Your history matters: An archivist's call to explore African American genealogy
- Binta Kanteh
- 11 hours ago
- 3 min read
“Finding Your Family: An African American Genealogy Workshop” takes place Thursday, online.
Michele Pollard, 56, and mother to four, has called Minnesota home for the past 25 years.
Pollard is an archivist with the Hennepin History Museum. She says the desire to preserve things was inspired by watching her godmother as a young girl. Pollard’s godmother, Sophie Roberts, was a preservationist by nature.
“For archival work, you have to have that spark –that moment where you recognize that these things need attention, that these older documents need your care. As I look back, mine came early. I had a godmother who kept a lot of documents, a lot of papers, and there was a story attached to all of them. As I looked around her house, she was preserving things – the couch had plastic on it, the carpet had plastic – things were in this state of suspended in time it seemed like. I was very intrigued by her stories and her life and the way that she connected people with the stories that she told.” Pollard said.
As a part of her work at the Hennepin History Museum, Pollard helps the public – from seasoned researchers to everyday residents of the county – navigate questions about people and places of the past. She helps piece together parts of a story to illustrate our local history.
Thursday evening Pollard will be leading an online workshop for the museum, “Finding Your Family: An African American Genealogy Workshop.” The online gathering invites those curious and open to exploring their genealogy to find more of their family history. Pollard will be teaching participants how to understand genealogy databases. The archivist's knowledge is rooted in helping museum visitors conduct genealogical research and the deep search she has carried out in her own family history.
Originally from Moline, Illinois – the land of John Deere tractors – Pollard says her first venture into genealogy in Minnesota was inspired by a call she got one day asking for her help to look into the history of a man named Dorsey Willis. The researcher believed Willis at some point lived in Minneapolis but needed Pollard’s help to confirm that hunch.
Willis was the last surviving member of the 167 Black infantrymen who were dishonorably discharged by then President Theodore Roosevelt because of accusations of committing acts of violence in Brownsville, Texas in 1906. The soldiers maintained they were in their barracks at the time of the violence.
“I went looking for Mr. Willis in our city directories and the census – I found him, and he was a resident. It's when he left Texas, he came to Minneapolis and made his home. He was here all this time.” Pollard said. “Now elementary kids can read about Dorsey Willis, who was a resident of Minneapolis for the majority of his life. That was probably my first venture into genealogy – digging into city directories, ancestry, and the census.”
Willis lived in Minneapolis from 1913-1977. A few years before he died, in 1972, his unjustified dishonorable discharge was officially changed to an honorable one.
Pollard shared another, more personal catalyst that launched her work in genealogy.
“I was into history but I wasn't necessarily into family history as much until my parents passed away. I felt like my tie to my past was cut, I (couldn’t) go and ask those questions anymore. I (couldn’t) get those stories anymore. So I went looking to try to fill in those gaps. … I felt like the hole that was left by them, I was filling in some of that space,” Pollard said.
“It's my goal to show people that genealogy – it's your own personal research. If you've never done any research before, don't be intimidated by it. You should know that these tools are out there for you to research your family history.”
Information about Pollard’s African American Genealogy workshop can be found on the Hennepin History website.