Louisiana residents may have family ties to people in mid-Atlantic states like Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, and South Carolina, like these folks from Sandy Island, South Carolina. Image: Georgetown County (SC) Digital Library

Join experts in African American family research for "Tracing Your Roots: The Gullah Geechee Corridor to Louisiana" on Saturday, July 14 at 1:00pm at the New Orleans Jazz Museum.

Explore cultural and family connections between the Atlantic Southeast---South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida---and find out how to start a family history search at a workshop that focuses on African American genealogy. Partnering with Jean Lafitte to present the genealogy workshops are the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor Commission and the International African American Museum's Center for Family History.

Charleston, South Carolina, was the major North American port throughout the period of the legal transatlantic slave trade. In the trade's final years, many enslaved Africans were unloaded from ships in Charleston and immediately shipped to New Orleans. After the Louisiana Purchase opened up fertile, cheap, new land, after importing slaves into the United States became illegal in 1808, and after the War of 1812 secured American claims to the purchase territory, thousands of descendants of those who remained in the Atlantic Southeast were marched overland or loaded onto boats bound for Louisiana. 

Workshops are free but space is limited so registration is required, RSVP below: