A starting point for researching black sheep ancestors

Do you know who your “black sheep” ancestors are? Every family tree has them. At one time, their names were rarely mentioned, spoken in hushed tones after the kids had gone to sleep, or bracketed off using sensitive data delimiters in genealogy programs. Killers. Brawlers. Bigamists. Fraudsters. Cheaters. Thieves.

But there’s been a change in recent decades. People want to reclaim their family stories, warts and all. There’s also a recognition that criminal convictions from past centuries may not always have been the result of irredeemable character flaws, but rather inescapable personal circumstances and laws that unfairly targeted certain groups of people.

Last week, genealogist Michele Lewis alerted her TikTok audience to Black Sheep Ancestors, a website that contains stories and resources for people researching ancestors with criminal records. In a 2007 interview, founder Tyler Schulze defines black sheep as “the rogue in the family tree whose misdeeds used to go unspoken through subsequent generations.”

There is no master search function on Black Sheep Ancestors, but by using the links on the individual pages for U.S. states, it’s possible find searchable indexes, court documents, and other records that may list ancestors with criminal records.

“Black sheep are the best,” Michele says in her video. “They usually leave a bit of a paper trail. Especially in newspapers.”

While Black Sheep Ancestors does not have links to free newspaper records, local historical groups and librarians have made an effort to share digital scans of historical newspapers in areas such as New York and Georgia. FamilySearch points to other online newspaper repositories.

Black Sheep Ancestors is an older website, and many of the links point to very old Internet resources maintained by individuals and pubic agencies. Old genealogy websites may go offline once their operators are no longer able to maintain them, so if you find a black sheep ancestor, be sure to save a copy of the record.