The Friends of Georgia Archives and History (FOGAH) will host its annual meeting by Zoom on Sept. 25 at noon with Judge Angela Munson as speaker. Her topic will be “A Celebration of the 100th Anniversary of Women’s Suffrage.” Judge Munson is currently a U.S. immigration judge in Connecticut but previously lived in Mississippi, Louisiana and Georgia. After her talk, there will be a question and answer session with Judge Munson followed by FOGAH’s annual Business Meeting. To sign up to attend this free lecture, or for more information, please contact Michele Nail at fogah2004@yahoo.com.
FOGAH was founded in 2004 as a nonprofit organization to support the Georgia Archives and help underwrite programs and internships. A major fundraising source is sales of an annual Christmas ornament, with the 2020 one to be available soon. See fogah.org for further information, make a tax deductible donation to support the programs, purchase ornaments or to join.
Freedman’s Bank records a great source
The Freedman’s Bank, established after the Civil War in 1865 to assist people who were formerly enslaved with their finances, is a great source for genealogy. This is because in the “application process” they were asked the names of their parents and siblings, thus providing a very rare resource. The records can be accessed for free at FamilySearch.org under “United States, Freedman’s Bank Records, 1865-1874” or on Ancestry.com under a similar database title. Remember when searching, it’s Freedman with an “a,” and it’s not part of the larger Freedmen’s Bureau Records. Not all branch records survive, but many do.
Who was your oldest ancestor?
In doing genealogy we learn about our ancestors’ lives, many of them quite short. Every now and then one lived to a remarkable age for their times. My mother is my oldest ancestor (she just turned 98) and comes from some long-lived women, one grandmother living until 91 and a great-grandmother to 92. Others died quite early. My dad’s grandmother died at 30, making her hard to trace since her daughter, my grandmother, was only 10 and had really no discussions with her mother about family stories or kin.
