The Freedmen’s Bureau Project

To help bring thousands of records to light, the Freedmen’s Bureau Project was created as a set of partnerships between FamilySearch International and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, the Afro­-American Historical and Genealogical Society (AAHGS), and the California African American Museum.

A press conference to talk about this indexing project will be streamed live tomorrow, June 19th (the 150th anniversary of Juneteenth) beginning at 10am PDT/noon CDT/1pm EDT. Link to http://www.discoverfreedmen.org.  The web site also provides details about the project.

HISTORICAL NOTE: On June 19 (“Juneteenth”), 1865, Union general Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas and issued General Order Number 3, which read in part, “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor.” Source:  Texas State Historical Society, The Handbook of Texas.