Finding My Ancestors Names Never Gets Old

One of the things I always do before a research trip is go through old research notes to see what loose ends, I have. While preparing for my trip to RootsTech and the Family Search Library, I was going through some of my research notes from the last six months. One of the things that I want to research more is the Baptist and African Methodist Episcopal Church in Arkansas during reconstruction. I had found my 2Xgreat grandfather, Peter Hatchett, in a memoir of Ellis Camp Morris, Morris, E.C. Reflections from the Public Services of E. C. Morris, D. D.: Sermons, Addresses and Reminiscences and Important Correspondence, With a Picture Gallery of Eminent Ministers and Scholars, while at the Family Search Library last year. But it was only a record index with no information other than his name. But that was a start.

So earlier this week I went to my trusty friend, Google, to learn more about Ellis Camp Morris and his life in Arkansas. It was there that I found there was a Memorial Program in Honor of Rev. Elias Camp Morris, D.D. of Helena, Ark. National Baptist Convention, 1923 at the Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries, Fayetteville, Arkansas. This was very a couple of reasons. I work at the University of Arkansas, so I can go look this up on lunch one day. The second reason is that I didn’t know there was a National Baptist Convention in 1923. If there was one in 1923 there were probably conventions held in earlier years.

My new mission was to find any and everything I could on these Baptist Conventions. I learned that each state had Baptist conventions including Arkansas. With this new information, I learned that there were African American Baptist Annual Reports from 1865-1990 microfilmed by state. The microfilms for Arkansas are held in two places, at the state archives in Little Rock and in the Special Collections at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. When I saw that I couldn’t log in fast enough to the library and request the microfilm. I requested three microfilm rolls and arrived at the library just after 5pm. So my goal was to get through at least the first roll. But since I didn’t have an index to help, I had to go frame by frame. I soon realized this was going to take a lot longer than I had originally thought. An hour and half in and only halfway through the first microfilm roll, I was starting to get sleepy. Anyone who has spent hours looking at microfilm knows this isn’t the most exciting research at the library. As soon as I closed my mouth from yawning, I saw my 2X great grandfather’s name listed on the front page of the 1881 Missionary Baptist State Convention of Arkansas as their Vice President. Not only did that wake me up, but I was sitting straight up smiling from ear to ear.

I still have two and a half rolls of microfilm to look through and more information/records that I have learned about including the National Baptist Magazine and the African Methodist Episcopal Review. But this was a wonderful start. I am often asked after 13 years of researching; doesn’t it get old and boring? My answer is always no because this research is evergreen. There’s always more to find, more ancestors, more stories, more records. When I first started researching, I was told that I would never find my ancestors before the 20th century because I am African American. I took that as a challenge to find as much information and records with their names in it that I could. That is one of the reasons I continue this work. This is why my journey continues…