WATERLOO - The faded words in the photocopied document hold a dear place in Lucy Porter's heart.

"I hereby give freedom to Prince, my slave, at the death of my wife Isabelle with whom he must serve until her decease."

The words, written by a slave owner in the South, granted freedom to Porter's great-great-grandfather, Prince Shepherd. It is the last trace of Prince she has.

The document sits in a plastic sleeve alongside hundreds of others in a thick binder in Porter's home. The binder chronicles her father's side of the family - the Shepherds.

A separate binder holds clues to Porter's mother's side - the Finleys. This binder still is missing important pieces of the family puzzle. Genealogy experts say for African-Americans, this is not unusual.

"The major difference is as a white person you won't be looking for your people as property of somebody else," said Traci Wilson-Kleekamp, a genealogy researcher who presents workshops on African-American genealogy at the University of Missouri at Columbia. .

For African-Americans, the key to their history often is embedded in the history of white slave owners. Before African-Americans can trace their ancestors, many must first trace the history of the white families who owned them. And depending on how detailed slave documents were kept, African-Americans may never find their roots.

According to accessgenealogy.com, African-American genealogy records are much more difficult to find because of the scant nature of record keeping for blacks prior to the Civil War.

"Black don't even show up on the census until 1870," Wilson-Kleekamp said.

The best place to start is oral history, experts say.

The oral history on her father's side provided many leads for Porter as she traced her roots. She knew her great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather were both named Prince Shepherd. She was able to trace the name in slave manifests archived in the South.

"I found two brothers named Shepherd who owned 300 slaves," Porter noted. "They kept good records of their property."

Porter holds copies of documents that trace Prince's story. She knows that he eventually ended up in the hands of John Halsted, who granted him freedom upon Halsted's wife's passing. But other parts Porter can only speculate. She believes Prince was born in Africa and arrived in the U.S. at the port of New Orleans. Also, Porter has small clues but no concrete proof that he went to New York after being granted freedom.

"I have to assume he wasn't able to buy his children. He probably went to New York to earn enough money to do so, but I have no evidence," Porter said.

While Porter has made great inroads in researching her father's side, she has not had the same luck with her mother's side. Her maternal ancestry hails from Missouri. Although it was a slave state, there were far fewer slaves there than in the South and far fewer detailed slave records.

"I'm still working on researching the white Finleys," she said. "… It's so tedious. Sometimes you have to go through the whole family, plus friends and neighbors."

Porter's Missouri hunt led her to Wilson-Kleekamp, and the women discovered they were on the same family tree.

Now, the women swap nuggets of information each time they uncover a new piece of the puzzle. And they want others - regardless of race - to do the same.

"For white people (researching their ancestry), it wouldn't occur to you to do anything with a bill of slaves," said Porter. "But those names can be a lead for an African-American to find their roots. If you're doing research and come across a slave list, extract the names and share them with others. It's hugely important to someone else."

It's that sharing that has allowed Porter to build a family tree seven generations tall, featuring some 700 names. She has gotten information from white people as well as African-Americans.

"Black and white people need to work together," Wilson-Kleekamp said, noting it is common for white people to find black people in their ancestry and vice versa.

Porter, a John Deere retiree, will continue her family hunt. She would like to write a book someday about her findings. More importantly, she intends to share her findings with her children and grandchildren and generations to come.

"You have to feel proud about your people. How can you not value grit and endurance? African-Americans kept going. I find strength in that," Porter said.

Contact Meta Hemenway-Forbes at (319) 291-1483 or meta.hemenway-forbes@wcfcourier.com.