The Black History Museum and Cultural Center of Virginia

presents

"Let No Man Put Asunder: Freedmen's Bureau 
Marriage Records and African-American Genealogy"

A lecture by Reginald Washington, archivist
National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) 

Thursday, July 9, 2009, at 6:30 p.m.

Library of Virginia
800 East Broad Street
Richmond, Virginia 23219

Free and open to the public
(Underground parking available from 8th or 9th Street)


Freedmen's Bureau marriage records are some of the earliest public records 
on African Americans, making them invaluable to historians and genealogists. 
They were created in an attempt to validate and document the marriages of 
formerly enslaved persons who had lived together as husband and wife. The 
records may provide the only proof of an enslaved ancestor's marriage; many 
documents also provide information about children, parents, and former spouses.

Reginald Washington has served as the African-American Genealogy Specialist 
at NARA for the past 13 years. He has conducted numerous workshops on the 
use of federal records for African-American genealogical research, and has 
written several articles on the topic. Mr. Washington gave congressional 
testimony in support of The Freedmen's Bureau Preservation Act of 2000 that 
authorized 3 million dollars for the preservation of more than 1000 linear feet 
of field office records of the Freedmen's Bureau.



 

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