On Mar 9, 2007, at 12:24 PM, [log in to unmask] wrote:
How does a descendant of a slave trace its ancestry
back to anyone in Africa, since there don't appear to
be any written records of births there during that
period when the slave trade began?
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The research strategies vary and depend upon when and
where enslavers captured Africans, and when and where
they ended up in the Atlantic. We have only small
numbers of biographies of individuals who recall their
African past, but I don't recall anyone being able to
specify a birthplace, the full names of parents and an
exact birthdate. 

I also don't recall any reference to birth records in
any scholarship, but there are probably records in the
areas/countries where records were kept.  In quickly
surveying books on African American genealogy, none go
into depth about how one traces back to the first
African ancestor on American soil. Most books focus on
how to identify the last enslaved ancestor or person
who enslaved an ancestor. This points to how far away
we are in terms of connecting African Americans to
specific African ancestors. 

As an example of what can be extracted from
slavery-era records, Gwendolyn Midlo Hall compiled a
database of information on slaves in Louisiana.  In
some instances, she found evidence of their nation of
origin, but none I believe, pinpointed an exact
birthplace.  There are cases of individuals who claim
that they've traced their ancestry back to a
particular nation, but I've not seen large numbers of
these studies.