INDIANAPOLIS — Indianapolis resident Colleen Heeter has always been interested in genealogy — the study of families. She loves finding family members she never knew she had.

“I’ve met about 65 different cousins. They’re all over the United States. But there’s more. There’s over 100,” Heeter said.

Heeter’s grandparents opened a school for Black children in rural Kentucky after the Civil War. It was the only school for miles that would educate Black children.

That’s just one of the stories she’s learned about her family through her research.

The journey to find her family wasn’t always easy. Sometimes she turned to her friend Eunice Trotter for help.

“Particularly children and a lot of adults, see history as boring, but history is our underpinning. It is who we are as a family, as a nation, as a state, as a world,” Trotter said.

Trotter is the director of the new Black Heritage Preservation Program at Indiana Landmarks. She says it’s one of the only state-wide African-American preservation programs in the country.

“We have a chance to shine like a diamond and set an example for the nation,” Trotter said.

The goal of the new program is to document African-American heritage in Indiana.

With October being family history month, WRTV is shining a light on what researchers are doing to trace Black roots and uncover African American genealogy.

“In the case of African-American heritage and history, the actual sites have been…