Black Genealogy: The Freedmen’s Bureau Files: An untapped gold mine

By Patricia Bayonne-Johnson Culture Columnist

If you have hit a brick wall while tracing your Black ancestry before 1870 – and nearly every researcher does – there is one collection of records that may hold the breakthrough you need. The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, commonly known as the Freedmen’s Bureau, is one of the most remarkable yet underused archives in American genealogical research. Yet a surprising number of people searching for their roots have heard of it.

What was the Freedmen’s Bureau?

Established by Congress in March 1865, the Freedmen’s Bureau was a federal agency created to assist the four million formerly enslaved people as they navigated their first years of freedom, as well as indigent whites. It operated primarily in the Confederate and border states and functioned from 1865 to 1872, a brief but extraordinary, well-documented window of time.

Bureau agents meticulously recorded the lives of the freed people. They documented labor disputes, registered marriages, noted the locations of family members separated by the slave trade, and tracked the efforts of thousands of Black Americans searching for their lost relatives. In doing so, they created a paper trail that researchers today are beginning to fully appreciate.

What’s Actually in These Records?

The Freedmen’s Bureau records are not a single, tidy database – they are a collection of letters, ledgers, registers, and reports. Depending on the state, you will find:

  • Labor contracts listing freed people by name, age, and sometimes family relationships, and often the former enslaver’s name
  • Legal marriages
  • Established schools
  • Letters and “missing persons” inquiries in which freed people described relatives lost to sale and begged for information about their whereabouts
  • Hospital and ration records that can confirm a person’s presence at a specific location and time
  • Claims and complaints, often listing the names of white landowners, overseers, or employees, provide critical context for linking a family to a particular plantation
  • Many Black and white people were destitute. The Freedmen’s Bureau provided seed, clothing, medicine, and food rations. Many recipients were elderly, ill, feeble, disabled, or orphaned. Others were families in need of assistance.
  • Requests for transportation were microfilmed, registered, and approved by the government. Those approved for transportation included soldiers’ wives and widows, teachers, military personnel, and bureau officials.

Beverly Hicks

The search of the Freedmen’s Bureau for information on Beverly Hicks, my paternal great-great-grandfather, led to an astonishing report of a claim of ownership by two women. Here is what I found as written on the form:

Oct. 15, 1866

Capt. M. A. McDonnell

Supt. 3rd Dist. VA

Captain,

I have the honor to submit the following for your consideration & would respectfully request your opinion thereon.

In the year 1844, Beverly Hicks (slave) married a color woman named Jane (also a slave). They lived together until 1863, when Jane was sold out of state. Beverly in 1847 became free. Jane was sold away (1863) he (Beverly) obtained a license in Halifax Co. & married a free woman named Mary Bird with whom he has since cohabited. Jane in 1865, returned to Manchester, where she was formerly owned & has lived with Beverly up to the present time. She (Jane) has had by him eleven (11) children, whom he has supported. Mary has had one (1) child by him & has also received support. Both women now claim as their “lawfully” husband, & desire that the Right of Possession may be speedily determined. Beverly runs the Danville R.R.

The claim was settled in Mary’s favor. According to Ancestry.com, Beverly Hicks and Mary Bird married on December 27, 1864. Beverly and Mary were listed in the same household with four children in the 1900 Federal census for Midlothian, Chesterfield, Virginia.

Of all the Freedmen’s Bureau records I found, this one was the most heartbreaking:

Emma Jane Hicks, John, and George Hicks, ages 15, 12, 10, reported in January 1873 in Manchester, Virginia, that their father, Beverly Hicks, left their mother, Jane Hicks, during the war.

Where can I find Freedmen’s Bureau records?

The following websites are free:

Freedmen’s Bureau records may be the richest source of information on African Americans during Reconstruction. Happy Hunting!