African Origins website has been launched!

It is with great pleasure that we announce the launch of the African Origins website.  Please be sure to peruse the site and let us know what you think.  Thanks!

http://african-origins.org/

Interview about African Origins

David Eltis and Nafees Khan of African Origins were recently interviewed about the project by The Village Celebration.

http://www.thevillagecelebration.com/2011/03/11/history-of-slavery-unveiled/

Images of Slave Registers

Here are some pictures of logbooks showing African names from International Court registers created in Freetown, Sierra Leone and Havana, Cuba  between 1819 and 1845.  The registers were kept as a formal record of emancipation that helped protect the individual from subsequent re-enslavement. The images are reproduced courtesy of the British National Archives.

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Hello and Thank You

Elizabeth Milewicz, Kwesi Degraft-Hanson, and David Eltis examining the many Akan names within the African Origins Project database.

Thank you so very much for interest in the African Origins Project and website (www.african-origins.org).  This project will not be possible without the awareness and contributions of you.  Collectively your knowledge will help shed light on some of the individuals forced into one of history’s great injustices, the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

The African Origins project seeks to discover the linguistic and ethnic origins of over 67,000 individuals who were sold into and later liberated from the Atlantic slave trade.  To do so, we are asking you to visit the site, browse the records or search the modern version of an African name, and then contribute information about a particular name.

Daniel Domingues and Nafees Khan listening to the audio component of the Origins Project.

Your knowledge will help to personalize the millions of Africans sold into the Atlantic slave trade.  I encourage you to share this project with your family, friends, and colleagues.

Please be sure to view our videos about the project and website under Multimedia!