MY BEGINNING.....

I started this search by surfing all the Blackwell sites I could find to see how they collected and packaged their information. The most helpful site was David Blackwell's Notebook.( I have include the links of the helpful sites in my Genealogy Help Lists.) He has researched and collected all Blackwell information. What he is not researching, he has links to people who are. I found the English origin of the Blackwell name and some information on African American Blackwells on his site. The paper he had on Thelma Doswell, the African American Blackwell Historian and Genalogist was familiar to me. I am a member of that Blackwell family.

I read everything I could on how to collect Genealogy information especially, info for African American Researchers. The most helpful sites are Christines' Genealogy Homepage and AfriGeneas. I then decided to write what I knew about my family, being 60+ I realized that I was one of the elderly members to be interviewed.

I started with my Grandparents and their children. I made phone calls, emailed,read the three books written by Thelma Doswell and wrote my family for their info.This is where I am now waiting for the information to come in.

My biggest problem is that using a webtv, I can't use the nice charts that everyone has. I have to use HTML to make charts and lists. Being a newbie, this is a slow process.

My success story. With my beginning info on line, a cousin from Ohio contacted me. We found that our grandmothers were sisters. So he has sent me loads of info on my grandmother. As I receive new info I am slowly putting it on line.