24 Nov African American Genealogy Dan Nelson and Terry Turner were guests on New Bizz Buzz, Nov 23, 2021
Genealogist Dan Nelson and Dr. Terry Turner discuss where to start, African American genealogy, DNA research, and why those old family photographs matter.
Family gatherings have a way of bringing old stories back to life. Around Thanksgiving, Christmas, reunions, and other celebrations, conversations often turn to parents, grandparents, old photographs, and relatives whose stories may never have been written down.
On an episode of New Biz Buzz, host Leon Thomas sat down with professional genealogist Dan Nelson and family-history researcher Dr. Terry Turner to discuss genealogy, the importance of preserving family stories, and how anyone can begin discovering the people who came before them.
From a Hobby to a Career in Genealogy
Like many professional genealogists, Dan Nelson began researching family history as a hobby.
He spent years researching his own family and sharing the stories he uncovered with friends and business acquaintances. Eventually, one friend asked Dan to research his wife’s family.
Dan initially assumed he was being asked for a favor.
Instead, his friend wanted to hire him to conduct the research and turn what he found into a book.
That request helped turn Dan’s personal interest in genealogy into a second career.
Since then, Dan has researched family histories for numerous clients and has published more than 50 family-history books.
One lesson from those years of work stands out: research is much more valuable when it is preserved in a form future generations can actually use.
Many people spend years collecting names, records, photographs, and documents but never organize their findings into a finished family history. When that researcher is gone, the material may be scattered or even discarded.
For Dan, putting a “bow” around the research is an important part of preserving it.
Family History Is About More Than Names and Dates
Genealogy can answer obvious questions such as:
- Who were my grandparents and great-grandparents?
- Where did my family come from?
- When did they immigrate?
- Where did they live?
- Who were their parents?
But Dan believes the more meaningful questions often go deeper:
Who came before me? What were their lives like? And how did their experiences contribute to who I am today?
That is why his work focuses not only on constructing family trees, but also on discovering the stories behind the names.
Historical records, newspaper articles, military documents, photographs, property records, court records, DNA evidence, and other sources can transform a collection of names into the story of a family.
Dr. Terry Turner’s Search for His African American Ancestors
Dr. Terry Turner came to genealogy from a different direction.
While completing his doctoral work and later writing about African American marriages and families, Turner became interested in comparing broader historical patterns with the experiences of his own family.
That eventually led him into an extensive search for his ancestors.
Turner said that when he began, he knew surprisingly little about his own grandparents and great-grandparents. His father died when Turner was 10, and much of his family’s history had not been openly discussed.
Family reunions became an important starting point.
Relatives began sharing names, relationships, memories, and fragments of information. Gradually, the family was able to identify common ancestors and construct a family tree.
Turner’s research ultimately led him back into the colonial period, including ancestors who had been enslaved.
For Turner, discovering those individuals has become much more than an academic exercise.
“Every time I find a new family member, it is just so wonderful to be able to find people that I didn’t know existed, but yet they are a part of me and I’m a part of them.”
His work has also focused on the particular challenges involved in researching African American families before emancipation, when enslaved people were often recorded very differently from free citizens.
Dan Nelson and Terry Turner Join Forces
Turner initially contacted Dan while trying to understand historical property and marriage laws that affected his research.
One of the individuals connected with his family’s history was a female slaveholder who had been married several times. Turner wanted help understanding how the laws of the period could affect ownership, property, and the records he was finding.
The conversation eventually developed into a professional relationship.
Dan had already received inquiries from African American clients who wanted to trace their ancestry beyond 1870. He recognized that research before emancipation often requires specialized knowledge because enslaved individuals were not documented in the same ways as other Americans.
Rather than attempting to master every specialty himself, Dan brought Turner into his research team.
That allows the firm to match researchers with the needs of individual clients, whether the project involves traditional genealogy, DNA research, heir searches, or African American ancestry.
Where Should You Start Your Own Family History?
Both Dan and Terry offered essentially the same advice:
Start with the people who are still here.
Dan recommends speaking with elderly relatives as soon as possible.
Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and longtime family friends may possess information that exists nowhere else.
Ask them about:
- Their parents and grandparents
- Where family members lived
- Family occupations
- Military service
- Marriages
- Immigration
- Family traditions
- Nicknames
- Churches and communities
- Old homes
- Family businesses
- Significant events
- Stories they remember hearing as children
Record those conversations when possible.
Names and dates are valuable, but stories, memories, and context can be impossible to recover once the people who remember them are gone.
