ANCHOR delivers professional, evidence-based research that traces Black family lines through and beyond slavery — with the sources to prove it.
ANCHOR is designed for African Americans who are serious about getting to the truth — not just a list of names.
You have matches but don't know what to do with them. We build the paper trail that turns centimorgans into confirmed cousins.
You've traced back to a freedman in 1870 and hit a wall. We specialize in crossing that line using pre-Emancipation record strategies.
You need documented, defensible lineage for a legal matter, estate claim, or tribal enrollment. We build to evidentiary standards.
You want something real — a thoroughly sourced family history your children and grandchildren can build on for generations.
No guesses. Every person, every date, every relationship in your tree is backed by a primary source — censuses, deeds, freedmen's bureau records, church registers, and more. You receive the documentation alongside your tree.
Most family trees on commercial platforms are built on automated hints and shared trees — full of errors that compound over generations. ANCHOR builds differently.
Every research conclusion is documented with the sources that support it. When we don't have proof, we say so. When the evidence conflicts, we explain the conflict. You'll always know exactly what we know — and why.
Your portal includes a dedicated source library where every document linked to your family is stored and accessible.
For African American families, 1870 is often where the paper trail ends. Formerly enslaved ancestors appear for the first time in census records — but without a surname that connects them to who came before.
ANCHOR's research methodology is specifically designed to cross this line. We use enslaver research, Freedmen's Bureau records, plantation records, probate files, tax lists, and DNA evidence to push the line back further than most researchers think possible.
This is the work we're built for.
Freedmen's Bureau, slave schedules, plantation inventories, county deed books, and DNA match triangulation — we use every available tool to carry your line further back.
Courthouse fires, deliberate destruction, and neglect have erased enormous amounts of African American family history. But records rarely disappear completely — copies exist, adjacent records fill the gap, and DNA bridges the silence.
Many families believe their history is simply gone — destroyed by courthouse fires, the chaos of Reconstruction, or the systematic exclusion of Black Americans from official documentation.
We've learned that gaps in one record set are often filled by another. A lost county courthouse doesn't mean the state land office burned too. A missing church register doesn't mean the probate file doesn't name the family.
We dig until we find the path through.
Standard genealogy tools and methods were built for families whose documentation was kept consistently. For African Americans, the system wasn't designed to preserve your history — and in many cases, it was designed to erase it.
ANCHOR was founded to address that gap directly. Our research methods, our software, and our standards are built specifically for the challenges of African American family history — the 1870 wall, the enslaver research, the courthouse fires, the deliberate omissions.
None of that erasure happened to one family. It happened at scale, deliberately, across generations and millions of records. The debt is owed to everyone. This is the method built to answer for all of it — not just the ones we happen to find.
We're not adapting a general tool for a specific problem. We built the tool for the reclamation.
Every tier delivers documented, evidence-based research. Choose the depth that matches your question.
Build and manage your own family tree with professional tools — relationship tagging, source citations, DNA match tracking, pedigree viewer, and more. A lower-commitment starting point for self-directed researchers who want ANCHOR's platform without full-service engagement.
Tree Building with Documentation — build it right the first time.
Error Detection — find what's wrong.
Single Ancestor Correction — fix what's wrong.
Full Forensic Correction — the flagship forensic dossier.
Full-Service Forensic Engagement — for the ancestor who deserves everything.
We start with a conversation about what you already know, what you're looking for, and what tier fits your goals. No intake form required — just an email to get started.
Any documents, photos, DNA results, or stories you already have are a head start. We'll build from there — or start from scratch if needed.
Your researcher digs into primary records, archives, and DNA evidence. You'll receive progress updates throughout — no black boxes, no silence.
Your completed tree, source library, and narrative (tier-dependent) are delivered via the ANCHOR portal and as downloadable documents. We walk you through everything on a debrief call.
Your portal access doesn't expire. Continue adding to your tree, upload new documents, track DNA matches, and share with family — indefinitely.
Most clients are surprised by what's actually in the record. Don't assume the trail is cold — let us look first.