About Paul Heinegg
“The world’s expert on the Free Black population in the United States.”
— Henry Louis “Skip” Gates, Jr.
Over 40 years of experience in genealogical research.
Paul Heinegg has over 35 years of experience in genealogical research. He is the recipient of four major genealogy awards, and has authored three books and four journal articles. These publications include the origin and family history of over 1,100 African American families that were free in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware during the colonial period.
Paul was identified as “the world’s expert on the Free Black population in the United States” by Henry Louis “Skip” Gates, Jr., and as “the leading authority on early African American families” by Genealogical.com and FamilySearch.
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Hackett Fischer described him as a “gifted genealogist” who “transformed our knowledge of slaves and free people of African ancestry in early America” and “changed our fundamental understanding of race, slavery, and servitude in early America”.
In addition to his extensive research on the genealogy of free African Americans, Paul has also traced the ancestry of an enslaved family back to the mid-1600s in a journal article that meets rigorous genealogical standards.
Awards
North Carolina Genealogical Society (NCGS)’s 1991 Award of Excellence in Publishing
American Society of Genealogists’ 1994 Donald Lines Jacobus Award for Best Work of Genealogical Scholarship (1991-1994)
Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR)’s 2018 History Award Medal
Afro-American Historical & Genealogical Society (AAHGS)'s 2019 Paul Edward Sluby, Sr./Jean Sampson-Scott Meritorious Achievement Award
Books
The entire body of research is available on Heinegg’s website Free African Americans.
Heinegg, Paul. Free African Americans of North Carolina, Virginia, and South Carolina. From the Colonial Period to about 1810. Three volumes. Clearfield, six editions from 1991-2021.
Findings are the outgrowth of 35 years of research in well over 1,000 manuscript volumes, including colonial and early national period tax records, colonial parish registers, 1790-1810 census records, wills, deeds, Free Negro Registers, marriage bonds, Revolutionary War pension files, newspapers, and more. Copious documentation and an extensive bibliography of primary and secondary sources.
Heinegg, Paul. Free African Americans of Maryland and Delaware, From the Colonial Period to 1810. Clearfield, two editions: 2000, 2021.
Heinegg, Paul. List of Free African Americans in the American Revolution: Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland, and Delaware (Followed by the French and Indian Wars, Colonial Militias). Clearfield, 2021.
Journal Articles
Heinegg, Paul and Ayo Heinegg Magwood. "Tracing an African American family lineage from the 17th to the 20th century: The Kee Family of Northampton County, NC." Forthcoming at The Genealogist.
Heinegg, Paul. “The Ancestry of Benjamin Banneker: His Mother Tells Her Own Story”. Maryland Genealogical Society Journal. 32 (3, 2021): 405-417.
Heinegg, Paul. “Free African Americans of Virginia and North Carolina”. The North Carolina Genealogical Society Journal, volume XX (August 1994): 177-194.
Heinegg, Paul and Henry B. Hoff. “Freedom in the Archives: Free African Americans in Colonial America.” Common-Place, 5:1 (October 2004).
Online Articles
Heinegg, Paul and Ayo Heinegg Magwood. "Researching the Ancestry of Formerly-Enslaved African American Families, Part 1: Up to the 1870 Brick Wall." Family Tree DNA Blog, June 17, 2026.
Heinegg, Paul and Ayo Heinegg Magwood. "Researching the Ancestry of Formerly-Enslaved African American Families, Part 2: Beyond the 1870 Brick Wall." Family Tree DNA Blog, June 17, 2026.
Lectures & Presentations
"17th-, 18th- & Early 19th-Century Free African American Families of the Mid-Atlantic and Carolinas." RootsTech by FamilySearch, March 2, 2022.
"New Developments in the Banneker Family Ancestry: Benjamin Banneker’s Mother Tells Her Own Story." Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society (AAHGS) Annual Conference, Virtual, October 13, 2021.
Plenary Address: "Free African Americans in VA, NC, SC, MD, and DE during the Colonial Period, Before (and After) the Transition to a Race-Based Society." 40th Annual AAHGS Conference, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 2019.
"Free African Americans of North Carolina and Virginia." Virginia Genealogical Society and Tidewater Genealogical Society Conference, Newport News, VA, November 1, 2008.
Media
On-air expert interview in African American Lives 2. Episode 4. Directed by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. PBS, 2008.
Profiled in Mitchell, Owens. “Surprises in the family tree.” New York Times, January 8, 2004.
Profiled in Roach, Ronald. "The New Genealogy." Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, 25, no. 1 (2008): 16-18.