Reparative Genealogy Institute

The infrastructure
of historical repair

Without genealogical evidence, descendants cannot be identified, harms cannot be documented, and repair cannot be implemented.

Reparative Genealogy Institute transforms archival research into enforceable outcomes — identifying descendants, documenting harm, and producing the evidentiary foundation required for reparative justice.

Partner With RGI For Foundations & Cities Book a Consultation
Jaunty Stevens Underwood — An American Life in Slavery, Law and Kinship, Volume I by Kellie M. Farrish

Jaunty Stevens Underwood — Volume I — 2025

Proven Outcomes

This is what reparative genealogy makes possible.

$28M+

Total financial impact influenced by Kellie’s research

$24.5M

Class action settlement — Senegal v. Chase

$3.85M

Municipal reparations — City of Santa Monica

$375K

Direct housing wealth transferred to Detroit descendants

15

Families placed into homeownership via lineage verification

MFA

Museum restitution achieved — Boston return of cultural property

Every reparations program depends on one question:
Who qualifies — and why?
Reparative genealogy answers that question with evidence.

The evidence layer for repair

The missing infrastructure
of repair

Reparative Genealogy Institute provides the missing infrastructure of repair.

We do not simply trace lineage. We produce the documented evidence required for reparations, land return, cultural restitution, and institutional accountability. This work combines traditional genealogy — archival records, census, DNA, probate — with historical analysis, descendant identification, documentation of harm, and support for reparative action.

Few practitioners combine genealogy, historical research, reparations work, legal evidence development, descendant organizing, and narrative restoration. This is why Kellie’s work is closer to forensic historical investigation than hobby genealogy.

Why it matters

This is not ancestry.
This is evidence.

Most reparations efforts fail at the same point: they cannot definitively identify who qualifies — or document why. Reparative genealogy solves this.

This work is already being implemented in cities, courtrooms, institutions, and communities across the country.

01

Identify Descendants

Verified lineage through census, probate, DNA, oral history — establishing documented connection to reparative claims.

02

Document Harm

Trace the specific systems — slavery, land seizure, racial terror, displacement — that produced quantifiable, generational harm.

03

Produce Evidence

Develop evidentiary reports used in reparations programs, legal claims, land-back negotiations, and institutional review.

04

Restore Narrative

Return names, stories, and histories to descendants — transforming archival fragments into complete, documented family narratives.

Now available

Jaunty Stevens Underwood

An American Life in Slavery, Law and Kinship — Volume I

Jaunty Stevens Underwood was a woman enslaved in antebellum America whose life intersected with law, kinship, and survival in ways that defy the silence of the archive. This book traces her life and the lives of her descendants through court records, deeds, freedmen’s bureau documents, and the evidence left in the margins of history.

Volume I is the first in a multi-volume genealogical biography that demonstrates what reparative genealogy makes possible: not just names and dates, but lives understood in full, restored to the American record.

Author
Kellie M. Farrish
Publisher
Reparative Genealogy Publishing
Series
Volume I — ongoing multi-volume series
Available
Amazon & major retailers
Buy on Amazon →
Jaunty Stevens Underwood book cover

New Initiative

Freedmen Descendant Documentation Project

Were your ancestors listed on the Freedmen Rolls of the Cherokee or Muscogee (Creek) Nation? We are documenting families descended from Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes — search 400+ surnames from the Dawes Rolls and register your lineage.

Search your surname →
Active Implementation

Where This Work Is
Being Applied

From municipal reparations to federal policy to cultural restitution.

Published Case Study

Jaunty Stevens Underwood — An American Life

The first published case study in reparative genealogy — restoring an enslaved woman’s life to the historical record and demonstrating what becomes possible when genealogy is used as a tool of repair.

Descendant Documentation

Freedmen Descendant Documentation Project

Identifying and documenting families descended from the Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes — building the evidentiary foundation for recognition, lineage verification, and reparative claims.

Search surnames →

Cultural Restitution

Descendants of Dave the Potter

Documenting descendants of David Drake — resulting in the landmark return of cultural property from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Additional restitution claims ongoing.

Visit descendantsofdave.org →

International Policy

UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent

Global presentation on genealogy as evidence for reparations and cultural restitution — advancing scalable pathways for international repair.

Legislation

California Legislature — Cultural Property Provenance Act

Authored legislation requiring museums to conduct descendant-informed provenance review — codifying reparative genealogy methodology into law.

Housing Reparations — Detroit

Reparation Generation — Homeownership Program

Lineage verification framework powering the program that placed 15 Detroit families into homeownership, transferring $375,000 in direct generational wealth.

About Kellie M. Farrish

Genealogist. Historian.
Institutional Strategist.

