THE STATE OF AFRICAN GENEALOGY
African Genealogy
Current State of African Genealogy
Professional genealogists like me have only recently begun to emerge from Africa. This is not the same with other parts of the world, such as the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Scandinavia just to mention a few. The challenge with the current state of African genealogy includes:
- Lack of awareness of problems genealogy can solve
- Lack of support from governments to promote genealogy
- Digitization issues
- Education
- Unskilled use of Technology
African genealogy is in the gathering stage. FamilySearch is the leading genealogical company, if not the only one actively gathering oral genealogies and digitizing records of genealogical importance in Africa. These efforts will create a culture of record-keeping and preservation to help African family historians find their ancestors. Besides the records gathered and owned by the past colonial powers, modern-day African genealogy is not well organized, but improving.
In this article, I will point out five areas in Africa where genealogy needs to improve to come up to speed with other areas in the world where genealogical research is thriving.
WHAT DO YOU FEEL THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES WITH GENEALOGY IN AFRICA ARE?
Lack of awareness of problems genealogy can solve.
The biggest challenge for Africa is the lack of understanding
about the benefits of genealogy to individuals,
families, communities, tribes, empires, and
countries. Many wars and conflicts have erupted
in Africa due to the succession of power in
chieftaincy, clan leadership, and even among
kingdoms. This scenario is not the same in England, where the family history of their Monarchy is well stipulated and present for generations. Every royal body knows where they belong on the succession plan. In Africa, conflicts have caused many to lose their lives and identities in generations past. Today, this challenge still exists because no stipulated family histories indicate family lineage. Suppose all individuals are properly educated on the importance of crafting their family history and preserving it, there will be a clear understanding of who is to succeed a leader who passes on. Most succession plans, or genealogies exist only in people's minds and memories. Failure to pass on oral genealogies to descendants causes the total loss of it. This
challenge is common among all African countries.
Lack of government support to make
the information available to the Public
Records are usually restricted for 60-72 years. In Africa, Ghana was the first to gain independence in 1957 but has just recently paved the way to make records available to the public through its Right to Information law https://rtic.gov.gh/ creating awareness and outlining how one can obtain vital records and other records for research purposes. This action attracted other African nations like Ethiopia, to visit Ghana and to learn. Many other African countries still restrict access to important genealogical records.
Digitization issues
The cost of digitization and maintenance of records is a sensitive issue for all African governments. In the United States and many other countries where genealogical research is progressive, private companies such as Ancestry, FamilySearch, FindMypast, MyHeritage, and other companies gather and make records available for public research. These records are made available to be searched mostly for a fee except for FamilySearch. States in America and elsewhere have a genealogical online presence, with records particular to their territories digitized and made available for research and other purposes. Digitization and preservation of records should be the burden of a state, region, or country if that country understands the need to preserve the information of its people. An African proverb says it well, “An individual who does not know where they came from cannot determine their destiny.”
Digitization and publication of many genealogical records are neglected by many countries in Africa or let me say they are procrastinated. I suppose it may be due to the cost and maintenance of digitization.
Education
The lack of formal education among many Africans keeps them on
the blind side of the need to record journals and histories and use effective means to preserve them. This dilemma has existed for generations. Again, many people do not know that vital records, census records, probate, and other records exist, and don't know how to obtain them. The progressive role of governments in making records and statistical data available to the public will help Africans gain access to records for their family history research in the future. As formal education increases among the populace, as Western societies encroach Africa, and as modernization happens, the citizenry will demand their governments make records available for research purposes.
Unskilled use of technology:
The world is dominantly controlled by computers today. Many Africans need more time to be ready to explore their benefits. Only those born after the computer's invention are abreast of its usage. The challenge is that those who know their genealogy lack computer skills. If these people were to embrace using computers, family trees could be created online and passed on for further research. I have colleagues in America who are older and are actively leveraging the computer for their family histories researching back six generations or more and are still expanding by themselves just by searching databases in the quest for their histories. Hopefully, young and old can embrace the computer and use the available software programs to create online trees and pass information to their descendants.
WHAT ARE ORAL HISTORIES AND THEIR CHALLENGES?
Africans, during and after colonialism, could not keep written records but could only resort to keeping and passing on histories orally. The downside of oral genealogy is that the elderly who know the history of their progenitors may refuse or be unable to pass it on. Once they die, it cannot be recovered.
Many elderly have passed on without leaving behind the information needed to help their descendants find their families and to bring both the dead and the living together.
DO PEOPLE TYPICALLY KNOW THEIR GRANDPARENTS, COUSINS, AND OTHER EXTENDED FAMILY MEMBERS?
YES! In Africa, family relations are of great interest to the majority. People know their immediate family and are happy to relate and support each other. On average, people know their nuclear family and their extended family members. Keeping track of collateral lines [Collateral lines means cousins or all the children of one's ancestor] is a challenge to many. This is because many adults do not see the need to make an effort to compile a family tree that will help their children learn about their extended family, ancestors, and collateral lines. For this reason, collateral lines are hardly known by the younger ones of the same ancestor's lineage. Often, the elderly, who know the family histories, see no reason to share, and the younger generations aren't interested in learning their histories either.
I KNOW THAT FAMILYSEARCH HAS BEEN GATHERING ORAL GENEALOGIES FROM THROUGHOUT AFRICA FOR SEVERAL YEARS. DO YOU CONSIDER THIS HELPFUL TO AFRICA GENEALOGY?
I understand FamilySearch's core mandate is to “inspire people everywhere to connect with their family across generations.” https://www.familysearch.org/en/about/ As it stands, FamilySearch.org is the only genealogical company actively collecting, digitizing, and preserving important records of genealogical benefit in Africa. The impact of their projects is not yet obvious to the people because only a fraction of oral genealogies, records, and histories are recovered all over Africa. If FamilySearch.org continues in the same momentum for the next 20- 30 years, I believe many records and information will be recovered, which in turn will improve the genealogy of Africa. The impact of the work of the gathering now by FamilySearch.org will be useful for the coming generations who will be fortunate enough to obtain genealogies to aid them in building their family trees and learning their stories.
SOLUTIONS
Genealogical research in Africa can be challenging due to the reasons stated above. There are archives repositories in all African countries with abundant records of the rich histories of their people. Governments and private research companies can intervene to make family history research thrive in Africa by making records available and accessible to the public.
Post-colonial records such as census, probate, land, vital, and other records, will enhance the genealogical quest of African people. In the next 20-30 years when these records are properly digitized, organized, and made available, together with the effort of FamilySearch.org in preserving oral histories, genealogical research in Africa can be something to write home about.
HOW CAN THE CULTURE OF RECORD-KEEPING IN AFRICA IMPROVE?
- Parents and leaders can encourage young and old to learn technology and use it in their daily lives.
- Educators can integrate journal-keeping in basic education to breed a record-keeping generation.
- Governments can invest in digitizing records of genealogical importance and make them available.
- Genealogists can increase awareness of essential records for further preservation.
In my next article, kindly watch out for the step-by-step methods that can be considered to yield better outcomes in finding your ancestors in Africa.
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