Tony Burroughs is the founder and CEO of the Center for Black Genealogy and has worked on high-profile cases tracking the ancestry of well-known public figures such as Oprah Winfrey and Rev. Al Sharpton. Delving into history has become a passion for Burroughs and he remembers that spark first being ignited in college.

“I was working with the Black Student Union at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. We got a chance to set the program for Negro History Week before it was Black History Month,” Burroughs tells Madison365. “We all had read the number-one best seller which was the “Autobiography of Malcolm X” and we were really interested in Malcolm X. Malcolm X was assassinated, so we couldn’t bring him to campus so we brought the guy who wrote about him – Alex Haley.”

The students expected Haley to give them some insight on Malcolm X but he never mentioned the famous civil rights leader one time. “He talked about Kunta Kinte and Chicken George and tracing his genealogy back to Africa and that was the first time we heard the word and the concept of genealogy,” Burroughs remembers. “I was really fascinated by it, though.”

Tony Burroughs
Tony Burroughs

A Chicago native, Burroughs will be in Madison to host an African American Genealogy Workshop at the Wisconsin Historical Society on Saturday, October 22 at the Memorial Libary in downtown Madison. It will be a full day of lectures from Burroughs, an internationally known speaker and Fellow of the Utah Genealogical Association(FUGA), who will help people get through those brick walls that tend to come up pretty quick as they begin the searches of their own genealogy.

“Genealogy is always very easy to get started and it’s very inexpensive. The problem is that people don’t spend the time to learn how to do it. They just jump into it and that’s why it appears daunting and difficult … because they don’t know what the hell they are doing,” Burroughs laughs. “The way you start with genealogy is you take out a pencil and paper and you write down what you know about the family. You literally write your autobiography and included in that you talk about your siblings, you talk about your parents, and what you remember about your grandparents, etc. You realize that you know a lot more about your family history than you thought … you just haven’t sat down and chronicled it yet.

“The second step is to interview all of your living relatives to get a story of their life and what they remember about their ancestors,” Burroughs continues. “You collect all of these interviews and you gradually start piecing this family picture together. From there, you go through the family archives – basement, attics, trunks, etc. Not just in your house, but in every one of your relatives’ houses. None of this costs anything. Everybody can do it. And it will start to add pictures on that family tree.

(Photo courtesy of Wisconsin Historical Society)
(Photo courtesy of Wisconsin Historical Society)

“So when you are ready to go out and do some more intense research outside the house, you will have a very strong foundation, ” he adds.

During his day in Madison, Burroughs says he plans on talking about genealogical evidence. “When we research our families, we’re trying to prove who our ancestors are and use some of that evidence to create a family history,” Burroughs says. “So, I will be talking about what evidence is and why we need it and how to use it to try and get people to think differently.”

Burroughs says that a lot of people are starting out today by going to Ancestry.com or Googling their family names.

“They’re not understanding that you have to prove identity. When you go to Ancestry.com and put in your ancestors’ names, they may have billions of names in it,” he says. “There might be 10,000 people that have the same name as your ancestor.”

So, tracing your ancestry can be a lot tougher if your name is John Smith versus, say, Zach Galifianakis.

“Haha, yeah, it can. Exactly,” Burroughs smiles. “And some people shy away from that and I try to explain to them that if you have a common name and you don’t shy away from it and try to solve it … you become a better researcher. I try to instill in people that we don’t research names, we research people. If you learn to research people and not names, then the name won’t throw you. And if you find two people with the same name, you don’t get confused.”

Burroughs loves researching in libraries and archives around the country and discovering new ancestors. He says he also loves solving genealogy riddles, overcoming challenges, and breaking through genealogy brick walls. This is his passion and he’s been doing it for over 30 years.

“We did it a lot differently before the Internet. What a lot of African Americans will do now is go to Ancestry.com and they’ll find their ancestors on the Census record and they may trace that back on successive Censuses going back to 1870,” Burroughs says. “Then they’ll try to look for somebody that they think is a slaveowner. They think they can get to know everything through Census records, but I’m here to let people know that there are dozens of records they need to research.”

(Photo courtesy of Wisconsin Historical Society)
(Photo courtesy of Wisconsin Historical Society)

In Madison this weekend, Burroughs will talk about the many different types of records, other than Census records, that people need to explore in order to create a strong family genealogy. Burroughs will also talk about testimonies from ex-slaves, called “slave narratives.”

“Ex-slaves were interviewed about their life and their culture for historical purposes,” Burroughs says. “We can use those for genealogical purposes. Many of them have a lot of genealogical information.”

Burroughs finds it very interesting that upwards to as many as 170,000 blacks fought in the American Civil War and they have many descendants. “You have a high percentage of probability that your ancestor fought in the Civil War,” Burroughs says. “It’s just the fact that it hasn’t been passed down to you through oral history, so you have to go back and try to identify them … which most people don’t even think about.”

Burroughs taught genealogy at Chicago State University for 15 years and researched Olympic Gold Medal sprint champion Michael Johnson’s family history and consulted on the Reverend Al Sharpton-Strom Thurmond genealogy. He has consulted with Chicago Public Schools, New York Public Schools, and Ancestry.com.

(Photo courtesy of Wisconsin Historical Society)
(Photo courtesy of Wisconsin Historical Society)

Did he find anything interesting when he looked back at the long history of his whole family?

“Nah. It was all boring, man,” Burroughs replies.

Really?

“Just kidding … it was all very fascinating!” Burroughs says. “I found out I had some ancestors that were in the Civil War and I’ve been able to get their military records. I discovered an ancestor who was in the Civil War and his father was in the battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812, which was amazing. I’ve found that I had an ancestor that was a Buffalo Soldier. I’ve been out to the fort where he was stationed at.

“I found out that one of my great-grandmothers went to college in Atlanta in 1882 at Spelman College,” he continues. “Her husband was Pullman porter in 1901. I discovered 100 letters that were written to my grandparents during World War II from her sons. I’ve learned some really amazing things.

“I’ve been able to take my family back eight generations to the 1760s,” Burroughs adds. “I’ve made a lot of progress on many different lines. It’s something that I’ve studied and researched. It’s something that I teach and consult with it. I’m involved with [genealogy] in so many areas and each area you get involved in you learn something.”

Burroughs’ book “Black Roots: A Beginners Guide to Tracing the African American Family Tree “(Simon and Schuster, 2001) was number one on Essence Magazine’s Best Seller list and is now in its fifth printing. The Wisconsin Historical Society is looking forward to hosting him once again this Saturday.

“I’ve been to Madison a few times before and they seem to always have a crowd that is very interested and very knowledgeable,” Burroughs says. “So I’m really looking forward to this event.”

The African American Genealogy Workshop will feature a full day of lectures by internationally known speaker Tony Burroughs on Saturday, Oct. 22, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. at the Memorial Library, 728 State St..