Genealogy and History Fan

The Freedman Savings and Trust Company was established in 1865 as a bank for freed slaves and former soldiers who were African American. It began in Washington D.C., but had 37 branches in the south and also in New York and Pennsylvania. This bank with it’s branches had about 72,000 clients. It is believed that 8 - 10 million African Americans living today have ancestors on these records.

The records contain the applications forms that were filled out to open accounts at the bank. Some of the questions asked were of course the name of the applicant, also age, place of birth , where they were raised, occupation, employer, names of spouse, children, parents and siblings, military service etc. What a wealth of information! The problem was they were not in alphabetical order so they were very difficult to search.

Several years ago The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints with the aid of prisoners from the Utah State Prison, worked to extract and organize these records.
These records contain 480,000 names in alphabetical order, and are on an easy to use CD-Rom. The cost is $6.50 - yes six dollars and fifty cents and that includes shipping! If you have African American ancestors, there is an excellent chance you will find them in this database.

The Freedman Bank records were said to be the main records that Alex Haley used to find his ancestors for his famous book “Roots”. Speaking of family history and Alex Haley - he once said “My fondest hope is that “Roots” may start black, white, brown, red and yellow people digging back for their own roots. Man, that would make me feel 90 feet tall!” If Haley were alive today, I’m sure he would be standing tall for his sparking a desire in millions of people to search for their family history.

To order the Freedman Bank records go to http://www.familysearch.org/ and click on order/download products (upper right hand corner)