Timbuctoo History and Genealogy

One of my passions is research that illuminates perspectives that are not widely appreciated in Black history and genealogy.  I leaned about antebellum free Black people when I learned about my own maternal family.  My mother's ancestors settled in New Jersey as early as 1815 and in Pennsylvania as early as 1795.  On the left, I am holding a moonshine jug found while digging for landscaping on the land purchased by my 4th great grandfather in Timbuctoo in 1829.  A neighbor told me it may have belonged to my Aunt Rosie, and/or one of her close friends who lived there two generations earlier.  I "feel" this jug as a tangible connection to my lineage.

The fact that substantial numbers of free Black people were enumerated in every  US Census between 1800 and 1860 is not something we typically learn in US History in high school.   Who were these people? Where did they live? What did their “freedom” look like? I address this question very specifically in "Black People in the US Census Before the Civil War," below:

"Finding My Roots by Digging in the Ground: Learning History and Heritage Through Archaeology," AAHGS Journal, Vol. 42 (2024) 

"Profiles of Acclamation: Five New Jersey Black History Activists Discuss Their Motivations and Perspectives On Preserving Black History" AAHGS Journal, Vol. 41 (2024)  (with Linda Shockley, Shamele Jordon, Samuel Still, and Dolly Marshall)

"Who is Buried in the Timbuctoo Cemetery, and How Do We know" AAHGS Journal, Vol. 41 (2024) 

"Black People in the US Census Before the Civil War," AAHGS Journal, Vol. 41 (2024)

“Rewriting Black History, Timbuctoo, New Jersey,” Bouctou: An Africana Magazine for Teachers and Students, (by Brenda Randolph with Guy Weston) Fall 2023  

"Self, Service, and Social Activism: Community Archaeology at Timbuctoo, New Jersey" (with Christopher Barton) International Journal of Historical Archaeology (2023), https://doi.org/10.1007/s10761-023-00710-w

"Black History Makers in Burlington County, New Jersey: Revolutionary War Era to the Mid-Nineteenth Century," AAHGS Journal, Vol. 40 (2023): 96-106 

"Teaching Timbuctoo: Raising the Profile of Antebellum Free Black People in New Jersey" (with Cheryl Alspach, JoAnn Donnelly, and Kevin Risley) AAHGS Journal, Vol. 39 (2023): 52-61 

“Finding My Fourth Great Grandmother and Her Contemporaries: Ann Barnes Bruer Hall, (1790s-1872)” AAHGS Journal, Vol 38 (2022):49-57

Forward to Archaeology of Race and Class in Timbuctoo by Christopher Barton, Gainesville, University of Florida Press, 2022 

“Timbuctoo and the First Emancipation of the Nineteenth Century,” New Jersey Studies, January 2022 

“Free People of Color: North and South,” AAHGS News, (November December 2021): 14-15  

“The Battle of Pine Swamp,” AAHGS Journal, Vol. 35 (2018): 30-32 

 “Regional Variations in the Manumission of Slaves in New Jersey, 1790-1860,” New Jersey Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal. Vol. 4., No. 2 (2018) - With Eric Rhodes 

“Timbuctoo: A Free Black Community in New Jersey,” AAHGS News, (November-December 2017): 5-6 

“Expanding the Dialogue: A Conversation Between Descendent and Archaeologist about Community, Collaboration, and Archaeology at Timbuctoo, NJ.” Society for Historical Archaeology, 2017 (with Christopher Barton and Patricia Markert)

“New Jersey: A State Divided on Freedom,” AAHGS Journal, Vol. 34 (2017): 1-4 

"Finding Free African Americans During the Antebellum Period,” National Genealogical Society Magazine, Vol. 41 No. 1 (2015): 48-55 

"A Taste for the Past," America I Am Pass it Down Cookbook, eds. Jeff Henderson and Ramin Ganeshram, (New York, Smiley Books, 2011), 139-141

OTHER HISTORY AND HISTORIC PRESERVATION TOPICS

"Exploring My South Carolina Roots Through Cemeteries,"  AAHGS News, (April-June 2022) 

 "Historic African American Cemetery Hidden in Plain View,” AAHGS News, (May-June 2021); 14-15