JFIFC    $ &%# #"(-90(*6+"#2D26;=@@@&0FKE>J9?@=C  =)#)==================================================RK" }!1AQa"q2#BR$3br %&'()*456789:CDEFGHIJSTUVWXYZcdefghijstuvwxyz w!1AQaq"2B #3Rbr $4%&'()*56789:CDEFGHIJSTUVWXYZcdefghijstuvwxyz ?Ŷe:"ʴ@*Vt#TBK>P~!u񛗌qRI\lO-7=șn֯ Va]Ρkh#2=?¹_@ήOPG2énr=NeėbƮQWv1]r[Z{>\ف*] 7Zk27y ["rfrrz ikK],r=VE c >밃~bʚiSCŚC. z pGwz4&,%>V)! q&N#ԒBFq+@;y-Ӵu(SUpVS̑bF1|mϗz`}}i&n[i/\M';*B8OƸnt&-cSs<bbqFA:bd]@ߊOR%ۧF> F6cOWA,BN2pVU*ˬgeU_g.&[٢ *cuwQWToNv~"cf#\zT/Ku,v-m9q,Wr| *b,8$w9qVn/#1)HE{ {y`v `aOWa>|O'`?Z4-u !ގeBIR+?Ed>a'&cxvW)Q`r~n՜fT6嬑ZGk*89v`tK* 6ծLUbs7"X0 >/mc+e*M,kn.?U4QDfCޠb 'ĂfÄ:rz<7{hXh> R૰*AzlsWM{lkEm;ⱜfkzo-?1`ǥWԮR͖M“\{`*Ž~\ȳY@k8ւ8JF'9c! 0Y#%ѽ֦G1VM˺sԭZt(Sx5jpqJ2 aԵmd%qҽY|OL I\2hc^;)H~EWPJ~+nj8}EU{Q]4^{2 yy%{߽ҽ ؼ#?posits totaling more than $57 million. Nine years later, the bank collapsed through mismanagement and fraud, ruining the dreams of their trusting customers.<br>Despite the bank s tragic financial history, its legacy of record keeping remains priceless. An estimated 10 million African-Americans living today have ancestors who deposited money in Freedman s Bank. Bank workers recorded the names and family relationships of account holders in an effort to establish bank customers identities. In doing so, they created the largest single repository of lineage-linked, African-American records thought to exist. <br>Family history researchers have long known about the Freedman s Bank records. The originals are preserved in the National Archives. But the data on microfilm has been essentially useless because it lacked effective and reliable indexes. The microfilm contains mid-19th century family records of 480,000 African-Americans. <br> Marie Taylor discovered these Freedman s Bank records and envisioned African-Americans breaking the chains of slavery and forging the bonds of families. She put together an inspired plan for the daunting task of compiling all these records into a useable format. The day-to-day efforts of extracting, linking and