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Finding Your Roots Workshop, 05/13

May 11, 2017 by efs429

Fugitive slaves flee from Maryland to Delaware by way of the Underground Railroad, 1850.

Historians and archivists will lead a Finding Your Roots  on Saturday, May 13, from 12:00-1:00 pm at the Bullock Museum. The workshop aims to help researchers to extrapolate from historical documents and archival sources the often fragmentary personal stories of enslaved men, women, and children. Maria Esther Hammack, a PhD student in the Department of History at the University of Texas-Austin, will discuss her experiences working with relevant archival documents at the University of Texas. Her dissertation examines the role of Texas as both a market for slavery and a gateway for fugitive slaves who sought freedom in Mexico. Ashely Stevens is the Education and Outreach Coordinator at the Texas State Library and Archives Commission. She will share resources from the Texas State Library and Archives Commission and impart strategies for tracing family histories and the difficulties that individuals encounter in tracking down African American relatives in the historical record. The Finding Your Roots Workshop coincides with the exhibition, Purchased Lives: The American Slave Trade from 1808 to 1865, which explores the domestic slave trade in the United States. The program is presented in partnership with the Texas Library and Archives Commission.

Filed Under: Featured, New & Noteworthy Tagged With: Ancestry, Black History, Bullock Museum, Primary Sources, Research, Texas, Texas State Archives

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