LaBrenda Garrett-Nelson retired as an attorney more than 10 years ago. But that doesn't mean she stopped working. Anything but! Retiring meant getting to work at another profession—a second career by all accounts—one she takes as seriously as the first career. Today she is a nationally recognized genealogist, teacher, and author who specializes in researching African American enslaved ancestors. It's research that allows her to take full advantage of habits and skills she honed while spending more than 3 decades as a full-time tax attorney in the halls of justice of Washington, D.C.
Imagine how hours of practice sorting through legal documents for evidence that support or nullify a particular proposal might transfer into effective family history research. You can be sure LaBrenda relies on the weight of her professional credentials to ensure the credibility of her work.
Applying her previous career skills to doing genealogy has proven a powerful formula for fostering a prolific and award-winning career. To hear her talk about her second career, you can’t help but get the feeling that she is just getting started.
Avocation versus Vocation
“Genealogy was always an avocation,” Garrett-Nelson assures us. “But as I neared the age at which I planned to retire from the practice of law, I began to take advantage of the many educational opportunities for learning how to practice good genealogy.”
Born in Upstate South Carolina, LaBrenda moved with her parents to Brooklyn, New York, before she started school. She earned her BA at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York. Building on that foundation, LaBrenda received JD and Master of Law degrees at New York University School of Law. “I started practicing in New York at a Wall Street firm,” she tells us. “But then I went to Washington, D.C., where I’ve been living since 1982. I went to work on The Hill for the Joint Tax Committee staff and practiced as a tax lawyer for 35 years.” LaBrenda mentions that she authored some of the actual legal text appearing in parts of the United States Tax Code. And she jokes in mock vanity about how her photo appeared above the fold on USA Today’s front-page story the day the Tax Reform Act of 1986 went into law.
LaBrenda retired in 2013 from Ernst and Young (EY), an internationally ranked professional services giant where she assumed a partnership— based on EY's purchase of a smaller legal firm that Garrett-Nelson cofounded.
“As I immersed myself in the world of genealogy, I came to realize that I got a sense of deep satisfaction from doing the work and sharing what I have learned with others,” Garrett-Nelson explains.
LaBrenda describes her transformation from a lawyer to a professional genealogist as though it were a natural and seamless next step. But she’s quick to point out that going professional wasn’t her main reason for becoming a certified genealogist®.
“After attending many in-person and virtual events, I decided to apply for the Certified Genealogist® credential, mainly to assure myself that I knew what I was doing.”
More than 10 years have flown by since then, and those newbie insecurities are a dim memory. Any of the many genealogists who know her will tell you she does indeed know what she is doing. And even though she readily admits that wasn’t always the case, LaBrenda’s expertise and accomplishments as a genealogist continue to expand as she builds her strengths and adds to her list of published (award-winning) articles, lectures, teaching engagements, podcasts, and YouTube appearances. Many are easily found online.
Certified to Certify
As a certified genealogist®, LaBrenda has also qualified to teach genealogists who seek their own certification. And there's more! Not one to wander from a path of progress, within 2 years of her certification she became an integral part of the institution responsible for granting that certification. In 2015 LaBrenda took on a very lawyer-like role cochairing the Intellectual Property Committee of the Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG) and was elected as a trustee the following year.
Her decades of legal expertise and tax work bolstered another soon-to-come position as BCG’s treasurer, where she spent 2 years streamlining the organization’s financial accounts. Keeping the momentum going, in 2019 LaBrenda Garrett-Nelson assumed the top leadership role when she was elected as BCG’s president, the first African American in that position since its founding in 1964. Not missing a beat, LaBrenda is happy to continue serving in her current position as a BCG board trustee.
New Appreciation of Genealogical Proof Standard
Concerning her time as president of BCG, LaBrenda speaks steadfastly of how she gained a greater appreciation of applying the Genealogical Proof Standard universally. Originally compiled by BCG, the standard’s underlying methodologies and strategies are continuously monitored and refined to keep up with advances in technology and media.
“The book Genealogy Standards remains the only comprehensive compilation of best practices, as distinct from focusing on particular record sets or geographic areas,” Garrett-Nelson states with a respectful air of formality, as though making a legal pronouncement. Anyone might think that’s as it should be when uttered by someone so familiar with the importance of language. Facts must be presented in an easily understood manner with specific, unambiguous meanings.
Her endorsement of Genealogy Standards speaks to her passion for rigorous methods, with results that follow established guidelines. Best practices for genealogists are regularly reviewed and revised. By virtue of her experience and position on the BCG board, LaBrenda will very likely have something to do with it.
“I really do see it as my mission to use the skills I used for 35 years keeping corporate America safe, to apply them to this discipline and to focus on African American genealogy.”
Vocation versus Avocation
Since Garrett-Nelson considered genealogy her avocation in the decades before her retirement, it was really more than a hobby. It was not, however, her vocation, the kind requiring the commitment of a professional. For that, she would pursue qualifications to ensure that people would take her seriously. She was and is that serious about it.
