceration to find your ancestors?  Whether researching a notorious family outlaw or a victim of early 20th century justice, there’s a good chance that you have an ancestor who has been incarcerated. Researching records of incarceration at local, state or federal penal institutions can reveal valuable family history information and also document sha...

Melissa L. Cooper is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Rutgers University-Newark. Cooper’s ground breaking book, Making Gullah: A History of Sapelo Islanders, Race and the American Imagination, published by the University of North Carolina Press, is a fascinating history.  Using Sapelo Island as a case study, Cooper unearths the intellectual and cultural trends that inspired,...

Shawn Utsey is the Interim Chair of African American Studies and Professor of Psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University. He received his PhD(1997) from Fordham University.  The film - Until the Well Runs Dry: Medicine and the Exploitation of Black Bodies was released in 2011.  This film sparked renewed interest in honoring the remains of 44 people (most were African American Descent) whose bo...

Drew Smith is an Assistant Librarian with the USF Tampa Library, and is the 2016 winner of the Filby Award for Genealogical Librarianship, presented by the National Genealogical Society. He is past president of the Florida Genealogical Society of Tampa, and has served on the boards of the Federation of Genealogical Societies, the Association of Professional Genealogists, and the Florida State Gene...

After retiring from a career in banking, Bill Webb began to investigate his family history. His interest had been sparked by a family Bible record of his ancestor Brown Colbert that he saw as a child in Parkersburg, West Virginia. The research of Bill and his wife, Eva Kobus-Webb, revealed the connection to Monticello and brought to light other Colbert descendants like the Civil War soldier George...

Orville Vernon Burton is Creativity Professor of Humanities, Professor of History, Pan-African Studies, Sociology, and Computer Science at Clemson University, and the Director of the Clemson CyberInstitute.  Burton is a prolific author and scholar (twenty authored or edited books and more than two hundred articles); and author or director of numerous digital humanities projects.  The Age of Lincol...

Bernice Bennett welcomes James Louis Bacon for a moving discussion about his genealogical journey to document his family history. James Louis Bacon has entertained a lifelong passion for writing and African American History.  He began his  family research 35 years ago, and published his book in 2016. He is a veteran of the United States Navy where he  proudly served from 1970-1974. The Ties That B...

Mark Charles Roudané was born in New Orleans and currently resides in St. Paul, Minnesota.  An educator, author, and public speaker, Mr. Roudané’s recent release, The New Orleans Tribune, An Introduction to America’s First Black Daily Newspaper, has sold over 800 copies.  His articles have appeared in numerous journals including the Atlantic magazine South Atlantic Review and the Journal of the Lo...

Rebroadcast: Join Wilhelmena Rhodes Kelly with host Bernice Bennett for an exciting discussion of the African Americans presence in Brooklyn, and their long residence in Bedford Township (today's Bedford-Stuyvesant) and the Dutch community of Flatbush - founded in the 1650. Wilhelmena Rhodes Kelly is a third generation Brooklyn native with roots in both Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights. An avi...

Zann Nelson will discuss the occurrence of selling literally 100s of thousands of enslaved people South to the cotton and sugar fields with Virginia being the largest exporter and how challenging it is to reunite these ancestors with their place of birth and in many cases with family members who remained behind.  Searching for the sixteen slaves sold South is supported by the Montpelier Foundation...

The Civil War Pension File of Philip McQuerter of Woodville, Wilkinson County, Mississippi provides revealing information about his family. Alvin Blakes is a lifelong organizer and community worker who has been researching African history since he was a teenager, and has travelled to Africa, Europe, the Caribbean and all over the United States to pursue his studies. He has researched his family’s...

Join  Andi Cumbo-Floyd is a writer, historian, and editor who lives at the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains with her husband, 4 cats, 4 dogs, 6 goats, and 28 chickens. Her books include The Slaves Have Names, Steele Secrets, and Charlotte and the Twelve.  A teen with a secret. A decades-old murder. Their past could change her future… Mary Steele never saw the ghosts coming. When the spunky, brilli...

            Dr. Eva Semien Baham is as an assistant professor of history at Dillard University, in New Orleans, Louisiana.  Prior to coming to Dillard, she taught for twenty-one years at Southern University, Baton Rouge. Her specialties include American, African-American and Intellectual history.             She received her undergraduate degree in journalism from Southern University in Baton Roug...

Bernice Bennett welcomes Angela Walton-Raji for a discussion on the Challenges and Opportunities  in  African American Genealogy.   Angela Walton-Raji is known nationally for her research and work on Oklahoma Native American records.  Her book Black Indian Genealogy Research, African Ancestors Among the Five Civilized Tribes, is the only book of its kind focusing on the unique record sets pertaini...

Join author, genealogist, community activist, television and blogtalkradio show host Antoinette Harrell for a discussion of her dedication to family, preservation of records, genealogical research and social justice. Ms. Harrell brings over 20 years of genealogical experiences that has resulted in the Antoinette Harrell Collections located at the Armistad Research Center in New Orleans and the Sou...

Dana P. Saxon, JD, MSc, is the Executive Director of Ancestors unKnown, an education nonprofit that’s providing schools with genealogy research and history curriculum. After spending nearly 10 years in the education nonprofit sector in the U.S., Dana moved from NYC to the Netherlands in 2011. It’s there that she earned a Master’s in Sociology at the University of Amsterdam, focusing her studies on...

Rebroadcast Pension Files of African Americans in the War of 1812 We are natives of this country; we ask only to be treated as well as foreigners. Not a few of our fathers suffered and bled to purchase its independence; we ask only to be treated as well as those who fought against it. We have toiled to cultivate it, and to raise it to its present prosperous condition; we ask only to share equal pr...

Witness To Change - From Jim Crow to Political Empowerment Sybil Haydel Morial is an activist and community leader in New Orleans.  She spent her career in the education field, first, as a public school teacher and later as an administrator at Xavier University. Sybil’s memoir reveals a woman whose intelligence overrides the clichés of racial division. In its pages, we catch rare glimpses of black...

The New Orleans Tribune: An Introduction to America's First Black Daily Newspaper Mark Charles Roudané was born in New Orleans and currently resides in St. Paul, Minnesota.  An educator, author, and public speaker, Mr. Roudané’s recent release, The New Orleans Tribune, An Introduction to America’s First Black Daily Newspaper, has sold over 800 copies.  His articles have appeared in numerous journa...

Rebroadcast The Black Russian with Valdimir Alexandrov, Ph. D. The Black Russian tells the story of Frederick Bruce Thomas, who was born in 1872 to former slaves and spent his youth on his family’s farm in Mississippi.  After leaving the South and working as a waiter and valet in Chicago and Brooklyn, he went to London in 1894, then traveled throughout Europe, and decided to go to Russia in 1899,...

MARY M. TEDESCO is a professional genealogist, speaker, and author. She is a Host / Genealogist on the PBS TV series “Genealogy Roadshow” (season 2 & season 3) as well as the Founder of ORIGINS ITALY. Mary speaks fluent Italian and travels often to Italy to conduct client genealogical research and visit family. Mary is the co-author of “Tracing Your Italian Ancestors” an 84-page Italian resear...