The Archives holds a wealth of material documenting the Black experience. This page highlights these resources online, in programs, and through traditional and social media.

A list of resources for researching African American ancestors who lived in Louisiana.

The Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society, Inc. (AAHGS) is a non-profit 501(c)3, which strives to preserve African-ancestored family history, genealogy, and cultural diversity by teaching research techniques and disseminating information throughout the community. Our primary goals are to promote scholarly research, provide resources for historical and genealogical studies, create a network of persons with similar interests, and assist members in documenting their histories.

In 1984, a professor at Rutgers University stumbled upon a trove of historic data in a courthouse in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana. Over the next 15 years, Dr. Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, a noted New Orleans writer and historian, painstakingly uncovered the background of 100,000 slaves who were brought to Louisiana in the 18th and 19th centuries making fortunes for their owners.

Poring through documents from all over Louisiana, as well as archives in France, Spain and Texas, Dr. Hall designed and created a database into which she recorded and calculated the information she obtained from these documents about African slave names, genders, ages, occupations, illnesses, family relationships, ethnicity, places of origin, prices paid by slave owners, and slaves' testimony and emancipations. In March 2000, the Louisiana State University Press published published Dr. Hall's databases on a CD-ROM.

The data has amazed genealogists and historians of slavery with the breadth of its information. Because the French and Spanish proprietors of Louisiana kept far more detailed records than their British counterparts at slave ports on the Atlantic coast, the records show valuable historical data. For historians who thought such information was lost or could never be collected and analyzed, the database is a once-unimaginable prize.

Dr. Hall's work in creating the Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy is far reaching. There are many who have a stake in being able to freely access this data, from historians, genealogists, anthropologists, geneticists and linguists , to Americans seeking keys to their past. Dr. Hall shares with others an interest in seeing that her research and databases reach the broadest possible audience. Together, Dr. Hall, the Center for the Public Domain, and ibiblio.org bring you the Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy 1699 - 1820 Database, a user-friendly, searchable, online database that is freely accessible to the public.

The Amistad Research Center is committed to collecting, preserving, and providing open access to original materials that reference the social and cultural importance of America's ethnic and racial history, the African Diaspora, human relations, and civil rights.

This resource is available on library computers or our WIFI network. You can't sign in to your individual Ancestry account but you can perform searches and are able to download source images and citations.

Search America's historic newspaper pages from 1756-1963 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present. Chronicling America is sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.

Since 2018, Enslaved: Peoples of the Historical Slave Trade (Enslaved.org) has been serving the needs of scholars, genealogists, students, and members of the public interested in the people of the historical slave trade. Enslaved.org is a discovery hub that helps users to search and find information from a large and growing number of datasets and digital projects. Researchers can learn from linking data, visualizing larger relations and movements, and connecting the traces of people from one dataset to the next. More importantly, users can discover and explore the original sources of the information.

Perilloux, Kathleen Mills, "Evolution of the Site of Afton Villa" (1990). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 8337.

"Our History, Our Story, Our Legacy!" Dr. Antoinette Harrell is a native of Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana. She is a genealogist and local historian with a broad emphasis of African Americans in the Louisiana Florida Parishes.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints provides FamilySearch free of charge to everyone, regardless of tradition, culture, or religious affiliation. FamilySearch resources help millions of people around the world discover their heritage and connect with family members

The FamilySearch Research Wiki is a free, online genealogical guide created and maintained by FamilySearch, a non-profit organization. It contains links to genealogy databases, websites, other resources, research strategies, and genealogical guidance to assist in the search for your ancestors. Articles included are locality pages for countries around the world and topic pages that include pertinent genealogy record types explaining how to use the record, what it contains, and how to find it.