The following teaser is from the June 22 2016 edition of the Deseret News.
SALT LAKE CITY — A project to index the records of 4 million freed African-American slaves is now completed, almost a year to the day after the project was launched by the LDS Church’s FamilySearch International genealogy service with an announcement June 19 of last year at the California African American Museum in Los Angeles.
The Freedmen’s Bureau Project has marshaled the efforts of 18,940 volunteers working coast to coast in the United States and Canada, uncovering the names of nearly 1.8 million of some 4 million pre-Civil War era slaves.
Nationwide chapters of the Afro-American Genealogy and Historical Society and the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture — slated to open later this year — partnered with FamilySearch to undertake the project, which drew upon documents from the National Archives and Records Administration.
