The Life and Times of Professor Norwood R. Shields and the Little Bethel AME Church

The Friends and Staff of the Cos Cob Library welcome noted genealogist, Teresa Vega. Her program will focus on the life and times of Professor Norwood R. Shield and the Little Bethel AME Church.

In 1898 Greenwich High School’s first graduating class consisted of 5 young men and 7 young ladies. Norwood R Shields a member of that class was also the first African American graduate of Greenwich High School. His father Rev William H Shields was a graduate of Lincoln University, a historically Black University. In 1894 Reverend Shields became the pastor of Little Bethel AME Church in central Greenwich. Norwood R Shields, a graduate of Cornell University, was a Professor and a Department Director at Wilberforce University, Ohio for over 33 years. He then went on to a position at the U of Delaware. He died in 1955.

Teresa has been researching her family history/genealogy for almost 20 years. However, it wasn’t until 2010 that she began to research her family history in depth using a combination of traditional genealogy as well as genetic genealogy. She has been able to trace several of her maternal mixed-race lines back to colonial New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Virginia. The ethnic admixture of these lines is a mix of West African, Malagasy, Native American, and European people and represents some of the earliest settlers in this country along with Native Americans who have always been here. It has always been her goal to document her family history the way it was experienced by her ancestors.

Her research specialties include both African-American and Puerto Rican Genealogy in general, Slavery and Free Blacks in the Northeast, the Afro-Dutch Cultural Legacy in NY and NJ, the NY-Madagascar Slave Trade in the Late 1600-Early 1700s, the Historical Importance of African-American Burial Grounds as well as Genetic Genealogy for Beginners.

The Friends of the Cos Cob Library have sponsored the “Next in a Series Genealogy Programs” for eighteen years.