Book Launch: “Finding Cornerstone Stories: Uncovering Inspiration in Your Family’s History”
Friday, October 16, 5:00 to 6:30 pm
American Ancestors’ Family Heritage Experience, 97 Newbury Street, Boston, and online (hybrid event)
Admission is free; registration will be posted soon at AmericanAncestors.org/events
American Ancestors® celebrates the Boston launch of “Finding Cornerstone Stories: Uncovering Inspiration in Your Family’s History,” a new book by genealogist, entrepreneur and speaker André Kearns, with an author talk, book sale and signing at its Family Heritage Experience on Newbury Street. The hybrid event, open to attend in person or online, marks the local debut of a book published in conjunction with American Ancestors as the nation marks its 250th anniversary.
In “Finding Cornerstone Stories,” Kearns traces his family’s 250-year American story, from some of the earliest Africans brought to colonial Virginia through the American South to present-day Washington, DC.
Drawing on more than two decades of research, the richly illustrated collection of essays introduces readers to the entrepreneurs, educators, soldiers and community leaders in Kearns’s own lineage, widening the lens on America’s founding era to include voices often left out of the traditional narrative. More than a memoir, each chapter closes with genealogy tips and research strategies, drawing on American Ancestors’ 10 Million Names initiative, the national effort to recover the names of the estimated 10 million men, women and children of African descent enslaved in what is now the United States. Kearns’s own research has contributed to that initiative, including the Cedar Grove Plantation Database documenting individuals enslaved in North Carolina.
Of his work, Kearns says family history is a source of inspiration and connection, and that recovering the people left out of the record means “we give the next generation something to stand on.”
André Kearns is the founder and CEO of Black Ancestries, a company that helps families of African descent uncover, celebrate and preserve their family histories. A nationally recognized voice in African American genealogy, he serves as Vice President of the National Genealogical Society’s Board of Directors and chairs its Development Committee, and holds memberships in the District of Columbia Society, Sons of the American Revolution; the Society of the First African Families of English America; and the Sons and Daughters of the United States Middle Passage. A sought-after speaker, Kearns has presented at RootsTech, the National Genealogical Society Family History Conference and the African American Historical and Genealogical Society Conference, and his work has been featured by The Washington Post, USA Today, National Geographic, Fox 5 DC and WTOP News. He previously held senior business and marketing roles at Amazon Web Services and other global technology companies, holds a bachelor’s degree from Morehouse College and an MBA from Harvard Business School, and lives in the Washington, DC, area with his wife and their two sons.