The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) recently announced the launch of the Freedmen’s Bureau Search Portal.
According to the NMAACH, Congress created the Freedmen’s Bureau after the Civil War to assist in the political and social reconstruction of post-war Southern states and to help formerly enslaved African Americans transition from slavery to freedom and citizenship. From 1865 to 1872, the Freedmen’s Bureau created and collected over 1.7 million handwritten records containing the names and information of hundreds of thousands of formerly enslaved individuals and Southern white refugees.
The portal is designed to help family historians and genealogists search for their ancestors and for scholars and students to research topics from the United States Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, commonly known as the Freedmen’s Bureau.
To visit the Freedmen’s Bureau Search Portal and for more information on the project, click here.