Genealogy.com: Free African Americans of North Carolina and Virginia by Paul Heinegg

"Paul Heinegg's Free African Americans of North Carolina and Virginia is a collection of genealogies about African American families living in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. Garnering the American Society of Genealogists' Donald Lines Jacobus Award in 1994, it is a resource well-worth investigating for any individual tracing families from these locations and time periods.

Here, you can get a taste of Paul Heinegg's research and writing through the Introduction he wrote for this book. Even if you are not researching families from these locations and time periods, you will find that the Introduction provides you with an interesting look at African-American life during this time period. Specifically, he shows how the social status of many landowning African-American families changed so much over the years that 'by the 20th century they had no idea their ancestors had been free.' It is lengthy, so you may prefer to print it rather than reading it online. Footnotes for the Introduction are included at the bottom of this page. However, to get information about citations shown in square brackets ( [ ] ), please refer to the complete book. "

Further reading:

North Carolina-South Carolina Boundary

Reminiscences and memoirs of North Carolina and eminent North Carolinians

The Scotch-Irish, or, The Scot in North Britain, North Ireland, and North America

North Carolina, the Old North State and the new

Genealogy Workshop at North Carolina State Archives

Eastern North Carolina, 1861

North Carolina Coast, 1862

North & South Carolina, 1865

Early North Carolina Settlers, 1700s-1900s