www.discoverfreedmen.org
Freedmen’s Bureau Records – The Bureau was created to provide assistance to the thousands of newly freed slaves and impoverished whites of the south and Washington, DC. The records span 1865 to 1878 and include marriages, military records, complaints, and requests for various types of assistance. Some of the records, however, are tricky to navigate because they are only indexed by state and not individual. Thankfully, the Freedmen’s Bank records are indexed by name and can provide information such as place of birth, age, name of plantation on which the individual most recently lived, parents and siblings, and much more. Many of the Freedmen’s Bureau records can be found online at FamilySearch.org, or at the National Archives on microfilm. (Also, if you’d like to help make these available to everyone faster, a massive transcription project is underway as a partnership between FamilySearch and the Freedmen’s Bureau Project. They’re always looking for volunteers willing to help index the images. See http://www.discoverfreedmen.org/ for more information.)