Ancestry.com is allowing free access to 13 databases throughout February in recognition of Black History Month. They've also added an African American Research Center to serve as a guide to resources.
These are the free databases—open to researchers of any heritage:
- World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918
- Freedman's Bank Records, 1865-1874
- 1870 U.S. Federal Census
- 1860 U.S. Federal Census: Slave Schedules
- 1850 U.S. Federal Census: Slave Schedules
- Civil War Service Records
- Slave Narratives
- Charleston, Charleston County, South Carolina, Black Deaths 1871-89
- The First African Baptist Church of North America
- Blacks in the State of Oregon, 1788-1971
- Slave life in Georgia: a narrative of the life, sufferings, and escape of John Brown, a fugitive slave, now in England
- Slavery petitions and papers
- The Black presence in the era of the American Revolution, 1770-1800
