--- title: Giving voice to the silenced description: A very exciting and important project, one creating a searchable database for 1.5 million Freedmen’s Bureau records, is near completion. --- # [Vita Brevis A resource for family history from AmericanAncestors.org](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/) This is a search field with an auto-suggest feature attached. - There are no suggestions because the search field is empty. # Giving voice to the silenced [May 30, 2016](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2016/05/giving-voice-silenced) [Critical Analysis](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/tag/critical-analysis), [African American Research](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/tag/african-american-research), [Genealogical Writing](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/tag/genealogical-writing), [American History](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/tag/american-history), [Spotlight](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/tag/spotlight), [Collections](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/tag/collections), [Brick Walls](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/tag/brick-walls) [Meaghan E.H. Siekman](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/author/msiekman) , via Wikimedia Commons. A very exciting and important project, one creating a searchable database for 1.5 million Freedmen’s Bureau records, is near completion. The database will allow family researchers to locate records of their ancestors at the click of a button and will surely revolutionize the way African-Americans conduct family research. The best part is, you can help! The Freedmen’s Bureau, officially known as the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, was created near the end of the Civil War to help those needing assistance following the war, namely newly-emancipated slaves and white refugees, as well as to manage and resettle lands abandoned by former owners. In the years following the war, the Freedmen’s Bureau set up schools, hospitals, and banks, rationed food, created formal work contracts for former slaves, documented military service, and formalized marriages that were unrecognized by law during slavery. The papers created from these enterprises include a wealth of family information that is valuable to the genealogist. They often include familial relationships, occupations or special skills, names of former slave owners, and places of birth. , via Wikimedia Commons. FamilySearch International, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), and the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society (AAHGS) teamed up in an effort to digitize and index records that had been difficult to search before. These records could help genealogists  break down the 1870 wall many African Americans hit while conducting family research and help them learn more about their ancestors immediately following  the Civil War and even prior to emancipation. The indexing for the project is being done by volunteers from all over the county. They could use your help in reaching the goal of completion, set to coincide with the opening of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in September 2016. As of today, the project has indexed 85% of the records, so the goal is within sight. You can volunteer from your own home whenever it is convenient for you.  Visit the project website, [www.discoverfreedmen.org](http://www.discoverfreedmen.org), for more information on how to participate. While volunteering simply requires you to enter any names you see onto an already-digitized page, I cannot promise that it will not make you want to learn more about the individuals in the records. The pages are filled with fascinating individuals and stories, so it is hard not to get distracted by wanting to learn more. It is rewarding to help give names and voices to so many who have been lost to history and to know that your efforts are helping others learn about their roots. I encourage you to get involved and take advantage of the opportunity to contribute to an historic and important project! ### Share this: - [mailto:?body=https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2016/05/giving-voice-silenced](mailto:?body=https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2016/05/giving-voice-silenced) - - - More - - ![Meaghan E.H. Siekman](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/hubfs/Meghan_Siekman.jpg) ## About Meaghan E.H. Siekman Meaghan joined the American Ancestors staff in 2013 as a Researcher before moving to the Publications team in 2018 where she is currently a Senior Genealogist of the Newbury Street Press. As a part of the Publications team, Meaghan researches and writes family histories and other scholarly projects. She also regularly develops and presents lectures as well as other educational material on a variety of research topics. Additionally, Meaghan serves as the American Ancestor's representative to the New England Regional Fellowship Consortium. Meaghan holds a PhD in history from Arizona State University where her focus was public history and American Indigenous history. Prior to joining American Ancestors, she worked as Curator of the Fairbanks House in Dedham, Massachusetts and as an archivist at the Heard Museum Library in Phoenix. Meaghan also worked for the National Park Service and wrote several Cultural Landscape Inventories, most notably for Victoria Mine within the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Her doctoral dissertation, Weaving a New Shared Authority: The Akwesasne Museum and Community Collaboration Preserving Cultural Heritage, 1970-2012, explored how tribal museum utilized shared authority with their communities. For American Ancestors, Meaghan authored Ancestry of Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch II in 2023, and Ancestry of Douglas Brinkley in 2019. She co-authored with Chistopher C. Child, Family Tales and Trials: Settling the American South in 2020. She also contributed to Ancestors of Cokie Boggs Roberts with Kyle Hurst in 2016. She has published portable genealogists on African American Genealogy (2015) and Native Nations in New England (2020). Meaghan has authored several articles in her tenure for American Ancestors magazine including most recently, “10 Myths about Slavery in the United States.” She has presented many lectures on African American genealogy, researching enslaved ancestors, researching the history of a house, using oral history in genealogical research, researching women, and other topics.[View all posts by Meaghan E.H. Siekman →](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/author/msiekman) [← Medical genealogy](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2016/05/medical-genealogy) [It's in print, but is it true? →](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/2016/05/its-in-print-but-is-it-true) This is a search field with an auto-suggest feature attached. - There are no suggestions because the search field is empty. ### Recent Posts [Sailor Bill and His Forgotten Wife](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/sailor-bill-and-his-forgotten-wife) [Professor X](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/professor-x) [Part I: Malaga Island, Maine](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/part-i-malaga-island-maine) [The Norwegian folge](https://vitabrevis.americanancestors.org/the-norwegian-folge) [Research…in a Miniskirt? 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