Imagined Picture of Malinda

After decades of research, I finally know how Giles Holt acquired my ancestor Malinda. This is thanks to the transformative power of FamilySearch’s Full-Text Search. I hope you are using it.

Using FamilySearch Full-Text Search

There’s no doubt that most genealogists have heard about this new tool, but I know that not everyone has tried it. I hope sharing this find encourages you to do so.

Here’s the link for the tool, and you will need to sign in to FamilySearch. I recommend watching at least one of the many good videos on You Tube about how to use it. I like Dana Leeds video.

This tool uses artificial intelligence (AI) to read the handwritten original records on FamilySearch. It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty doggone good. This tool has already helped genealogists get past stumbling blocks by finding names in records, many of which are unindexed.

Like everything in genealogy it can be a time-consuming process. But to say it’s worth your time is the understatement of the year. Let me show you just two records I’ve found regarding my ancestor Malinda Holt.

Giles Holt

Malinda, born ca. 1816, was enslaved by a man named Giles Holt in Hardin County, Tennessee. Prior research indicates that Giles likely owned her before he moved to Hardin County from Smith County, Tennessee. County records indicated that Giles obtained his enslaved people between 1820 and 1840.

I make a table for everything, and below you can see the timeline I made for some of Giles’ records:

Timeline, page 1

As I research, I update this timeline.

I also knew from previous research that I needed to do deeper research into Sumner County. Smith County was cut from Sumner County, and Giles’ made some transactions in that county. Keep that in mind.

Giles was born and raised in Amelia County, Virginia. Like many slaveholding families, as the indigenous native nations were killed or forced to remove in the South, Giles and his brothers went to Tennessee so they could set up their own slave labor camps. They are not plantations; they are slave labor camps, and we should think of them as such.

There’s really no nice way to tell many of the chapters of American history. We just have to deal with it.

I was able to connect Malinda to Giles as her enslaver when I found two deeds in Hardin County, one of which is shown below (1843).

1843 bill of sale

Giles “sold” his enslaved people to his son Dauphin, but this was likely a strawman transaction since he was in the middle of a divorce. It doesn’t appear the enslaved went anywhere. Two years later, another deed conveyed them back to Giles.

Finding Malinda’s headstone in Hardin County over a decade ago was truly one of my most memorable and exciting finds.

Malinda’s headstone

Another Clue to Malinda’s Roots

Using FamilySearch full-text search two weeks ago, I finally found what has eluded me for so long. Searching on the name “Giles Holt” and filtering the results to “Sumner County, Tennessee” led me to this amazing document located in the Inventories and Settlements for the county:

Sumner Co. Inventories

I almost fell out.

In this document, dated 26 December 1835, Giles inherited two allotments from the estate of Jesse Holt, almost certainly his brother. As you see circled in red, he obtained Malinda & Thomas in one allotment, and Hager, Judy, and Margery in another allotment.

I was moved to tears when I saw this. Seeing human beings bought and sold as chattel (root word=cattle) still hurts. Thrown apart and separated for money, these are likely family members. Despicable.

Genealogically, aside from the sadness, this opened up a whole new world for me.

My first question was why didn’t I find this earlier? I already knew I needed to research Sumner County more deeply, it was in my research plan.

But I had planned to focus on researching Giles’ known brothers and establish a FAN club. Several men from his FAN club indeed signed off on this settlement: Elisha and W. Oglesby (W for Wesley), and Giles’ married Betsy Carr, so the Carrs are also in his club (A.M. Carr was Andrew).

Unindexed, this book of inventories is almost 800 pages. I don’t mind searching page-by-page, but I thank FamilySearch for the fact that I didn’t have to do that!

I should also mention that I had done a search for “Malinda” in the full-text, but because her name is spelled “Melinda” in this record, it didn’t show up. That’s a good lesson on the need to search under different spellings.

Document Analysis

This one record was rich with information. Malinda was given away with Thomas,  suggesting that Thomas was a baby. That correlates with a list of her children that a cousin shared with me, showing Thomas as her first child. According to the birthdate on her headstone, she would have been about 19 years old.

If you look above at the bill of sale that Giles executed in 1843 in Hardin County, you will see the names of Malinda, Juda, Marga, and Tom. They are also allotted in this probate record. Juda is Judy, Marga is probably Margery.

It provided the spouse names of several of Giles’ sisters. I can also infer that brother Thomas and sister Nancy were already dead (their allotments went to their heirs). The record also suggests that Jesse may not have had a surviving widow, since this property was distributed to his siblings.

I have to check the law in place at the time to find out the order of succession, and I need to find out why Giles got two allotments. He may have been serving as guardian to Jesse’s children, if Jesse had any, or as guardian for another sibling.

It’s also clear from other research that all of Giles’ siblings did not migrate to Tennessee. Some of these siblings still lived in Virginia. That means I have to go back into Amelia County and do more research. It is truly exciting to have new avenues of research on this line.

A Valuable Court Record

I have discussed court records on this blog many times, they are one of my favorite record types. Full-text led me to find a court record also in Sumner dated 15 February 1831. It was a deed transaction involving Giles and his siblings.

They were selling land they owned in Prince Edward County, Virginia. Their mother, Mary Ward, was from Prince Edward County.

Court Record

After decades of research, this is the very first document that explicitly ties Giles to his first wife Betsy. Their marriage record does not survive. The court record provides a list of the siblings and their spouses:

–Giles Holt & wife Betsy
–William Holt & Nancy wife (both of Smith County)
–James Holt & Sally his wife
–William Fisher & Polly his wife
–Jesse Marshall & Sally his wife
–Elisha Jones the former husband of Nancy Jones deceased
–Jesse Jones, Juditha Jones & David Jones

The last three Joneses are probably Nancy’s children. But notice this record does not include Jesse Holt, who is presumably still alive in 1831. Why? Well that’s for me to find out on another day.

Next, I’ll try to discover how Jesse obtained ownership of Malinda. Maybe I will find a deed or court record, even though I know that enslavers purchased most enslaved people at public auctions that didn’t generate public records. I blogged awhile ago about how enslaved people were sold.

I may not find it, but there is something sacred in the looking for her.

What have you found using the full-text search? Let me know in the comments.

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