Freed Roots makes Freedman's Bureau and Freedman's Bank records searchable by name — structured for genealogical discovery and protected by design. Over 10,000 person records carefully extracted from primary source documents, many never searchable by name before now.
Free to join. Early access + a 30-day free trial when we launch.
Built to help descendants find their families — not to enable property research or data aggregation. Certain fields are restricted by design, not just by subscription tier. Our data commitments ↓
Before 1870, enslaved people were recorded as property, not people — listed by age and sex in slaveholder schedules, unnamed. For millions of American families, tracing ancestry before the Civil War means hitting an absolute wall: the records exist, but your ancestor isn't in them.
The Freedman's Bureau and Freedman's Bank were created specifically to document formerly enslaved people in the years immediately after emancipation — 1865 to 1874. These records name people. They record where they lived, who they worked for, how much they earned, whether they owned land, who their family members were. They are the richest surviving documentation of Black life in Reconstruction America.
The problem is that these records are not fully searchable. The original documents are held by the National Archives. Volunteers have transcribed a portion. But the majority — including the Freedman's Bank's dividend claim and real estate loan ledgers — have never been indexed on any platform. Until now.
We use AI to extract every named individual from Freedman's Bureau and Bank transcriptions — with their role, location, employer, wages, and family context — and make the results fully searchable by name, state, date, and role. You type a name. We find the record.
Find your ancestor whether they appear as a contract signer, a bank depositor, a claimant, or a family member mentioned in someone else's record.
Each record captures the local Bureau field office — often the most precise geographic information available for a formerly enslaved person in 1865–1872.
Freedman's Bank ledgers record names, branch locations, account numbers, and dates — a direct financial paper trail that connects to land, property, and family.
Every record links directly to the source document in the NARA Catalog. Cite the primary source — not our index — in your research.
These records span 1865–1874, the Reconstruction era when the Bureau and Bank were active. New states are being added continuously — waitlist members are notified first when their state goes live.
| Collection | States live now | Person records |
|---|---|---|
| Freedman's Bureau Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen & Abandoned Lands (RG 105) |
Tennessee · Virginia · North Carolina · Georgia · Louisiana · Maryland · DC | 8,655+ |
|
Freedman's Bank — Dividend Claims
Exclusive Depositor names from payment ledgers, 1882–1889 |
National (all branches) | 813 |
|
Freedman's Bank — Loan & Real Estate
Exclusive Borrower names from real estate ledgers, 1871–1873 |
National (all branches) | 794 |
| Freedman's Bureau — in progress | ▶ Running now: South Carolina ▶ Next: Kentucky · Mississippi · Georgia (additional) |
Est. 30,000–45,000 additional |
The Freedman's Bank dividend claim and real estate loan ledgers are not indexed on Ancestry, FamilySearch, or any other platform. If your ancestor held an account or applied for a loan, Freed Roots is the only place to find them by name.
This is a representative record from a Freedman's Bureau labor contract, Virginia, 1866. Free accounts see name, date, and source. Subscribers unlock employer, wages, and family details.
Subscriber plans unlock employer, wages, family members, and source document links. Join the waitlist for a free 30-day trial at launch.
Some details — including precise location information and physical descriptions from surveillance-era records — are stored in our database but are never shown publicly at any subscription level. This is a data protection measure, not a paywall. Why we restrict certain fields ↓
A professional genealogist charges $50–$150 per hour for manual federal archive research. Freed Roots gives you the same indexed, searchable access — from home — for less per month than a streaming service.
Waitlist members receive a free 30-day trial of the Family Researcher tier at launch. No credit card required to join.
Freed Roots indexes Freedman's Bureau records (Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, RG 105) and Freedman's Savings and Trust Company records (RG 101) — including dividend claim ledgers and real estate loan ledgers from 1865–1889. We currently have records from Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, and DC, with South Carolina, Kentucky, and Mississippi in progress.
Some Bureau records have been partially transcribed by volunteers on those platforms — but coverage is incomplete, and the Freedman's Bank dividend claim and real estate loan ledgers are not indexed anywhere else. Freed Roots extracts every named individual from each document, including family members and witnesses who don't appear in other indexes.
Yes. Every Freed Roots result links directly to the source document in the NARA Catalog, which is free and publicly accessible. We index and structure the data so you can find the record — then you go to the original to cite it in your research.
Not yet, but those states are on our expansion roadmap. Join the waitlist and we'll notify you the moment your state's records go live. Waitlist members always get first access.
We're targeting launch in 6–8 weeks. Waitlist members get early access and a free 30-day trial — no credit card required to join today.
A small number of fields — including sub-county location details and physical descriptions from surveillance-era records — are stored in our database but are never shown publicly at any subscription level. This is not a higher paywall; it is a permanent protection. These fields are restricted because, in combination, they can be used to identify living descendants, support adverse possession claims against heirs' property, or enable surveillance of Black families. If you are a direct descendant seeking information about a specific ancestor for personal family research, contact us at privacy@freedroots.com — we review requests individually.
No. We do not sell, license, or share person records, search queries, or family connections with property data companies, real estate researchers, title companies, or genealogy aggregators — at any price. We recognize that African American genealogy records have historically been weaponized for land dispossession. Our data protection rules exist specifically to prevent that. This commitment is in our Terms of Service and is not waivable for any customer tier.
Every field in our index goes through a data classification review. Records containing sub-county location data, parcel-level descriptions, or bodily surveillance details are classified as restricted and are not returned by any public search endpoint, regardless of subscription level. Standard genealogical fields — name, date, role, Bureau office, employer, wages — are available to subscribers. Our full data commitments are published below.
Write to us at privacy@freedroots.com with the record's ID and a description of the issue. We respond within five business days. You can report factual extraction errors, missing persons, information you believe should be restricted, or concerns about how a record is displayed. We do not guarantee removal in all cases — these are public-domain government records — but we take every concern seriously and will explain our reasoning if we cannot act on a request. Descendant requests receive priority in our review queue.
The records in Freed Roots document real people — men, women, and children whose names appear in federal documents from the Reconstruction era. We believe their descendants have a right to find them. We also believe these records carry responsibilities.
We make genealogical records accessible through searchable indexes. We apply structured extraction to connect records across sources and link every result to the primary source document at the National Archives — so you can evaluate the evidence yourself.
We do not display physical descriptions or sub-county location data publicly, regardless of subscription level. We do not build features designed to enumerate all members of a family or locate living individuals. We do not share data with real estate developers, title companies, or any organization with a financial interest in property connected to the families in our records. We do not sell our data or our user list.
These commitments are published here and reflected in our Terms of Service. If you believe a record should be restricted, corrected, or removed, contact us — descendant requests receive priority review.
Over 10,000 people are named in these documents — laborers, veterans, families registering for the first time in the eyes of the government. These records document who they were, where they worked, and who they loved. Join the waitlist and be the first to search when we launch.
Free to join. 30-day free trial at launch. No credit card required.