US Black Heritage Project New Jersey Team

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: [unknown]
Surnames/tags: new_jersey black_heritage

The New Jersey Team covers activity for the US Black Heritage Project in the state of New Jersey.

Team Leader: Janet Demcoe

Team Members

Contents 1 Goals 2 Projects 2.1 Current Projects 2.2 Completed Projects 2.2.1 Local Records 3 Resources 4 Stickers 5 WikiTree's US Black Heritage Project 6 Sources

Goals

This team is part of the US Black Heritage Project. Our goals are the following with specific emphasis on New Jersey:

• To collect in one place information and resources to assist in building and documenting African-American Genealogies.
• To create the largest online public database of connected African-American families.
• To bring together WikiTreers interested in connecting African-American families to the Global Family Tree.
• To process all types of documents from New Jersey regarding free and enslaved ancestors with the goal of creating their profiles and connecting them to their descendants.
• To provide and maintain a logical and organized structure to help individuals identify their ancestors and celebrate their history.
• To improve all profiles of ancestors with Black heritage in New Jersey, which may include biography building, sourcing, and making correct connections.

Projects

• Locating and documenting all African-American cemeteries in New Jersey, including developing profiles on WikiTree for persons found, as well as free space pages for the cemeteries.
• See New Jersey, African-American Cemeteries for existing categories. The categories are broken down by county, then by cemetery, profiles and free space cemetery pages respectively, designated with the number in each area currently on WikiTree.
  • Some African American Cemeteries at Find A Grave
• Locating and developing profiles for Freedmen in New Jersey.
• Begin One Place Studies for African-American towns and communities in New Jersey.

Current Projects

• Create profiles by utilizing The USBH 1850 Slave Schedule Index Small States. This spreadsheet contains links to records on other sites to enable creating profiles for owners and slaves, include adding a slavery section to the bio of each owner and a link between the owner and slave.
• Create profiles from the New Jersey Manumission Records for Middlesex, Gloucester and Essex Counties. This will include creating the profiles of the enslavers (slave-owners) and include adding a slavery section to the bio of each owner and a link between the owner and slave if identification is available. By creating these profiles, it may be easier to determine the existence of early plantations in New Jersey and connect families. Miscellaneous New Jersey County Records
• Create profiles of families in Middlesex County from marriage records using the Miscellaneous New Jersey County Records
• Continue creating profiles for the 1880 census project.

Completed Projects

• Middlesex, Cape May County, Ocean County, Sussex, and Warren counties in New Jersey have been completed for the1880 US Census project.

Local Records

Middlesex County: The area was settled by the Dutch and as early as 1626, the first enslaved Africans were brought by them to the region of the New Netherlands colony The British gained control over New Netherland in 1664, and New Jersey was divided into the Quaker-run West Jersey who eventually banned the practice of slavery, and the East Jersey population of Dutch settlers, Puritans, and Barbadian planters who embraced it. ^[1]Perth Amboy was designated a "Site of Memory" by the UNESCO Slave Route Project in 2019.^[2]

• Infamous Slave Trading Ring Middlesex County, New Jersey
• Research by James Nash Shackleford
• Aaron Hush, Civil War Veteran

Middlesex/ Somerset Counties

• Murder in Franklin causes racial tension 1894

Resources

See African-American Resources for New Jersey.

Stickers

Along with the {{African-American Sticker}} you may also wish to add an New Jersey sticker to profiles.

Place {{New Jersey Sticker|born in New Jersey}} below the African American sticker if they were born in New Jersey. Place {{New Jersey Sticker}} below the African American sticker if they lived in New Jersey for a large part of their life, but were not born there.

WikiTree's US Black Heritage Project

• US Black Heritage Project
• US Black Heritage: Heritage Exchange Portal
• US Black Heritage Index of Plantations

Sources

1. ↑ https://www.middlepassageproject.org/2020/06/17/african-presence-in-new-jersey/ Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project (MPCPMP) .
2. ↑ https://www.mycentraljersey.com/story/news/local/middlesex-county/2021/10/04/middle-passage-perth-amboy-nj-honors-african-slaves-port-marker/5947149001/