Proclamation Proclaim Genealogy Awareness Week

 Genealogy Proclamation

February 5, 2004, the African American Genealogy Connection, Inc., requested that the City of New Orleans Proclaim February 8th - `4th as Genealogy Awareness Week. In honor of Black History Month, Antoinette Harrell and Karran Harper Royal host of Nurturing Our Roots Genealogy Educational Talk Show would like to encourage African American families to study their own family through self-discovery. 

Genealogy can help a person who is researching their family history look at the local history, the community their ancestors and family lived in.  What kind of occupations did they have? Did they attend school? Where did they attend church? Certainly not omitting the local politics and business matters of the community your family lived in. 

Sharing photographs, memories, and family stories can strengthen and bring the family closer. This week in Honor of Black History, I would like to honor my own family and extended community in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana by blogging, sharing photographs, conducting new interviews and lastly placing new information in the archival collections. Some families still have the original photographs from the early 1900s in their collection.  Almost everyone that I have interviewed has a funeral program collection. Several people family member passed away and they inherited all the photographs and other records.  Let me just say that I'm glad they are sharing them with me. 

This year is the fourteen year anniversary since this Proclamation was proclaimed Genealogy Awareness Week. How quickly the time went by! My youngest son was twelve-years-old at the time.  The Florida Parishes was home to my ancestors and family on my paternal and maternal side of the family. Because I lived in the Florida Parishes it makes my search very easy for me when I need to travel to the genealogy library and courthouse to research records. I want to also point out that helping others in the community understand the importance of preserving their family history is vital to the history of the Florida Parishes from an African-American perspective. 

New Orleans City Council Proclaimed
Feb 8th-14th as Genealogy Awareness Week

The history of African-Americans in the Florida Parishes is at large an undocumented history. We can't have the history of the Florida Parishes without the history of African-American people who history is interwoven in the history of Florida Parishes. 

Hard working men and women who faced the many challenges of oppression to triumphs during slavery and Jim Crow. Many who knew the faces of segregation and its effects on them and their families.  Some left the Bayou State of Louisiana, leaving the agricultural fields in search of a better life up north in the 1920s. Many returned after retirement and some never returned. When it was time to come home to visit, they looked forward to coming back south to visit their family members.  One thing I learned during this journey of self-discovery is that it never ends. I spend countless hours in my home office researching and preparing photographs and other records for electronic archiving and the university. 

What Could the Tombstones Tell Us?

Thomas Richardson
Photo Credit: Bobby

If you look at Thomas Richardson, Sr., headstone and the headstone of Andrew Richardson, you will find some similarities. One being the shapes of the headstones and if you look at the top of the headstones, you will find little circles on the top. It looks like the same lettering was used. These two men are one year apart. Thomas was born in 1853 and Andrew was born in 1852. 

Thomas is buried in Rocky Hill AME Church Cemetery. Andrew is buried in Black Creek AME Church Cemetery. Andrew's parents were N. Richardson and Dicy Richardson. What does the "N" stand for?  We only have Thomas mother's name. Her name was Carrie.  I couldn't find any of Carrie's sibling or her parents.  

Thomas Richardson died on February 28, 1923, and Andrew Richardson died on September 10, 1908.  The fact that both men were AME members and the headstones reveal some similarities clues. I think my next step would be to visit the Louisiana State Archives to look at death records. Although we know Andrew's parents' name, I want to find out more on N. Richardson, could this be the Nathan Richardson, whose name in on the inventory list of Benjamin and Celia Bankston Richardson 1853 inventory. 

Andrew Richardson
Photo Credit: Jane Holiday

It's time for me to make a genealogy field trip to Black Creek Church and cemetery in Greensburg, Louisiana. I know there are other Richardson's buried there.  Andrew and Sarah Ann Foster Richardson had nine children. It appears that the family used Black Creek Church Cemetery and Darlington Church of God in Christ for their family church and to bury their loved ones.

I think we're long overdue to find out the kinship of the two Richardson families. Supt. Alexander Richardson has two sons living out of ten children: Supt Emmitt N. Richardson, Sr., and Darnell Richardson, Sr. I don't know much about the family lineage Pastor Alonzo Richardson. He had a son named Pastor Jimmy Richardson who resides in Roseland, Louisiana. Hopefully, the remaining offsprings can help us shed some light and make the genealogy connections.

Supt. Alexander Richardson is the son of Thomas Richardson, Sr. and Amanda Breland Richardson.

Study questions to think about

1. Why are the headstones so similar?

2. Did Carrie Richardson have other siblings and children?

3. Could Andrew be one of her siblings' children?

4. What funeral home did the family use?

5. Did someone make the headstones for the family?
6. Could any of the other people on the plantation be Carrie's siblings?