The Board of Directors, in agreement with the founder, established the organization for three basic reasons:
Access: Access to information online, while plentiful, is costly and if you are a person living in poverty, the chances of being able to afford the annual fees to access theses databases is highly unlikely. Additionally, the information that is available still caters to the history of all other ethnic groups in exaggerated proportions. For example, there are International genealogy databases that specifically reference countries like Scotland, England, France, Italy, Germany, Canada, etc. There are no records for countries like Senegal, Liberia or the Honduras.
Continuity: There are several hundred genealogy societies and groups that meet maybe once a month at the library or local courthouse for a genealogy review. Some of these groups are large in membership numbers and others are very small. Some genealogists are specialized in the area of military conflicts, while others are courthouse experts. There is little, if any at all, sharing of this knowledge with other researchers across the country. In large part, this is due to space and accessibility.
Urgency: For each day that we lose a senior in our community, we lose at least two, perhaps three generations of both physical and oral history. If historians and preservationist alike, allow the demolition of our historical sites and the desecration of our sacred burial grounds today, who is to say that 140 years from now historians won't dispute slavery in the United States as a myth? The future of our legacies are at risk today of being lost in perpetuity tomorrow. Our ancestors and descendants will measure our success in life not by the accumulation of wealth but rather by our level of consciousness and commitment to the preservation of their legacies.
Unlike other organizations, whether for profit or not for profit, CAAGRI is unique in that we are the only organization in the United States and indeed the world, that provides a physical location for African Americans to conduct genealogy research, get help with research, learn invaluable computer skills and make a contribution to American history all at the same time.
The need to have our histories recorded cannot be overstated. It is vital to our future and a tribute to our past that we know who we are and where we've come from: for a people who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it. We've found an interesting way to engage local communities into the process of recording the history of our communities, our ancestors and the many other unsung heroes in our families while providing an invaluable service to our young people, seniors, under served and underemployed friends and neighbors.
Our mission is to provide free genealogy data to the African American community both in Fredericksburg, VA and around the country via the Internet. Our goals include harvesting, sustaining and preserving a significant collection of family histories, original transcripts, military records and other pertinent genealogical data to disseminate at no cost to the community. Both our mission and goals are unique in that there is no other entity in this country and indeed the world, which provides a physical location specifically for African Americans to conduct in-depth historical research with or without cost to the citizenry.
Welcome to The Center for African American Genealogical Research, Inc.
