Finding state laws about slaves and free blacks has always been a complicated process. If you’re the typical genealogist like me, you didn’t have easy access to expensive databases. You had to visit a law library and search each year’s laws. You could also try to do that online. I promise you it was no fun. […]
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Category: Posts 2014-2019
The Complexity of Slave Surnames
Numerous historical sources confirm that enslaved people had surnames that they used among themselves and in many cases were known by their slaveholder. However, the common practice by slaveholders was to only use the given names of enslaved people in documents such as estate papers, court and deed records. This causes many researchers to […]
More Suggestions for White Slaveholder D...
I was encouraged that many of you read my last blog post, and shared your feelings about being the descendants of slaveholders. That post had over 7,000 views! (Update, 12/2108: Over 25,000 views of that post). At a time when so much ugliness is on display daily in our country, it heartens me that there […]
Suggestions For the White Descendants of...
I have been pondering this topic for awhile and received a recommendation to discuss it on my blog. It’s an important one I think, but one fraught with all the ugliness that discussions of slavery and race entail. What follows are informed thoughts I’d like to offer garnered from the almost 20 years that I have been researching […]
Searching Ancestry Databases: Things You...
Since Ancestry remains the primary website for genealogy research, I’d like to share a few tips for researching its databases. For the first example, I’ll use the marriage database below called Maryland Compiled Marriages, 1667-1899: We Must Know the Source Typically, we put the names of our ancestors in the search box. If the search came up empty, we might conclude […]
Researching Soldiers in World War I
My great-grandfather Lawson Holt served in the Army during World War I. Like most, his were among the records destroyed during the infamous 1973 fire at the National Personnel Records Center. This post shows how it is possible to still find out more information about your ancestor’s military service, even though those files are gone. […]
Freedmen’s Bureau Record Uncovers Likely
I made a big discovery recently courtesy of Familysearch’s newly indexed Freedmen’s Bureau Labor Contracts. A Little Background Several years ago, I used cluster research to trace my Tennessee ancestor Mike Fendricks back to his Alabama roots. At a standstill with Mike, I traced the roots of Dee Suggs, a man Mike lived with in […]
Never Rely On Just the Census
Ah, the census. The glorious census. It’s such an important document in genealogy, I would venture to say even a foundational document. But its flaws are many. Those who rely on only the census to reconstruct their ancestral families do so at the risk of recreating a family inaccurately. Take for example the case of my ancestor […]
Verify Your Oral History
One of the first things we’re instructed when we begin our genealogy journey is to interview our elders. This is by far one of the most important things for us do. Our family members can provide information we may never find in documents. It has always been ironic to me that the time when most […]
A Slave’s Letter to His Former Master
UPDATE: After I posted this, I discovered more articles about the history of Jordan Anderson, the author of this amazing letter. The Smithsonian wrote an article and I enjoyed this article in the UK’s Daily Mail, which provides extensive background research on Jordan. In terms of genealogy, this author satisfies family historians. Historical Background Jordan Anderson was indeed a real person […]