I Joined the Black ProGen Panel This Week to Discuss Latin American Genealogy Research

This past Wednesday, I joined my geneabud Nicka Smith as a guest panelist on her twice monthly Black ProGen LIVE genealogy broadcast show.

About the Topic

This particular episode focused on how to get started with Latin American genealogy research.

Why Latin American research as a Black ProGen topic? Because of history. The Spanish Empire played a major role in the transatlantic slave trade, and people of African descent played a major role in colonizing the New World. As a consequence, in addition to those who today self-identify as Afro-Latino, many who self-identify as African American or Black have Spanish ancestry as well, and many who self-identify as Hispanic or Latino have African ancestry as well.

 The connections between the African Diaspora and Latin populations are undeniable and can provide for a rich, textured genealogy research project. Join us as we discuss how to get started, resources, and more. (Source: BlackProGen LIVE! Episode 42)

We are already talking about needing a second episode to adequately cover this introduction, because there are so many discussion-worthy nuances to doing Latin American research. The topics covered in this first episode include:

• Spanish naming conventions
• The Spanish casta system
• The complexities of working with DNA
• Where to find census records
• A brief discussion about Catholic parish records and civil registrations (a more detailed discussion needs to happen in a future episode)
• The failure of most genealogy conferences to include or regularly include classes on Latin American research.

About Black ProGen

Haven’t heard of Black ProGen before?

BlackProGen is a group of professional genealogists who research and document African American families. We share research strategies, thoughts, ideas, experiences, and whatever comes to mind while working for clients and in our own research endeavors through conference and webinar presentations, blogs, podcasts, video, interviews, and more. (source: Nicka Smith)

Black ProGen LIVE broadcasts twice a month, usually on a Tuesday or Wednesday, via Google Hangouts and YouTube Live.

• Check the calendar for future broadcast dates and topics.
• Watch past episodes, via the broadcast archive.

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Thank you to Nicka and friends for letting me join this fun valuable discussion!