While there are multiple sites and approaches to engaging the past in Puerto Rico, I understand there is no one location that can attest to the variety of experiences that ancestors had as they moved towards freedom. In this excerpt from part 4 of "Reconstructing the Missing Registro de Esclavos for Northwest Puerto Rico", (Hereditas, 20.2,2024) I consider some of what I learned from attending meetings for different Enslaved Descendant Communities in Virginia to better understand how these gatherings and actions can work in the context of Puerto Rico.

Saturday 19 September 2026 Tom's River Branch, Mancini Hall 11-3PM Delighted to announce i'll be presenting a talk tomorrow: Spanish Colonization: shaping family histories via Zoom for the Tom's River Branch of the Ocean Park Library in New Jersey. I'm honored to appear on the roster with filmmaker Walter Alomar and Mary Garin. Alomar's film, Colonization is Extinction (2018) speaks to the history of Puerto Rico, sterilization programs on women, radiation and the bombing of Vieques and the island's resilience in the face of modern day colonialism. More on the event here:  

I've started a brief birthday fundraiser for PROPA, the Puerto Rican Organization for the Performing Arts based in Orlando, Florida. This is a first for me, that celebrates a significant birthday, and this goal brings friends, family and ancestors together into focus. Preserving the cultural memory of Bomba y Plena also means working with care with the community and the genealogies of the families involved.

Two new resources for 19th century Anasco!

"The Georgetown 272: The Journey" tells the story of 272 enslaved people sold in New Orleans in 1838 and why it still matters to about 4,000 descendants.

Delighted to be a guest again on Rediscovering Latinidad for a discussion on Full Text search & genealogy. Listen in to hear about what to do with all that data

Migration & Names, Genealogy Quick Start, November 2025 This was a busy month! On Tuesday evening, I was a special guest on Shamele Jordon's Genealogy Quick Start on the Migration and Names episode, talking about my third great grandfather in The Many Names of Telesforo Carrillo, based on a previous blog post. She is an amazing host, and I love her energy.

Thrilled to announce i'll be presenting along with four other speakers at an upcoming virtual program. The Library Company of Philadelphia's Program in African American History and the Center for American Art at the Philadelphia Art Museum are sponsoring the event. My twenty minute talk, "Not Yet Completely Free: Gradual Emancipation and the Family of Moses Williams, Philadelphia, 1776-1830." presents the results of an archival journey.

Vale Ancestors of Camuy: Estevan Vale A few weeks ago, I saw a hint on my Ancestry family tree for Estevan Vale Caban. To my great surprise, it included a photograph! Could it be my great uncle?  After finally locating the origin of a foto for Estevan Vale in Ancestry's Passports database, I was struck by how much of a desire there is for an image of an ancestor.

Thrilled to announce that I was awarded the Phyllis Wheatley Award for my article "Not Yet Completely Free"!

In a pop-up exhibition in New York City this week, Elina Chauvet bookends Women’s History Month with a crucial call to end the cycle.

The Fugitive Slave Acts, passed in 1793 and 1850, were federal laws that allowed for the capture and return of runaway enslaved people within the United States.

Welcome back listeners!! We are excited to start this season, we have so much to talk about. And to give you a hint of the powerhouse season this will be, we be

The shellfish was considered food for the poor before Emmanuel “Manno” Bernoon, an emancipated Black man, started serving them to the city’s elite in the 1700s.

BOOK REVIEW

Many federal datasets and webpages are no longer accessible in order to comply with Trump’s executive order recognizing only two genders.

Speak out on records access It's starting again. Every so often, records access -- particularly access to vital records -- goes on the chopping block. And access to these critical records for family h...

Colonial law forced many of our art practices into a deep slumber. Now, I am the first person in the US from my community to hold the skills to craft Chilkat dancing blankets.

Learn how the DNA Painter website can help decode your matches. In this introductory webinar, Jonny will explain how and why you would use the site’s main...

The committee worked on projects including mobilizing artists to counter all forms of hate and the developing role of AI in arts and humanities.

Her five-decade oeuvre is an intimate visual lexicon that bridges personal memories and joyful resilience.

Ernest Cole’s life story is an anti-colonialism epic, Cold War thriller, and a tragedy.

From fundraisers to mutual aid drives and emergency grants, there are many ways to find support and help those affected by the blazes.

We’re Reclaim The Records, a new not-for-profit activist group of genealogists, historians, researchers, and open government advocates. We identify important genealogical records sets that ought to be...

Whether it was spent feasting or plotting escapes, the week between Christmas and the new year offered a rare opportunity for enslaved men, women and children to reclaim their humanity.