| 9:00am-10:15am | S-2 | GENERAL SESSION: The 400th Commemoration of the First Documented Africans in British North America | Ric Murphy | TBD |
| 10:30am-11:30am | | CONCURRENT SESSIONS-I | | |
| S-3 | Fruit of the Earth: Using Deed Records to Uncover Your Ancestors
Deed records are one of the best records for researching family history, but their legal language can intimidate even seasoned researchers. In this session, Ms. Smith describes the various ways that deeds can help our genealogical research not just on our ancestors, but also on the communities in which they lived. Deed records can tie together multiple generations of a family and provide evidence for relationships. They can also shed light on the social history of a locale, which is important information to add context to the lives of our ancestors. | Robyn Smith | TBD |
| S-4 | The Second Middle Passage: Following the DNA Trails
Many researchers often rely on a preponderance of indirect evidence and direct evidence to confirm enslaved ancestors and displaced family members. In this presentation, attendees will learn how DNA can be the direct piece of evidence to confirm enslaved ancestors and to locate their long-lost kin. | Melvin Collier | TBD |
| S-5 | Hey Researchers! Google is Your Friend
Geared toward beginner and intermediate family researchers, learn how to use Google Products to help aid you in your family research. We'll cover the basics and go beyond basic techniques using Google Search, Google Maps, and Google Drive. | Phillipi Cummings | TBD |
| S-6 | PANEL DISCUSSION: People Not Property: Reading the History of North Carolina in Slave Deeds
The People Not Property Project aims to digitize slave deeds from across the state of North Carolina and make them freely available to historians and genealogists worldwide. In this session, students and faculty from three NC universities present on the project and the histories they have found in the documents. | Dr. Torren Gatson
Dr. Charles Johnson
Dr. Arwin Smallwood | TBD |
| 11:45am-1:15pm | S-7 | LUNCHEON TBD
| C.R. Gibbs | TBD |
| 1:30pm-2:30pm | | CONCURRENT SESSIONS-II | | |
| S-8 | Case Study: Free African American Family Survival Since 1676
The lack of appropriate records is particularly problematic for generations of African American families. This presentation will show how a few records, as well as State and local histories, can be used to reconstruct the regularities, influences and constraints on the lives of lost North Carolina families during the 1800s. | Dr. Benjamin Bowser | TBD |
| S-9 | Advance Your DNA Agenda with GEDMATCH
Learn how to resolve genealogical questions using tools in genetic genealogy's most popular third-party DNA database. | Shannon Christmas | TBD |
| S-10 | The Syphaxes: Researching an African American Family History In Slavery and In Freedom
Using the Syphax family, an African American family in Washington DC, as a case study, this presentation will pose the question of what constitutes "successful" genealogical research. Source material will be used to highlight the lives of several Syphax family members including one who managed to free himself and several of his family members in Alexandria, Virginia. | Maddy McCoy | TBD |
| S-11 | The Georgetown Memory Project: The Genealogical Pursuit of Truth, Reconciliation, & Reunion
Researchers for the Georgetown Memory Project have identified over 7,000 direct descendants of the 272 African Americans sold by Maryland Jesuits in 1838.This presentation will introduce the project, highlight Maryland sources, methodology, and challenges, and preview efforts to preserve the work for future generations. | Malissa Ruffner, JD | TBD |
| 2:45pm-3:45pm | | CONCURRENT SESSIONS-III | | |
| S-12 | What Do We Owe Our Ancestors?
"What Do We Owe Our Ancestors?" is a call to action to protect African- and Native American cemeteries by invoking descendants' moral obligation to their ancestors, who are buried in these sacred sites, and by resurrecting their ancestral communities in the wake of gentrification and government imminent domain. | Teresa Vega | TBD |
| | S-13 | Pulling Out the Unspoken: Faith & Spirituality in Our 400+ Journey
Presentation will identify diverse faiths/spirituality on the African continent, pre-1619; how as people with souls - contrary to narratives - is evidenced. Through discussion and use of a modified genogram process, will inform historical and genealogical process to pull out the unspoken and clarify our lens as we look at the 400+ year journey. | Dr. Khadijah Matin | |
| | S-14 | Building A Research Plan for DNA Testing
Whenever we approach a genealogical question we need to have a plan before starting research. DNA is simply another tool in our research toolkit. What is your research goal using DNA? Before you buy several DNA test kits and start handing them out, sit down and make a plan. | Dr. Janice Lovelace | |
| | S-15 | We Were Always in the Courthouse: What You Can Find on African Americans in Court Records
Court House records reveal lots of information on African Americans. This presentation will explore some of the records found in Court House Chancery Records. | Char McCargo Bah | |
| | S-16 | Organizing and Self-Publishing a Family History Book
Many researchers often wonder how they can organize years of documented research into a family history book. In this session, attendees will gain a lot of insight into how a family history book can go from just an idea to a professionally self-published book. | Melvin Collier | |
| 4:00pm-5:00pm | | | | |
| S-17 | From Anthony Johnson at Jamestown, VA to the Descendants Of His Granddaughter Jone (Johnson) Puckham in Somerset, MD: A Story in Black, Red, and White
This presentation shares documents that were used in the development of a chronology extending from the Colonial Period, Revolutionary War Era and the Antebellum Period that connect a family lineage from 1619 in Jamestown, Virginia to the union between an African American and Indian in 1682 and beyond. | Harry Matthews | TBD |
| S-18 | Finding Our Fathers: Fraternalism & African American Genealogy
Presentation will show attendees how learning the history of African American Fraternal and Benevolent organizations can lead them to great discoveries in family and local history research. | James Morgan III | TBD |
| S-19 | Black Stories in the House: A Critical Assessment of African American Plantation Tourism
Almost every AAHGS National Conference and other genealogy and history conference in the United States now includes a tour of a slave plantation. Why is that? Of what benefit is that? How can it be even more beneficial? This presentation answers such questions. | Dr. Pamela Foster | TBD |
| | S-20 | Using Historical Records in Genealogy Research
This presentation will define historical research and analysis, its differences and similarities to genealogical research and analysis, and the benefits of its use in genealogical research. Lastly, the presenter will demonstrate how to establish a research plan and show examples of how to find historical resources. | Damita Drayton Green | |
| 7:00pm-9:00pm | | BANQUET DINNER "TBD" | Dr. Mary Elliott | TBD |
