The Albert Lewis Family donated family papers to the University of Delaware Special Collections. In those paper were a set of documents that chronicled the buying, selling and running away of slaves that Albert Lewis owned.

. The Lewis Family papers give a unique insight into how African-Americans have to search the wills, property transactions and private records of wealth white families in order to find their ancestors.

BIO:

Woolford earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration and accounting from Delaware  State University and then a master’s degree in business administration from Rutgers University. Going on to work for many years in accounting and sales with such firms as Campbell Soup, IBM, Pacific Telesis and Sun Information Services. Most recently he worked for, and retired from, AAA MidAtantic in Wilmington.  He said he didn’t develop an intense interest in history until after he retired, in 2008, when the City of Newark published the book “Histories of Newark: 1758 – 2008,” in honor of the city’s 250th anniversary.“They did a fantastic job on it, but left my family out" Woolford said.The slight stung a little, but it inspired in Woolford a resolve to research his own roots. He started simply searching family members’ names on Google, and searching online databases for historical records. He eventually culminated a trove of information about black Delawareans.He has since poured his research into PowerPoint presentations, and has recently lectured to audiences around the state on topics including U.S. colored troops who fought in the Civil War; Methodism among blacks in the 18th and 19th centuries; advertisements for slaves that ran in Delaware newspapers; the legacy of Howard High School; and black patriots and loyalists during the War of 1812.