[Many Hoosiers were in the USCT during the Civil War; could some of your guys be in this project?]
Vicksburg May Become
Genealogy Hub for USCT Descendants
Published Saturday, March 18,
2023 By Vicksburg (Mississippi) Post.
In a stroke of sheer coincidence,
two recent developments at the local level have left Vicksburg primed for a new
opportunity as a hub for genealogy. Both
the National Park Service’s announcement of a project to disinter and catalog
remains of U.S. Colored Troops in the Vicksburg National Cemetery and the
Warren County Board of Supervisors’ decision to devote more than $400,000 in
ARPA funds to digitizing records dating back to 1807, more people than ever
will have the ability to unlock their family’s history.
One of the many unhealed scars of
slavery is the lack of ancestral information available to people in the Black
community. In many cases, the only way to determine African heritage is through
DNA testing. Family histories are garbled due to the routine splitting of
family units and inadequate recordkeeping in terms of birth and death records
in the Antebellum period.
What wasn’t lost to slavery and the
dehumanization of Black people in America was, at times, swept under the rug as
a means of self-preservation in the Jim Crow years. For many in Warren County
and the surrounding area, those who are lucky enough to trace their ancestry
beyond more than three or four generations are few and far between.
While these wrongs can’t be undone,
for many families the narrative is poised to change. Although the two projects are completely
separate, the USCT project by the Vicksburg National Military Park and the
initiative taken by the Circuit and Chancery clerks’ offices pair together
nicely for those wanting to better define who they are.
Broadening access to public records
such as land purchases and marriage licenses dating back 216 years is a great
undertaking. Giving a name to the thousands of Black men who, just like every
other soldier buried beneath the cemetery’s rolling hills, died in the name of
freedom is a feat of epic proportions.
What these two undertakings can
create is an environment that inspires people to learn more about their
family’s history — and influence the legacies they leave behind in turn. It will give individuals something they can
be proud of — and make our community more rich and vibrant in the process.
