African American Genealogy Workshop “Genealogy and Migration Stories”

Date & Time
Saturday, Apr. 8, 2023
10:00 AM - 1:30 PM
Location Virtual Program
Ticketing $10 per person, Free for AAHGS Members
Categories
Register

Explore your roots in the African American Genealogy Workshop, “Genealogy and Migration Stories.”

The migration of African Americans primarily from the Southern United States to points North and West changed the landscape of this country forever. But there is a myriad of experiences by individuals and families during the migration. Genealogist and family historians are using methods and techniques to recapture those relatives that braved the migration and start anew in new spaces with new faces.

In partnership with the African American Historical & Genealogical Society of Pittsburgh, this workshop will focus on family migration stories and genealogical research methods useful for piecing together family histories.

Presenters

Timothy Pinnick is an independent scholar, lecturer, author, and entrepreneur that specializes in genealogy impacted by migration. A regular contributor to Afrigeneas, Pinnick has focused on various genealogical and historical topics such as Coal Miners and other migratory stories. Pinnick is the author of Finding and Using African American Newspapers. From 2006-2020 he taught as an associate instructor in the biennial “Researching African American Ancestors” course at the Institute of Genealogy and Historical Research. In 2019, he was the coordinator and facilitator of a landmark workshop course at the Institute entitled “Building an African American Research Toolbox” and will be teaching it once again, in a virtual format, in July of this year. He has also accepted instructor assignments as part of the inaugural Midwestern African American Genealogy Institute in 2013, and more recently has been part of the faculty for the Genealogical Research Institute of Pittsburgh, Texas Institute of Genealogical Research, and Genealogical Institute on Federal Records. He is the Co-Chair and Lead Researcher for New Hanover County Community Remembrance Project, which partnered with the Equal Justice Institute to conduct a Soil Collection Ceremony in November of 2021 to honor the victims of the 1898 Wilmington North Carolina Massacre & Coup.

Marlene Garrett Bransom, a retired teacher in the Pittsburgh Public Schools, a native of Greene County, Pennsylvania, has been researching African Americans in southwestern Pennsylvania since 1984. In 2002, she co-authored the book Early African American Life in Waynesburg, Greene County, Pennsylvania, which won the 2002 History Award at the National Afro-American Historical & Genealogical Society Conference. In 2013, she published 15 books that indexed African American deaths found in the Pittsburgh Courier newspaper, and in 2017, she published two books on African American Deaths and Marriages found in the “Afro-American Notes” section of the Pittsburgh Press. Ms. Bransom has been the president of the Afro-American Historical & Genealogical Society, Pittsburgh Chapter for more than ten years and serves on the Board of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania. She has also lectured in North Buxton, Ontario, Canada, at their annual genealogy conference, on families that migrated into Canada from Pennsylvania. In addition, she has compiled genealogies for many local families. She is a member of ASALH (the Association for the Study of African Life and History), the African American Advisory Council at the Senator John Heinz History Center and the National Association of Parliamentarians and several historical societies.

Priscilla Collins is a retired Pittsburgh Public Schools teacher. Since retirement she has been tracing her family and recording the information in the software program, Reunion. She is presently the co-chair of the Membership Committee of the Pittsburgh Chapter of Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society. In addition to searching for her family, Collins helps others begin or continue their research. Her current research goal is to find a picture of her paternal grandmother, Lockie ( Lula, Lulu,) Leggett Collins. Priscilla will talk about her family’s migrations from South Carolina to Newport News, Virginia, to Western Pennsylvania.

Tiffany Taulton served for six years as the Secretary of AAHGS Pittsburgh from 2017 through 2022. A former Navy brat and English teacher, she has spent much of her life traveling throughout the East Coast of the United States and around the world. However, after witnessing the impact of Superstorm Sandy on New York City, she decided to move back to Pittsburgh to face climate change with her family. Tiffany returned to Pittsburgh in 2014 and began researching her family history to feel more connected to the land and people she had left behind when she was just six months old. A systems thinker, she enjoys building her trees laterally as well as vertically to better capture connections between families. Her multi-branched tree currently holds 44,000 known family members and floating branches of newly discovered DNA matches that she is trying to reconnect.

Thanks to support from: