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Local organization assists with black genealogy for free Date published: 7/7/2005 By PORTSIA SMITH It should have been simple. Paula Royster just needed a copy of her ill grandmother's birth certificate to get her transferred from a health-care facility in Texas to one in California. The search had her digging through attics, family Bibles and historical records in Texas, Virginia and Ohio, where she found family land once crossed by Harriet Tubman's Underground Railroad. Eleven years later, she still hasn't found that birth certificate. But she did find a new passion for black genealogy. The search was tough, but Royster didn't want other researchers as passionate as she was to face the same brick walls. So she founded the Center for African American Genealogical Research Inc. This nonprofit organization, based in the Fredericksburg area, provides a free resource for black genealogical research. Royster, who also works as an administrator in Fairfax, has held genealogy workshops at her home in Spotsylvania and at the local library. Finding a permanent location for the center has been a challenge. The few facts Royster learned about her family background were fascinating. But finding them was mentally and financially exhausting. Copies of vital records and database fees weren't cheap. And after paying for access, she learned that few records existed for blacks before the end of the Civil War and slavery in 1865. In her grandmother's case, she figured that since she was born with a midwife, an official birth certificate either didn't exist or her grandmother wasn't born in Texas. She wasn't sure. She hit one stumbling block after another, but she had too many questions to stop. So she went further by talking to older relatives and walking through cemeteries, where rotting tombstones were the only proof of family members who official records say didn't exist. "For most African-Americans, a lot of our history is lost because it wasn't written down," she said. "Most of our history is oral, so we need to record what we know so that it can be available." It took a while, but Royster was able to trace her roots all the way back to Thornton James Alexander, her great-great-great-grandfather who was born a slave in Culpeper County in 1745. Her research showed he was freed in 1826, and bought nearly 800 acres of land in Ohio.
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