Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society Central Florida chapter<\/a>.<\/p>\nPresident K.O. Mitchell helps others in their journeys of discovering their ancestry.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe come and exchange ideas and exchange methodologies about how to get those things done \u2014 how do you get from point A to point B in terms of your research?\u201d Mitchell said.<\/p>\n
Black history can be especially challenging to uncover, Mitchell said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were brought here in bondage, so a lot of our documentation was not available to us,\u201d he said. \u201cA lot of us were listed with no surnames, so there\u2019s always a chance you\u2019re going to hit the wall when you go back to the 1860s, 1870s. So, you have to start thinking outside the box.\u201d<\/p>\n
At Orange County West Oaks Branch Library\u2019s genealogy center, Gibbs stumbled upon a collection of books that includes stories from slaves.<\/p>\n
\u201cFinding books like this are a goldmine, because it reveals stories about your ancestors that you may not know,\u201d Gibbs said.<\/p>\n
With known family roots in other parts of Florida, Gibbs said she realized she would have to travel to find some answers to her ancestry questions. About 15 years ago, she and her husband hit the road on genealogy vacations.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo then we began to think, maybe we can just plan the rest of some vacations around that, so that\u2019s how we started,\u201d Gibbs said. \u201cAnd we would contact members of the family that lived in the area and look up what was available.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her travels have included a trip to Marianna in Florida\u2019s Panhandle, where she found a picture of her great-grandfather. She also found a lot of info in Florida\u2019s state archives in Tallahassee. And in Jacksonville where she grew up, she found an article that revealed details about her father\u2019s service in World War II.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey shot him, he was injured, and he captured three German soldiers,\u201d Gibbs said.<\/p>\n
As much as she\u2019s enjoyed discovering more about those who came before her, she said, ultimately, what\u2019s she has discovered is for those who come next.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat a great thing to have to pass along to the next generation,\u201d Gibbs said.\u00a0 \u201cI have grandkids now.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society Central Florida chapter meets regularly and helps people in their genealogical journeys. And public libraries typically offer free access to resources like ancestry.com. There are also several other groups in Central Florida that offer help in people\u2019s genealogy searches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2014\u00a0It can be fun finding out where we came from \u2014 a fun fact about our…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166284,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1011,1013,274,48241,71626,1190,12716,115,1335,139,141,140,278],"class_list":["post-166283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-app-human-interest","tag-app-latest-human-interest-stories","tag-app-top-stories","tag-black-history-month","tag-black-history-month-2026","tag-human-interest","tag-jeff-allen","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}