On January 15, 1867, a transportation request was made to Maj. Gen. Oliver Otis Howard, commissioner of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, to transport 435 freed men, women, and children from Kingstree in Williamsburg County, South Carolina, to Charleston and then to Galveston, Texas. They traveled by ship and were ultimately taken to Falls County, Texas, to work under Freedmen’s Bureau labor contracts. Through genealogical research and DNA testing, descendants of this group have traced connections between ancestors who moved to Texas and living relatives in the Williamsburg County area and beyond.