Interview with André Kearns, CEO of Black Ancestries

Recorded live at the RootsTech 2026 conference in Salt Lake City, this episode of Journey Through the Generations features a conversation with genealogist and entrepreneur André Kearns, founder and CEO of Black Ancestries.

Trisha sits down with André in the expo hall at the world’s largest genealogy conference to talk about how he got started in family history research, the evolution of genealogy over the past 20 years, and the powerful role that technology is playing in helping people uncover their stories.

André shares how a simple request from his father to create a family tree for a reunion led him into decades of research, eventually tracing his family lineage back to a named African ancestor. He also discusses the importance of records, DNA matches, and emerging tools like AI-powered document transcription that are helping researchers uncover ancestors who were previously hidden in historical records.

In addition, André talks about the mission behind Black Ancestries and his vision to help people of African descent uncover, celebrate, and preserve their family history across the global diaspora.

To learn more about André and the work he is doing, or you want some help with your own research visit, https://blackancestries.com/

Transcript

Hey everybody, welcome back to journey through the generations. My name is Phillip. Hey guys. I'm Trisha, and we are here at the 2026 roots tech conference in Salt Lake City, the largest genealogy conference in the world. We are live and in person here at the expo hall. Yes, we are. So we wanted to make sure that we got a chance to share an interview that Trisha just did with Andre Kerns, you're going to enjoy this, this episode. You know, he is a great resource and full of knowledge, and so you're really going to like that. Trisha, how did you enjoy interviewing and talking with him?

I thought it was wonderful. You know, I'm always interested in how people get started in genealogy, especially when you have accomplished as much as he has in the field. So I got to ask him that and learn a little bit more about his company, black ancestries. And it was just a wonderful conversation. And I'm just so thankful that he had time to give for this today, absolutely.

So we are here, like I said, in the expo hall of the conference, so you may hear some background noise, hear people walking around, talking, maybe some music. So hopefully we did a good job at limiting that as much as we can. But yeah, hope you enjoy it. Just make sure you like and subscribe and leave us a comment in our social media and let us know how you enjoyed that interview. All right, guys. So thanks for listening. We appreciate you. Make sure you subscribe, you follow, make sure you go to our social media and let us know how you enjoyed the interview. And yeah, the interview is coming up right now, so enjoy it.

Hey guys, we're over here at Rooster tech, and I have the pleasure of talking with Andre Kerns from black ancestries.

Hi Andre. How are you today? Hello. I'm doing well. Thanks for the invitation.

I'm so excited to be able to talk with you today. The first question that I have for most people is, how did you get into family history, sure.

So I would say the official answer is that in 2006 or 20 years ago, my dad said we were going to have a Kearns family reunion, and he asked me to build out a family tree that we could hand out and show at the family reunion. And so I remember registering for ancestry. It was on February 16, 2006 so like, literally, 20 years ago and a few weeks, and I started building a tree out. And then I just got hooked. So I created the tree for the family reunion. And then I just kept discovering from there, and I started writing about some of the more interesting things I discovered. Then I started being invited to speak about things, and it just continued to grow. So I think that's the official story. But as I look back on my upbringing, I realized that, you know, I remember watching Alex Haley's roots on TV for the first time when I was a young child, and that certainly planted a seed in me, and really the nation, right? Yes. I mean, we have Henry Louis Gates today with finding your roots, really making family history and genealogy accessible, and in really injecting that into our culture, our public culture. But before Henry Louis Gates, it was Alex Haley, exactly. So I was, I was always inspired by the fact that he could trace his family back to a named African ancestor, and so that was something that I always dreamt that I might one day be able to do. It's very difficult. I was able to achieve it after years and years of research, but not, certainly not anything I expected that I'd be able to do. So okay,

you said you've been doing this since 2006 Yeah, so that's 20 years. Talk to me about the evolution that you've seen in family history, genealogy, from DNA to the internet, everything you're digitized. AI, tell me a little bit about your evolution in the 20 years of research. Absolutely.