Still, lack of experience didn’t stop her from self-publishing her first book on the subject while she was still a lawyer. The Source of Our Pride tells the story of the Garrett, Neely, and Sullivan families, beginning in Laurens, South Carolina, and covers 200 years of American history. An ambitious and respectable piece of work, her first such project stands as a declaration of how seriously she took genealogy at the time. Its accuracy reflects her personal standards of the day, and its deficits serve to remind her of how much she has learned since then. Like anyone who has grown in their expertise, LaBrenda blushes at the early version of that work. “I actually took it to the copy shop and had it perfect bound,” she explains. “All of these [editions] were written before I had ever taken a [family history] course or actually knew what I was doing.” She believes even the later editions still need improvement.
LaBrenda is totally up front with everyone about the inevitability of making mistakes, no matter how smart you are or regardless of your level of education. It’s part of learning, she admits, and there’s always something to learn.
“I can say this because despite my law degree and graduate law degree, I made all the mistakes that people make when they’ve never really studied this as a discipline.” It’s an admission LaBrenda makes with a huge smile—a sympathetic, wise, and knowing smile. She maintains, "The message I try to impart to folks is that these standards have universal application. They can help families that came out of slavery produce accurate family histories.”
In her work these days she applies those standards rigorously. Expert peer-reviewers scrutinize her writing and every footnote, which will, undoubtedly, be cited by others in future works.
The Importance of Corroborative Evidence
“In the course of researching my African American Garrett family, I found a document that corroborated a bit of our oral history,” she tells us. “We knew or had been told that we had an ancestor who had purchased his freedom and the freedom of his wife and girl children. I found a document in an estate file that showed that this person had indeed purchased a woman with 2 girl children, and a woman by the same name showed up in his 1850 U.S. census record. That was a very exciting find that spurred me on to find more evidence to validate our oral history.”
Difficulties of Researching Enslaved Family History
Other communities besides enslaved families, such as unrecorded immigrants, also face challenges with sparse evidence, she points out. Enslaved people were not always recorded with first names and were rarely recorded with last names. Since the law in those days forbade teaching enslaved people how to read and write, recording their own family histories in writing was rarely possible.
“Family groups were not respected and might not ever show up in the same records of the same enslaver,” says LaBrenda. “So all of those factors make up a challenging research area because you’re unlikely to find direct evidence.”
LaBrenda's Well-Received, How-to Model
Garrett-Nelson’s book A Guide to Researching African American Ancestors in Laurens County, South Carolina serves to quicken the process for anyone facing difficulties researching African American enslaved ancestors.
“There are many books about researching black folk who came out of slavery,” says LaBrenda. “But there isn’t a lot written about methodology and how to do good genealogy.”
Kenneth H. Thomas Jr., in his column for The Atlanta Journal Constitution in 2016, said the book is a model for doing research in other South Carolina counties or even other states. He comments about LaBrenda’s 477-page tome:
“She has created a great guide, centered on one county, but others could take this and search the same sources for any county in South Carolina or interpolate those sources for other states. The author begins with getting one's research back to the 1870 census, providing details on all the usual sources to achieve that most basic research. Free persons of color are addressed next. Then, how to identify one's enslaved ancestors, focusing here on probate files and equity cases. Chapter 4 consists of lists of actual names found in records at the South Carolina Archives, from probate, tax, and state census records.”
“Whether someone plans to research their own family or provide services for pay, getting an education is imperative,” insists Garrett-Nelson. “In the same vein, consumers of genealogical services must be informed about the education and skill level of the people they hire.”
All of her training for doing better genealogy research has enabled LaBrenda to be selective in taking on new client projects. “In my experience, the very best referrals are by word of mouth. The learning never stops. Preparing to lecture is a form of continuing education , but I also try to attend at least one institute a year to deepen my knowledge of record sets and methodology.”
Even so, most of her time is devoted to sharing her knowledge through publishing or lecturing. It turns out that the more actual genealogy work she does, the more she learns, and the more she learns, the more material she gathers for teaching and writing.
“I am very selective about the work I take on for individual clients,” she points out. “First and foremost a project has to be interesting to me. For example, for the last several years I have been researching the ancestry of an African descended man whose ancestors were enslaved in the Cherokee Nation. For over a year I worked on a major project for Reuters, the world’s largest multimedia news provider—that project was unveiled at the end of June 2023.”
Inspiration from Family—Past, Present, and Future
LaBrenda's current work in the field of genealogy began with her early curiosity of personal heritage. The most immediate inspiration comes from "my family, those who have passed on and those who are still with us, especially my daughter."
The ancestor she emphatically credits with the kinds of virtues she most wants to instill in her own posterity is, without a doubt, her Garrett great-grandfather. "He was born into slavery but worked himself to death acquiring a farm in South Carolina, which is still in family hands. He donated land for the building of a church that is still operating 113 years later, educated his children, and left an enduring legacy of hard work and determination."
Clearly, we can understand how ancestors like LaBrenda's great-grandfather Garrett are a source of pride. But so is LaBrenda Garrett-Nelson for just about anyone who knows her.
“I really do see it as my mission to use the skills I used for 35 years keeping corporate America safe, to apply it to this discipline and to focus on African American genealogy.”
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