Tracing the Path of African Americans from Enslavement to Freedom

Join Hillary Delaney who will share tips and tricks for finding evidence and breaking research barriers in African American genealogy and pre-Emancipation historical research. Specific examples will be used to illustrate how traditional genealogical methods, combined with a creative approach can help to solve the most difficult research puzzles.

Hillary Delaney serves as the lead researcher for the African Americans in Boone County History initiative at the Borderlands Archive and History Center in Boone County, KY . She has documented hundreds of Underground Railroad incidents and genealogical data of thousands of individuals once enslaved in Boone County and across Kentucky. Projects developed from this work include: The Underground Railroad in Boone County bus tour (a National Park Service Network to Freedom program,) historic roadside markers in Indiana and Kentucky, African American cemetery documentation in Boone County, the African Americans in the Kentucky Borderlands database and the “Legacy of Enslaved Mothers” short film project. Her work has received local, regional and national recognition.