US Black Heritage Project: Welcome to WikiTree

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: [unknown]
Surnames/tags: black_heritage african_american

The US Black Heritage Project defines Black heritage as having family with African diaspora who have been in the USA for several generations, some of whom were likely enslaved in this country before the Civil War. Our project doesn't have the expertise to build African or African Diaspora family trees outside the USA.

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The US Black Heritage Project is here to support you as you navigate WikiTree to build and grow your family tree. You do not need to join the project to receive our help and support, but if you are interested in helping us reach our goals, please see our Project Home Page for more information about the project and how to join.

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Contents 1 Enhancing Your Personal WikiTree Profile 1.1 Tags 2 Sources 3 Existing Family Profiles 3.1 Duplicates and Merges 4 Profile Stickers 5 Where to Find Research Help 6 How to Search For My Family on WikiTree 7 How to Find Enslaved Ancestors 8 How You Can Help

Enhancing Your Personal WikiTree Profile

Here are some optional ways you can enhance your profile:

1. To get you started, add as many family members to your tree as you know. This will give others something to look at when they assist you with research.
2. Add one or both of these stickers anywhere on your personal profile by copy/pasting this code:

{{African-American Sticker}}

gives you:

{{African Ancestry}}

gives you:

The US Black Heritage Project adds the African-American sticker to all family profiles for people with Black heritage. This not only helps us honor their heritage, it assists us with our genealogy as well as counting how many total profiles we have on WikiTree.

Tags

You are allowed to follow up to 20 tags on your personal profile. These tags will tell WikiTree what topics you are interested in receiving email notifications about. Consider adding tags of surnames and locations you research as well as "black_heritage" or "slavery." "Slavery" is the general keyword that is used at WikiTree for all slavery topics.

Tip: Once you add your tags, click on each one to see who else is following those tags.

Sources

Sources are required on all WikiTree family profiles. Sources not only help us prove family connections, they provide more accurate information about each person. You can read more about sources Here.

A new app you may wish to consider to make sourcing easier for you is called the Sourcer App. It's a web browser extension that will write source citations from several genealogy websites such as Ancestry and Family Search with the click of a button.

Existing Family Profiles

WikiTree is a one-world tree. That means we will have only one profile for every person who has ever existed shared by all the descendants.

Some of your family profiles may already have been created on WikiTree either by family members or WikiTree members adding to the database of profiles with Black Heritage. If this is the case, you can attach those existing profiles as parents, spouses, or children to profiles in your tree. Then you can do one of the following:

• If the profile has been orphaned (this is obvious when you see "No Profile Manager" highlighted in yellow), click on the "adopt this profile" link to become the profile manager (PM).
• If the profile is managed by someone else, go to the privacy tab on each existing profile and scroll down to "Join this list." Click on the link below it to send a trusted list request to the profile manager. Add a short note about how you are related. Ask to be added as the profile manager.
• Send a message to the profile manger from that profile and ask how they are related to start a discussion about the family.

Note: Although the profile manager should pass profile management to you if they are not related, some people like to remain on profiles they have created. This is usually acceptable if it is not a close family member to you (ie: grandparents and closer). If you have any problems, please see the note at the bottom of this page.

Duplicates and Merges

If a duplicate of one of your family members is accidentally created, you will be asked to merge it with the duplicate profile. Both profile managers will then be managers of the merged profile. You will need to check that any duplicate information has been combined on the new profile.

Profile Stickers

We have stickers that can be used on your family and ancestor profiles specifically tailored for your needs. Please see: Descendant Stickers for the list.

Where to Find Research Help

We have a public forum here at WikiTree called g2g. You can ask questions regarding research you need help with and thousands of people are standing by ready to assist. G2g is found under the help tab in the menu. To bring more people to your question, use tags such as locations, surnames, projects, and black_heritage.

To better help other WikiTree members to assist you with your research question, please add as many of your family profiles as possible to WikiTree as a reference.

Don't know anything about your family tree? Check out the Family Builders Program. Family Builders will help you get your tree started. We work on a first come first served basis, so you will start on a waiting list until the next available researcher can assist you.

How to Search For My Family on WikiTree

• You can search by name by using the search fields at the very top of the WikiTree website.
  • In cases when you receive dozens or more search results (such as a name like John Williams), on the search results page, scroll down and enter a birthdate and death date for your John Williams (or choose other available search parameters). Then press the search button. This will help narrow down the list for you.
• To search for Black family by last name, you have to use what is called WikiTree+, an independent search tool that uses publicly available information from WikiTree. Choose the "Search" option from the list on the left. When you open that window, replace what is in the text field with the surname your are searching and the word African-American. Choose how many results you want and click "Get Profiles."
  • Currently, searching for "Williams African-American" gives 1732 results.
  • As our database grows, the numbers will increase.
  • This search is based on the US Black Heritage Project's African-American sticker. Every Black Williams on WikiTree may not yet have a sticker.

How to Find Enslaved Ancestors

We have a help page with tips on How to Find Your Enslaved Ancestors. One of the best things you can do is to build your tree out as far as you can on WikiTree. Eventually, the US Black Heritage Project hopes to connect additional family for you as they process documents and add new profiles.

How You Can Help

One of the most powerful aspects of WikiTree is people working together on shared family profiles and exchanging information.

You can help the US Black Heritage Project to build the largest public database in existence of connected African-American family by adding as many of your own family profiles to WikiTree. Next, spread the word about USBH and ask others to add their family. The more profiles we have, the more connections we can make.

We want everyone with Black heritage who comes to WikiTree to be able to immediately connect to existing family profiles.

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If you ever have concerns while on WikiTree please contact one of the Project Leaders listed on the US Black Heritage Project Home Page

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For information on how we document slavery at WikiTree see the Heritage Exchange Portal