Final answer:
Former slaves traveled to find family, placed ads for lost relatives, and did various jobs to sustain themselves post-Civil War, including sharecropping and skilled labor. They also sought to legalize marriages and gain control over their family life.
Step-by-step explanation:
After the Civil War, former slaves engaged in various activities in the aftermath, including traveling the roads, placing ads in newspapers, and searching long and hard for their family members. This massive search for reconstitution of families meant that many freedpeople immediately left plantations to find relatives sold away during slavery. Through newspaper ads, they sought information about these relatives well into the turn of the 20th century. Moreover, the newly freed individuals strived to gain control over their own lives, including retrieving their apprenticed children and asserting freedom to control their families.
Some also enlisted in the Union Army, contributed to the war effort through manual labor, or engaged in various trades such as carpentry to earn money. After emancipation, there was an attempt at legalizing marriages, and for those without families, they often relocated to join the larger Black community in southern towns. The pursuit of landownership was also significant, with many former slaves becoming sharecroppers, due to limited opportunities to purchase land.