A good first step following a branch of the family tree is to work your way back through the censuses. I use the census to find out names of parents and siblings of my known ancestors. With the full names and approximate birth dates of parents I can better search for them and identify them as children in earlier censuses. With the names of siblings, I can search for birth, marriage and death certificates that might provide (or verify) more accurate names of parents or a more specific place of parents' origin. So first, find your mother, grandmother or great-grandmother in the census. It is best to start with a relative born before 1930 if you can, because generally the later censuses aren't digitized and made public on many sites yet.
One free site that I find quite helpful at this stage is familysearch.org
While you are there, it is a good site to start building a family tree on.
Once you find her, note her parents' names. Now, try to find her parents in earlier censuses, before she was born. If her mother's name is Emily, and Emily goes by a married name, look for a marriage license record for Emily and her husband. Look for a birth record for one of Emily's children. Look at Emily's death certificate. Look at the death certificates of all of Emily's children. Any of these records might give you Emily's maiden name. Once you have it, move on to finding Emily's parents.
Once you identify your relatives in the 1870 census you have
gone as far as the Federal Censuses will probably take you directly. From now on,
you will be hitching rides on other documentation. Not all African Americans were counted in the 1870 census (or any census), so you might not make it all the way with every family line, even knowing names and where they lived.
Great suggestions!
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