Websites expand ancestry records of enslaved people

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Source: Axios

11 hours ago


Two genealogy sites are adding troves of historical materials about enslaved people in the U.S. to databases, which could give many of their descendants a fuller picture of their families' histories.

The moves come as the nation on Thursday celebrates Juneteenth, the annual celebration of the end of slavery.

Why it matters: In recent years, descendants of enslaved people have gained unprecedented access to collections of long-lost family records online — made possible by advances in technology, AI, and DNA testing.

The big picture: A growing number of Black Americans are tracing how their families were torn apart, received Anglo names and sold across the country because of slavery, which began in the British colonies more than 400 years ago and officially ended with the 13th Amendment in 1865.

They're also learning about how some relatives escaped slavery and what their lives were like in the aftermath of emancipation.

Driving the news: Ancestry.com announced last week that it will significantly expand its free Articles of Enslavement records collection — an archive of newspaper articles documenting the experiences of enslaved people in the U.S.

The website is expanding its archive nearly fourfold, using proprietary AI models and machine learning to index 110,000 newly discovered articles that reference more than half a million people.

Many of the original newspaper articles contain never-before-seen information about enslaved people in communities where courthouse and community records were otherwise destroyed or lost.

Read more: https://www.axios.com/2025/06/19/websites-expand-ancestry-records-enslaved-people

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Link to Ancestry.com "Articles of Enslavement" page - https://www.ancestry.com/c/articles-of-enslavement

Link to Michigan State University "Enslaved: Peoples of the Historical Slave Trade" page - https://enslaved.org/