We are a small, but mighty, group of grass-roots researchers and citizen historians, dedicated to telling the history of African Americans in Delaware. If you are interested in this project, please contact me at the email below.

This project started in an effort to try to help identify the people buried in the African American Cemetery on the property of the John Dickinson Plantation in St Jones Neck, Dover, Delaware. While that project is ongoing, it has also morphed into a larger project of identifying and making public records that identify free and enslaved African Americans in Delaware and their descendants. I started looking at the 1800 U.S. Federal Census for St Jones Hundred, Kent County, Delaware and adding the people identified in those records as free people of color into a family tree on Ancestry.com. With this information I started to do additional research on Ancestry.com of the people I had found, and while looking for a deed associated with one of those people, I happened upon a manumission.

Manumissions are legal documents in which an enslaver sets free an enslaved person or persons. I did not realize that manumissions were recorded in county deed books. Unfortunately, these records were not indexed by Ancestry.com, so unless you look at the deed books page by page, you will not find these records. These records are one of very few recorded documents that trace the lives of African Americans during the period of slavery in the United States, and as such, they are monumentally important in telling the story of slavery in the United States, and in helping people tracing their African American ancestry. I knew I needed to find, transcribe and publish these records so that these peoples’ stories could be told. Right now I am reviewing the Kent County deed books, but my goal is eventually to review and record all the manumissions in Kent County, Sussex County and New Castle County. As I find and transcribe these records I will be posting them on this website.

We will also be posting transcriptions of other public records that identify African Americans in Delaware, including tax records, deeds, probate records and wills, marriage records, etc. And we will also be posting research and stories done by our researchers and links to helpful Delaware history web pages. The family tree I have created on Ancestry.com is named Finding Delaware Roots and it is a public tree available for anyone with an Ancestry.com account to view. I am also looking for a way to publish this tree on a free site and will let you know when that happens.

Until then, if you are researching your African American roots in Delaware, you are welcome to contact me at nmaliwes@icloud.com with your research questions and I will check my research to see if I have anything relating to your family. Also, if you have any research to share, we would love to post it on this site.

These records contain offensive phrases and words, and I apologize for any discomfort they cause, but I think it is important to transcribe the records as they were written. Slavery was and is an ugly business, and what grew out of it is also often ugly. But if we don’t talk about the real history of slavery in the United States, we will never change the way we see and treat each other. Thank you for understanding.

Tamara Burks

Historical Researcher-Held the position of Historical Researcher and Keeper of the Archives of the New York African Burial Ground Project under the Federal General Services Administration New York City, New York (2001). Operated the NY African Burial Ground Reading Room, which was visited by museum curators, historic preservation societies, multimedia professionals, educators, students, and the general public. Worked closely with the project principals including the Director of Archaeology, the Scientific Director of Anthropology, and the Project Historians. 

Historical Interpreter/ Researcher for Delaware State Museums/ Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs- State of Delaware (2002-2011). Served as a tour guide for various community groups and individuals who visited the State of Delaware’s various historic museum sites. Conducted various research projects for exhibition and interpretation including the following: The United States Colored Troops, The Underground Railroad, African American Recording Artists that Recorded with the Victor Talking Company (Duke Ellington, James Bland, James Reese Europe, Marian Anderson, Paul Robeson, George Johnson, and Bert Williams).

Service Leader

Service Leader- (National) AmeriCorps Safe and Sound/ Director of Youth Organized Television- Education Video Center- NYC, NY (1994-1995). Produced an educational training video- The Vicious Cycle of Domestic Violence (Video Documentary, 30 min,1995). The video was presented to various community groups to offer general domestic violence information and resources.  This documentary was produced as a part of a Clinton Administration National Service Initiative to address domestic and street violence in our communities. The collaborators also included: The Aspira Latino Anti-Drop Out Program, The State of New York Victim Services, Bronxnet Public Television, and a host of other community service organizations. As a result of the domestic violence document, YO-TV was invited to meet Donna Shalala, currently the interim President of The New School for Social Research and the former US Secretary for Health and Human Services (Washington, D.C.).

Co-Producer/Director

Co-Producer/Director: New York based Manhattan Valley Youth Organization– Safe Space Youth Video Production Training Program- New York City, NY. Production completed on a TV pilot program on Youth Employment Solutions. The pilot was made in connection with the New York City Summer Youth Employment Program. The 30 min pilot aired on CUNY TV in 1994.

Nancy Maliwesky

Retired genealogist (as if!); past Chair of the New York State Family History Conference; Singer-Songwriter and Happy Delaware transplant. I started my journey in African American genealogy while helping a friend fill in her family tree. What a revelation! This is hard work. I also started to use DNA matches as a way to connect with other family members in order to bring the lines back.

I had done my DNA years back and really had not spent much time reviewing it, so I thought, with what I had learned from my friend’s research, perhaps I should look at my DNA matches again. What I found would change my life, and the trajectory of my future research. DNA matches identified that my paternal grandfather was not the person on my dad’s birth certificate, nor was he of Irish descent. My paternal grandfather came from a land and slave owning family in Albemarle County, Virginia, and I also have several African American cousins. There was no denying that my ancestors were part of this ugly part of our American History, whose reverberations still affect African Americans today. I decided then and there, that while I cannot change the past, I can sure as heck shine a light on it, and that is what I have been doing with my Delaware research.

As a songwriter, I often process my feelings and emotions through song, and I have been writing Freedom Songs based on the research I have done and the manumissions and court records I have found. To hear these songs, please visit my website at https://www.reverbnation.com/control_room/artist/1526150/songs