So I think when I first started, there was, you know, ancestry and online family trees with some records available. And I remember my first DNA test was around that same time. Time as well. I think that. I think it was ancestry by DNA. I think it's a defunct company now, but literally, all I got back was, you know, my ethnicity, yeah, you know what percentage of you are. Are your ancestors from Africa or Europe or indigenous to the Americas, and that was it, right? And so I think clearly, DNA has been a transformational thing for genealogy in that ethnicity estimate, like is the least useful thing, and the results that you get it is it's the thing that gets the most attention, but it's the least useful thing for a genealogist. What's most useful are the matches and the technology that's getting better and better around offering probabilities, around what your relationship with an unknown matches, whether it's coming from your mother's side or father's side, sharing, being able to cluster those matches, all these all these analytics now that have grown out of being able to provide you a match list that really are now helping people to translate these matches into actually expanding their family tree. So there's been a lot of innovation there. Obviously, the number of people who've taken DNA tests has exploded, yes, so that's been helpful as well. And then, you know, since, since I started on ancestry, the number of records that they've added has been phenomenal. And I've been also impressed with the number of records related to African American genealogy research that they've added, right? So, like, I think just even recently, I saw that they added an HBCU yearbook. We were just looking at that last night, because I remember when they first came out with the colleges and university. You're an HB data booth. Yes, I'm a Morehouse College grad. Yeah, I don't go by any interview without mentioning so that was opportunity, yes, but I remember when they first roll out a number of years ago, the college and colleges in yearbook data file, and, you know, my grandfather went to Howard, and so I looked for him, and they didn't have any files on Howard, wow. And I was like, that's a, I don't know how that happens, yes, if you're going to roll out a college and university database, and what is beyond Morehouse, the most esteemed and well known University, and it's not in your collections. So that is an example to me, of the value of diversity and inclusion in the leadership of these organizations, because you're able to share what should be part of these rollouts that's going to be most valuable for the most people. So I have seen progress on that. I've been impressed by that. And then Phillip

was able to find his grandmother in that database just last night. Yeah, Philander Smith College in Little Rock.

Wonderful, wonderful. My father's side is from Charlotte Mecklenburg County, and so I've actually been able to trace our history within HBCUs back to my great, great grandfather, who was who attended Biddle Memorial Institute in 1874 and Biddle Memorial Institute became Johnson C Smith University. And then my son, my youngest son, is at Howard, is a freshman at Howard. So he can say that his HBCU history stretches back six generations. That's awesome. I love that. And so, yeah, so, so there's innovations like that. I think the Family Search, right? I started out pretty focused on everything that you could find on ancestry, and then as you mature as a genealogist, you realize the value of tapping into as many sources as possible, and Family Search is just such a rich resource of information available for free, and you get things like cohabitation records that aren't available in ancestry, but it's that's a that's just an amazing record set That gives you a glimpse into formerly enslaved ancestors prior to 1870 most people assume that 1870 is that first glimpse into these emancipated families as in their full names and as family units, but these cohabitation records on Family Search are available in. Yeah, and they trace back to 1865 and 1866 I

was able to find my two times great grandfather in those records in Arkansas. Peter hatchship, yes,

so, so Family Search has got and then all the availability the Freeman Bureau records that are available there, so I have great appreciation for family search as well, and then all the innovation around AI is has been a complete game changer, yes. So it's made it so much easier and faster to find your ancestors, particularly enslaved ancestors in estate records for for enslavers and so, not to get too technical, but in the past, if you wanted to find your enslaved ancestors and enslaver records, you would have to figure out who The enslaver was, and then literally just read through every estate document you could find and hope that you didn't miss anything, and look for all the people who are named in that document, because if you can't search by those names, because it's the search is based on an indexing of the document that Just indexes the person who's the subject of the estate and their heirs, possibly the heirs, but there's there are people in those documents that were treated as considered property that we want to be able to uncover. And so now with AI, something called Full Text Search, Family Search, can real time, transcribe documents from 1800s cursive into a full transcript, searchable transcription. And so that allows us to search for the names of our enslaved ancestors in these documents and get the results back to the exact location where they're

listed in the document, and it proves that our ancestors names were documented somewhere, and we can find them. That's right, and that's what's so important for people to understand, that even though they were enslaved, how horrible that situation was, they were still documented. We just have to find them.

Have to find them, and then we have to share our stories and speak their names, yes. So it's a it's a reclamation of sorts, absolutely.

And we're here at roots tech, and you had a session, a presentation today on your family. What is it like to be at the largest genealogy conference in the world telling the story of your family and your research? I love it.

We I get I got in last night. We had a nice dinner. They had hosted a dinner for the speakers. I got to hear the CEO of Family Search and hear the vision behind roots tech, which is to bring the world's top genealogists and the world's top technologists together to unlock innovation in the world of family history and bringing people together and it and so to hear the history, the vision, and see from my own eyes how it's grown has been amazing. There's we're in the exhibit hall now, and there's a massive ball pit, yeah, in the middle of it, and the theme of the conference is together. And so you just see people jumping in the ball pit together, having conversations, so they're keeping it fun. So I've enjoyed that, but it's been an honor to be invited to come and present in person. I presented a number of times for roots tech, virtually, online. So it's good to be here. Good to be here with my people. Yes, you get so used to having a passion for this thing and really navigating the world around people who like, they get that you're the genealogist, but they don't really get why you're you have the passion for it. But here it's a bird with a feather thing. Yeah, everybody, everybody has shares the same, yes, interest and passion. So that feels good.

It is. You're the CEO of black ancestry. Tell me more about your company.

