African-American genealogy program set Feb. 28 at East Side library

YOUNGSTOWN — African-American genealogy will be the topic of a 6:30 p.m. Feb. 28 program at the East Side Library of the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County, 430 Early Road.

The program, offered by Tim Seman, genealogy and local history librarian, is new to the library’s Black History Month events series. It will focus on the unique challenges in researching African-American family history.

The biggest challenge can be summed up in one word: “slavery,” Seman said.

“In many cases, there simply isn’t a documentary record,” he noted.

“Usually, slaves aren’t even mentioned by name, other than maybe a given name, but they didn’t have surnames. Marriages were not legally recognized,” among slaves, he explained.

The program’s co-presenter will be Judy Williams of Youngstown, an African-American library genealogy program volunteer, who has traced her ancestors, many of them free-born, to the 1630s in Virginia colony.

The program will cover the process of using U.S. Census records, starting with 1940, the most recent Census from which individually-identifiable information is publicly available, and working backward in 10-year increments to the slave schedules in the 1860 and 1850 censuses.

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