INTRODUCTION OF ``SEARCH ACT OF 2007'' (pretty cool idea!!)

[The Straight Story]

INTRODUCTION OF ``SEARCH ACT OF 2007'' -- (Extensions of Remarks - January 12, 2007)

GPO's PDF

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SPEECH OF
HON. ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS
OF MARYLAND
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
FRIDAY, JANUARY 12, 2007

* Mr. CUMMINGS. Madam Speaker, I rise today to reintroduce the ``Servitude and Emancipation Archival Research Clearing House, SEARCH, Act of 2007,'' a companion to Senator MARY LANDRIEU's bill of the same name, which would establish a national database of historic records of servitude and emancipation in the United States to assist African Americans in researching their genealogy.

* Madam Speaker, for most Americans, researching their genealogical history involves searching through municipal birth, death, and marriage records--most of which have been properly archived as public historical documents. However, African Americans in the United States face a unique challenge when conducting genealogical research.

* Due to slavery and discrimination, African Americans were denied many of the benefits of citizenship that produce traceable documentation such as voter registration, property ownership, business ownership, and school attendance. As a result, instead of looking up wills, land deeds, birth and death certificates, and other traditional genealogical research documents, African Americans must often try to identify the names of former slave owners, hoping that the owners kept records of pertinent information, such as births and deaths. Unfortunately, current records of emancipation and slavery are frequently inaccessible, poorly catalogued, and inadequately preserved from decay.

* Although some States and localities have undertaken efforts to collect these documents with varying degrees of success, there is no national effort to preserve these important pieces of public and personal history or to make them readily and easily accessible to all Americans. While entities such as Howard University and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture Library have extensive African American archives, the SEARCH Act would create a centralized database of these historic records. This database would be administered by the Archivist of the United States as part of the National Archives.

* The SEARCH Act would also authorize Ð$5 million for the National Historical Publications and Records Commission to establish the national database, as well as $5 million in grants for States and academic institutions to preserve local records of servitude and emancipation.

* I believe that this legislation will be a vital step in resurrecting the rich history of African Americans and the vital role that they played in building America. This legislation is not only a means by which African Americans can trace their lineage, but also a means by which our Nation can preserve historically comprehensive and accurate information for generations yet unborn.

more:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?r110:2:./temp/~r110XuMftA::

[iverglas]

1. well, this white anglo Canadian

finds the info about making this assistance available for African-Americans to be very interesting. ;)

For about 18 months, I have been searching the records that are available to me on line for my ancestors in England and, more recently, Canada, and finding scads of long-lost remote cousins with access to older and more original documentation, and it's absolutely fascinating. Not least of all for the social history one learns and feels more directly when it's one's own great-great-grandparents one is reading about -- and then pursues, if one is of that bent. When you learn that your grx2 grandfather died in a workhouse, you are just more likely to read up on the history of workhouses and learn the awful facts about them, for instance. African-American young people who accessed these kinds of resources couldn't help but gain tremendous and important insights into their community's and country's past.

This would facilitate access to so much knowledge and stimulate such an interest in learning and then passing on what is learned that individuals, their communities and the broader society could only benefit. Good luck to the initiative and its sponsors!