Kellie Marie Farrish is a genealogist and institutional strategist whose work transforms archival research into enforceable outcomes — including legal settlements, municipal reparations, and cultural restitution.

Her research has influenced more than $28 million in documented financial outcomes.

Her work operates at the intersection of lineage documentation, public policy, legal evidence development, and descendant advocacy — establishing genealogy as critical infrastructure for reparative justice.

Through the Reparative Genealogy Institute, Farrish formalizes and scales a methodology that moves genealogy beyond historical inquiry — into a tool for institutional accountability, economic repair, and historical truth. She serves as administrator of the Dave the Potter Trust and descendantsofdave.org.


Work with Kellie
Kellie M. Farrish

Kellie M. Farrish

Founder & Executive Director, RGI

Named class member, Senegal v. Chase ($24.5M settlement)

Historian, City of Santa Monica Landback Taskforce

Genealogist & board member, Reparation Generation

Administrator, Dave the Potter Trust

Cultural restitution, MFA Boston

Author, Reparative Genealogy Publishing

Reparative genealogy is not theoretical. It is already being implemented — in cities, institutions, courtrooms, and communities across the country.

Research & Consulting

What We Do

01

Descendant Research & Identification

Deep archival research locating descendants of enslaved people and historically displaced communities through census analysis, probate records, DNA triangulation, oral history, and migration mapping.

02

Historical Harm Documentation

Forensic-level interpretation of slavery-era legal records, property documents, and municipal archives to build the evidence base for reparative claims — land return, restitution, institutional accountability.

03

Institutional Consulting

Advising cities, museums, foundations, and legal teams on lineage verification frameworks, descendant recognition programs, and the genealogical infrastructure required for reparative policy implementation.

04

Reparative Reports & Genealogical Biographies

Comprehensive written genealogical biographies that restore family members to the historical record, providing documented lineage for descendants and supporting narrative restoration.

05

Community Genealogy Projects

Building descendant organizations and community archives that connect kin, recover shared history, and establish a documented foundation for collective reparative action.

06

Public History & Narrative Restoration

Publications, archives, and public history projects that shift control of the historical narrative from institutions to descendants — books, documentaries, exhibits, and digital archives.

Press & Media

The work, in the news

Kellie M. Farrish — Reparative Genealogy

Descendants of Dave the Potter — Museum Restitution

Smithsonian Magazine

An Enslaved Man Made Thousands of Ceramic Pots. Now, a Boston Museum Has Returned Two of Them to His Descendants

Museum of Fine Arts Boston returns pottery by Dave the Potter to his documented descendants — a landmark cultural restitution achieved through Kellie’s genealogical research.

Read the story →
Detroit Free Press

This Reparations Program Helps Black Metro Detroiters Purchase Homes

How the Reparation Generation program — powered by Kellie’s lineage verification framework — placed 15 Detroit families into homeownership, transferring $375,000 in direct wealth.

Read the story →
Santa Monica Daily Press

City Settles Ebony Beach Club Case for $350,000

Archival research by Kellie as historian for the City of Santa Monica’s Landback Taskforce uncovered the 1957 municipal scandal behind the Belmar Triangle displacement.

Read the story →
City of Santa Monica

Santa Monica to Launch Historic Restorative Justice Program

The City of Santa Monica announces a $3.5 million restorative justice allocation for residents displaced from the Belmar Triangle — directly informed by Kellie’s archival research.

Read the announcement →
Berkeleyside

Reparations Payments: Reparation Generation in Berkeley & Detroit

Coverage of the Reparation Generation program’s expansion, spotlighting the genealogical infrastructure Kellie built to verify descendant eligibility for housing reparations.

Read the story →
NPR

California Is a Step Closer to Reparations. Not All Black Residents Will Qualify

NPR’s coverage of the California reparations effort and the critical role of descendant documentation — the kind of lineage verification work the Reparative Genealogy Institute specializes in.

Read the transcript →
Los Angeles Times

California’s Reparations Effort Moves Ahead

The LA Times tracks California’s historic reparations commission progress, contextualizing the national movement in which reparative genealogy plays a foundational evidentiary role.

Read the story →

Work With the
Reparative Genealogy Institute

We partner with foundations, cities, legal teams, and institutions seeking to implement reparative frameworks grounded in evidence. Whether you are a funder, a policy maker, a descendant, or an institution — the work begins here.

Schedule a Consultation For Foundations & Cities
Get in Touch

Contact Kellie

Whether you’re a foundation, city official, legal team, researcher, journalist, or descendant seeking your family’s story, the Reparative Genealogy Institute welcomes partnership and inquiry.

Institute
Reparative Genealogy Institute
Publisher
Reparative Genealogy Publishing
Site
reparativegenealogy.com