About Adwoa

LMSW · Genealogist · Educator

Adwoa Ulzen Setrakian is a licensed master social worker (LMSW — Georgia and Alabama) and a professional genealogist: a member of the Association of Professional Genealogists, working toward Board for Certification of Genealogists certification.

She founded and directs spanDNA Families, a diaspora-genealogy program carried out in collaboration with the Edward A. Ulzen Memorial Foundation (EAUMF), an independent nonprofit where she serves as principal genealogist and vice-chairperson, and she convenes the annual TransAtlantic Genealogy Summit. Her research contributed to the establishment of the Elmina-Java Museum in Ghana. An independent scholar and educator, her work brings together DNA, records, story, and care — reparative and relational genealogy for the Global African family.

Credentials you can verify LMSW — Georgia (verify ↗) LMSW — Alabama (verify ↗) M.S.W., Indiana University M.A., University of Alabama B.A., UNC–Chapel Hill GA Educator Certificate (P-12) (verify ↗) Virginia Educator License (verify ↗) ORCID ↗ APG member ↗ EAUMF ↗

Education

M.S.W., Indiana University (IUPUI), 2019
M.A., Secondary Education, University of Alabama, 2008
B.A., Romance Languages (French) & International Studies, UNC–Chapel Hill

Credentials & memberships

LMSW — Georgia (MSW010721) & Alabama (7255G)
Georgia Educator Certificate — School Social Work (P-12) & French (P-12)
Member, Association of Professional Genealogists
Working toward BCG certification (portfolio in progress)
Virginia Educator License (current)
ORCID 0009-0002-4878-6121 ↗

Featured & speaking

Speaker, Legacy Family Tree Webinars — "Family Legacies Reclaimed: Building Family Ties Through Genetic Genealogy" (June 2025) ↗
Featured, The LOLA — "They Know Me Here: Reclaiming Black Ancestry Through Connection" (May 2025) ↗
Featured, The African Dream — spanDNA TransAtlantic Genealogy Summit ↗

Video series — "Family Legacies Reclaimed"

Press — archival (Dutch, 2000)

My work has been more than two decades in the making. My transatlantic genealogy research was first featured in the Dutch press in 2000, when I was seventeen:

Onze Wereld — "Hollandse voorouders" ("Dutch Ancestors"), a genealogy diary of then-17-year-old Adwoa Sarkoa Ulzen tracing her Dutch ancestor (Roelof Ulsen / Dutch West India Company) — her high-school final project.
Rotterdams Dagblad (2000) — interview during the same research trip.

View the 2000 press scans (PDF) ↗

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