: BTW - what are the blanks? Do you have the family identified in
: 1900 in Hinds? 1880? 1870? Are you trying to get back into the
: slave period? What other types of information are you looking
: for?

: Denise

Thanks for the hearty welcome Denise. I have not been able to identify the family in Hinds at all. I believe that my great grandparents were freed slaves. I am trying to also verify his immediate family's names and birthdates. I have looked in the SSDI, but can't find any of them. As I compile information on the book, I don't want to devote a huge chapter on his life in Mississippi, but just out of my own curiousity it is interesting to get a complete picture of his early life. My step-grandmother is still living and my brother and I plan to go to her house and look at documents that she has. I will be taking the digital camera and start classifying the documents as well. In my "spare time", I work full time at a public library, so I have access to Inter-library loan materials if I need to. We do have an African-American Historical Society in my community that I will also probably join. Several years ago, our local museum did a display on the migration of African Americans to Riverside. My grandfather was documented in the display as were other African Americans that migrated to southern California.

Tracie