Ancestry.com is releasing a new collection of searchable newspaper articles published before the 1900s that contain details on formerly enslaved people in the U.S., the company announced Tuesday.
The database, which is free to access, could help Black Americans discover more information about their families’ pasts. The tool uses AI to pore through newspaper records for names of enslaved people, Axios reports.
The company drew from roughly 38,000 newspaper articles related to enslaved people in the U.S. from 1788 to 1867. They feature details on more than 183,000 formerly enslaved people, including names, ages, physical descriptions, and locations.
The announcement comes at a time when communities across the U.S. are pushing to preserve historic sites connected to slavery. It’s been difficult for many to trace back individual ancestors. Many of the pieces contain never-before seen information about enslaved individuals in communities where courthouse and community records were otherwise destroyed or lost.
“This collection is invaluable for providing descendants of enslaved individuals with insights into their ancestral histories and their forebears’ acts of resistance and resilience, despite the Emancipation Proclamation being largely ignored by enslavers, newspaper publishers, and lawmakers,” Karcheik Sims-Alvarado, assistant professor of Africana Studies at Morehouse College, said in a press release.
The company stresses that the articles within the collection contain sensitive content related to the buying and selling of enslaved people that could be distressing or traumatic for some viewers.
Autentifică-te pentru a adăuga comentarii
Alte posturi din acest grup
Artificial intelligence might be the future of the workplace, but companies that are trying to get a head start on that future are running into all sorts of problems.
Klarna and Duloingo
Now that the “100 men vs. one gorilla” debate has been settled, a new question is circulati
The rideshare market has reached a crossroads. Autonomous vehicles are on the rise, driver unrest is mounting, and customers are questioning everything from pricing to trust and safety. In the mid
A group backed by tech billionaires spent years and $800 million secretly buying up over 60,
Move aside, Google Maps: Snapchat’s Snap Map has hit a major milestone with 400 million monthly active users.
Launched in 2017, Snap Map began as a GPS-based feature that allowed users t
In April 2024, Yahoo acquired Artifact, a tool that uses AI to recommend news to readers. Yahoo folded Artifact’s—which was cofounded by Instagram cofounders Mike Krieger and Kevin Systrom—into it
It is hard to believe that in 2025, we are still dialing to schedule doctor appointments, get referrals, refill prescriptions, confirm office hours and addresses, and handle many other healthcare
