Roots Television | Og Blog

That does it! Another day of programming that impresses the heck out of Og! In today’s new series, taken from a lecture at the 2006 AAHGS Conference, you’ll discover what an amazing font of information Angela Walton-Raji is when it comes to African and Native American genealogical research. If you’ve ever had the pleasure to conduct your own research in these areas, you know how many challenges you can count on encountering along the way, but this lecture answers some basic questions for us that will cut our research time significantly. Take a look at these tips!

1. Start your research (like any good genealogist) with an oral history of your family – and here we learn that it never hurts to have a little something in hand to share with your interview candidate to prime the pump. But also listen and learn why and how oral history can be particularly important in this type of research!
2. Learn which Federal Census is most important when researching Native Americans, and why -- and even where to find the hidden gems these censuses contain.
3. What are the most useful Tribal Records?
4. Why some people are originally designated as belonging to a tribe, only to have their designation later changed to a person of color – and why members of the same family often show up with several different racial designations.
5. Learn why it’s very important to know more about the people who are indigenous to a particular land.

After watching this series, Og feels better equipped to handle this type of research and knows you will, too!

Og from Roots Television