Start With Yourself and Work Backward
Turner recommends beginning with information you know to be true.
Start with yourself, then document your parents, grandparents, and earlier generations one at a time.
Family reunions can be especially valuable because numerous relatives may each possess a different piece of the puzzle.
One cousin may know a maiden name.
Another may have an old photograph.
Someone else may remember where a great-grandparent lived.
Another relative may have a Bible, obituary, funeral program, marriage record, or family document stored away.
When those fragments are combined, an incomplete family story can begin taking shape.
Online Genealogy Resources
Several major genealogy platforms were discussed during the interview.
Dan noted that Ancestry.com is one of the largest paid genealogy resources. Other databases and genealogy services can also provide records and family-tree tools.
For people who want to begin with a free resource, Dan specifically recommended FamilySearch.
These services can help organize family trees while also providing access to historical records that may reveal additional relatives and connections.
The important point is not simply to collect online hints, but to document the evidence supporting each relationship.
The Special Challenge of African American Genealogy
For many African American researchers, the year 1870 represents an important dividing line.
After emancipation, formerly enslaved people increasingly appear by name in federal census records and other documents.
Researching earlier generations can be considerably more difficult.
Enslaved people may instead appear in:
- Estate records
- Wills
- Probate files
- Property records
- Plantation records
- Bills of sale
- Tax records
- Court documents
- Records associated with slaveholding families
Successfully tracing a family across that historical divide can require examining not only the enslaved family but also the families and communities around them.
Turner has made this area of genealogy a major focus of his research.
His broader work also explores how the experiences of slavery, family separation, and historical trauma may have influenced later generations. During the interview, Turner discussed his own interpretations of connections between historical family disruption and challenges experienced by some African American families today.
For Turner, understanding that history is part of understanding one’s family.
Never Throw Away the Old Photographs
One of the most memorable portions of the conversation centered on old family photographs.
Host Leon Thomas described helping his mother downsize from the family home and discovering album after album filled with photographs.
The family repeatedly found themselves asking the same question:
“Who’s that?”
Turner had experienced something very similar.
One photograph had been displayed prominently in his aunt’s home for years, but no one could say with certainty who the woman in the picture was.
His brother eventually gave the photograph to him, explaining that they knew she must have been important because of where the picture had been displayed.
Turner began investigating.
He examined the woman’s clothing and estimated the photograph’s period. He then compared that information with what he had learned about his family’s history.
Based on that research, Turner concluded that the woman was likely his great-grandmother, Elvira, who had helped raise members of the family after their mother died.
His advice is simple:
Don’t discard photographs just because you don’t immediately recognize the people in them.
Keep them.
Ask relatives.
Study the clothing, photography style, locations, and other clues.
As additional family-history research develops, a photograph that once meant nothing may suddenly become an important piece of the family story.
Keep Good Notes
Turner also emphasized something every family historian eventually learns:
Write everything down.
A detail that appears meaningless today may become the clue that solves a mystery years later.
Keep track of:
- Names
- Dates
- Locations
- Sources
- Family stories
- Photographs
- Documents
- Research questions
- Possible relationships
- Conflicting information
And don’t discard old research simply because it did not immediately produce an answer.
As Turner explained, you never know when you will discover another record that suddenly makes an earlier clue meaningful.
DNA Can Answer Questions Traditional Records Cannot
Modern genealogy increasingly combines documentary research with DNA.
Dan explained that some clients aren’t interested in constructing an entire family history. They may have one very specific question, such as identifying an unknown biological father.
In those situations, researchers who specialize in genetic genealogy can use DNA matches alongside traditional records to reconstruct relationships.
Different genealogy projects require different expertise, which is why Dan’s approach is to match a client’s question with the researcher best suited to answer it.
Preserve the Story, Not Just the Tree
Ultimately, both Dan and Terry see genealogy as something larger than filling boxes on a family tree.
It is about preserving identity.
The names matter.
The dates matter.
But so do the photographs, occupations, communities, hardships, achievements, relationships, and stories that explain who those people actually were.
For anyone thinking about researching their family, the best advice may also be the simplest:
Start now.
Talk to your relatives.
Open the boxes of photographs.
Write down what people remember.
Build the tree one generation at a time.
You may be surprised by the stories waiting in its branches.
This article is based on a conversation with genealogist Dan Nelson and Dr. Terry Turner on the television program New Biz Buzz, hosted by Leon Thomas.
