Researching Black Genealogy

Recently the Seguin Gazette Enterprise had an article about the efforts of Mark Gretchen to document the life and time of a Negro League baseball player by the name of “Smokey” Joe Williams. Complicating the effort was the fact the Williams came from a slave family.
Gretchen’s efforts expanded into a book about all of the local slave population in his area.

You can read about the book and some of the research challenges Gretchen faced at: <http://www.seguingazette.com/story.lasso?ewcd=11159311ecb3037c>

This has special meaning for us because one of our PGS members, Harriet Thompkins, is constructing a class on researching Black genealogy, and will address some of the same issue encountered by Gretchen.