Thank you. So, we're a genealogy services company, and we're, we're focused on helping people of African descent to uncover, to celebrate and to preserve their family history. So I think what I'd say is this, most people are interested in learning about their family history, but very few people are like us, where they want to spend a lot of time as a researcher to uncover it. Most people don't want to gather the ingredients and cook the meal. Most people want to sit at the table and enjoy the meal, and so that's what we provide. Yes, I love that. The other thing that I would say is one of my inspirations for the company was been watching finding you from finding your roots for a number of years. Years, and I had conversations with people saying, I really love that show, and I wish they would invite me on the show. I'm one of those people. But here's the reality is that to be invited on the show, you have to be a celebrity, yes, but I firmly believe that everyone deserves the gift of that reveal experience and being connected with their past, and so that is my vision for this company. So I'm not able to invite people onto a television program that's broadcast on PBS, but I

do it via zoom, and that is awesome,

and it's a really powerful experience to be able to have these conversations with people, share what all the inspirational things we've uncovered on their family tree and their ancestors, and then be able to say, how does that make you feel? And have a dialog

from that. So do you do the research? I have a team that does them, or do they come in with I've done this much research and I need help, or are they novice to it?

It's the full spectrum. Okay, we have clients who say, I don't know anything. So start with here are the names of my parents. You can start there and work back as far as you can. And the fun of those types of client cases is that you just have a blank canvas, and everything you're uncovering is going to be new to them, and so I enjoy those but then we also serve clients who are very accomplished genealogists in their own right, and they have done magnificent work on their tree, but They've hit a brick wall, and they just need that extra help to try to break them through. And so those are the harder cases, because if we're starting with like, I need my help. I need help with my ancestor, born in 1750 it's like, whoa, okay, you, first of all, you got it pretty far. You've been studying this for 20 years. I don't know how much farther we can take it, but we always find a way. There is always a new way to look at something. We bring in objective eye. Of course, we bring expertise. And so we enjoy the challenge of those types of cases as well.

Do you use traditional research as well as DNA. Or do you just use paper, traditional record?

We do both. So most of what we uncover is from in depth documents research, okay, but if the client has taken a DNA test and they want to share those results with us so that it can guide our efforts, we can incorporate those clues into,

you know, the research that we do, okay, and how do we find out? Oh, also, I

have a genetic genealogist on the team. So if someone exclusively is looking for in depth analysis and interpretation of their DNA results, then we have the expertise to do that. The other thing is, the name of the company is black ancestries. And so I said it in plural, because my vision is that we will be the trusted place for the entire diaspora. I love that. So if your ancestors landed in British Canada, Haiti, British Guyana, the Caribbean, South America, in addition to the United States, I want to be able to represent that we have the expertise to uncover your story.

I say British Gianna because that's where his family is. I figured, because I was super specific. Yes, it was, it was. I've really enjoyed this, but I do want to have just a little bit of fun with you at the end. I have these, this or that question, so I'm going to ask you, do you prefer this or that? Okay, so do you prefer Digital Research, or do you prefer to go into the library or archive

digital Okay, I'm gonna be honest. Okay,

are you? Do you like finding your roots more or relative race?

Oh, I am split because I was on season six of relative race, and I had so much fun, and you see the impact. But I would have to say, I mean finding your roots is really a culture shaping institution at this point.

Okay, are you more of an organized spreadsheet, or do you use pen and paper and folders,

spreadsheets, and I have Family Tree Maker, and I have counts on Ancestry and trees and a tree on I built out my tree in FamilySearch

as well. Are you a more morning researcher or late at night researcher?

I would say late at night, but

as I shared in my talk this morning. What I do like to do in the mornings, particularly Saturday mornings, with a cup of coffee, is to go through all my DNA matches to see what's interesting. Is there a celebrity that popped up that I'm related to? Or can I find my friends and classmates and go tell them? Guess what? We've known each other for 20 years, but we're also related, or in the case of my talk, finding out that I have cousins who are from Guam and have been there for many generations, and that's sending me in a journey to figure out exactly how they're related to me, coming from an African American family with roots in Virginia and North in the Carolinas.

Okay, the last one, okay. Photos. Are you the one taking the photos? Are you in most of the photos?

I am taking the photos to

document things. Okay? I'm gonna need you to get in some photos, because we need you in there too.

Yes, I do do selfies, and also learning the timing feature, where you can put it down, yeah, and it'll take the photo. So I wanted to do that more well.

I have enjoyed talking with you today. Thank you so much for taking time to talk with me today. I hope you have a safe trip and you're able to get as much as you can out of your town here at Rootstech,

Trisha, it's a pleasure meeting you in person. We've been connected on social so again, that's the amazing thing about this conference, to connect with so many people you've interacted with and follow it. And I respect all your work and your research in this podcast. So great meeting you. I've enjoyed this. And thanks so much for the invitation to sit down and speak

with you. Thank you. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai