HOW DOES SHE FIND THE NAME OF THE SLAVES WHO MIGHT BE HER ANCESTORS? SHE HAS THE NAME OF THE SLAVE OWNER! (A BIT OF A TUTORIAL!)

Q

Hi AW!  I've got the name of the slave owner. How do I find the names of the slaves he owned, which I think includes a line of my ancestry?

Hannah

A 

I'm impressed Hannah; I'm going to believe you without knowing how you found the name of the slave owner, and for the purposes of this answer, for the sake of other readers of Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot, I'm going to go over some aspects of African-American genealogy research.

First, it's American research. So, do your UNITED STATES CENSUS work as far back as you can. Something I used to do all the time with microfilm, and I think we should still do in databases, is to examine the pages of the census for the surrounding area when we find a family group - just to see if there are others local who might have the same surname or be related so forward and back, please!

The first United States census in which the freed slaves are named is 1870, which was after the Civil War. Until then people other than the head of household were counted as statistics and names were not given. But if you can find the family on the 1870 you probably already have the names of some people who were in slavery in the location. (If by chance any of your ancestors fell into the category of Free, you may be able to go back by comparing the people on the 1870 with those statistics re living in the same area and same head of household as well.)

Do the census work for the SLAVE OWNER if you find one - and any legal documents pertaining to them and their family regarding inheritance.

A caution when using databases. Often I skip the question of race or color as I think this has been subjective. I will note it, but it may not be the same answer for the same person as the decades go by.  (B - Black.  N - Negro.  M - Mulatto (mixed race). W - White.)

Check the FREEDMAN BANK RECORDS just in case. I personally have not had a whole lot of luck with these but I have once or twice had a breakthrough - because the persons had unusual and consistent names. 

********************************************************************************

My photo of part of the exhibit which is a display in a hallway.

YOU MAY WANT TO VISIT THE LOS ANGELES PUBLIC LIBRARY - CENTRAL "DOWNTOWN" TO SEE A SMALL BUT WELL DONE EXHIBIT ABOUT THE FREEDMAN BANK RECORDS. It was put together by librarians from the Genealogy and Economics departments and is in a hallway.

******************************************************************************

OK so... IF YOU HAVE THE NAME OF THE SLAVE OWNER and the NAME or/and LOCATION of the farm, plantation, or place of residence for the slaves, CHECK THE LOCAL HISTORY to see if there is any mentions. Is there a biography of the slave owner, for instance? A biography might lead you to more information about the slave owner and who his or her relatives are: Wills or Bills of Sale may have more information.

Check to see if there are any genealogy groups local to that area, especially with African-American focus. (At the same time be careful to discern what "oral history" and archival documents or support documents there are.)

Check to see if there are any existing local newspapers and how far back they go, likely news that may apply will mention the slave owner.

But to be more focused on your question THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES brags that it has the largest collection relating to the African- American experience.

Also check SLAVE NARRATIVES. https://www.loc.gov/collections/slave-narratives-from-the-federal-writers-project-1936-to-1938/about-this-collection/

Excerpt:  Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938 contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves.  These narratives were collected in the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers' Project (FWP) of the Works Progress Administration, later renamed Work Projects Administration (WPA).  At the conclusion of the Slave Narrative project, a set of edited transcripts was assembled and microfilmed in 1941 as the seventeen-volume Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves. In 2000-2001, with major support from the Citigroup Foundation, the Library digitized the narratives from the microfilm edition and scanned from the originals 500 photographs, including more than 200 that had never been microfilmed or made publicly available.  This online collection is a joint presentation of the Manuscript and Prints and Photographs divisions of the Library of Congress. 

I'm going to this link https://guides.loc.gov/manuscripts-illustrated-guide/african-american-history

Excerpt: The Manuscript Division has one of the nation's most valuable collections for the study of African-American history and culture. The Library's holdings include information about slavery and the slave trade as well as other aspects of plantation life. Papers of slaveholders provide one view of slavery, and slave narratives give another. Diaries and journals further illuminate lives spent in slavery and freedom. The manuscripts of black and white abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass and Salmon P. Chase describe the efforts of those who attempted to alleviate the plight of slaves, and the records of the American Colonization Society detail the saga of African Americans who left the United States and established the West African nation of Liberia in the mid- nineteenth century. Papers relating to black participation and victimization in the Civil War abound, and African-American history during Reconstruction is reflected in collections pertaining to newly elected black officials such as John Mercer Langston, Blanche K. Bruce, Hiram R. Revels, and Francis L. Cardozo.

https://www.loc.gov/item/mm82057687/#:~:text=Correspondence%2C%20speeches%2C%20writings%2C%20court,during%20the%20American%20Civil%20War. This is the link to the Black History Collection.  (I'm aware that Black is a preferred term these days, but for the purposes of our research we search for a collection title as it was when it came into being and we will encounter other terms we may not like as well.)

• Correspondence, speeches, writings, court records, slave records, slave deeds, emancipation and manumission papers, birth and marriage records, wills, family and genealogical papers, military records, financial records, ships' papers, broadsides, newspaper clippings, printed matter, and other papers pertaining to African Americans from the colonial period through the early twenty-first century. Subjects include the slave trade, slaves, medical care of slaves, fugitive slaves, abolition, emancipation, manumission, freed persons, civil rights, political rights and suffrage, and military service, in particular, during the American Civil War.
  
  THERE ARE OTHER COLLECTIONS AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES THAT MAY BE OF VALUE, but again, don't forget the more local resources, and that includes the small libraries in small towns and historical society collections!

C 2025 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot

All rights claimed including Internet and International Rights

UPDATED BLOGGER PROFILE - I'VE BEEN BLOGGING ANCESTRY WORSHIP - GENEALOGY SINCE 2009! FIFTEEN YEARS !!!

 

On Blogger since January 2009

Profile views - 2014

Report Abuse

My blogs

• ANCESTRY WORSHIP - Genealogy

About me

Gender	Female
Industry	Consulting
Occupation	Researcher - Writer - Genealogist
Location	United States
Introduction	Bit by bit, I'm working on a book about my adventures in genealogy, a book that's alternatively spiritual! I encourage you to include niche specific history into the genealogy and family book you're writing! I have at least three decades of experience as a genealogy researcher. I started with interviewing my own relatives years ago. I use books, maps, family artifacts and records, microfilms, and specialty databases, at private and governmental archives, museums, libraries and historical societies... And of course there is now the amazingly impactful Internet... I've researched, written, and produced books. I've taught Genealogy on the Internet. I like to help other researchers break through research blocks! Christine
Interests	ANCESTRY WORSHIP - a Genealogy BlogSpot was founded in January 2009 and is still going strong! My interest is in conveying professional genealogy standards with a focus on American - United States research. I provide links to useful databases, give advice and experientials, make commentary, and review books. I also touch on some alternative spiritual notions such as reincarnation, ancestral memory, and ancestor worship. (Are you the reincarnation of an ancestor?)
Favorite Movies	I love going to a big theatre and being taken out of my seat - going to another time and place and forgetting that I'm sitting there. I loved binge-watching Boardwalk Empire and also The Crown.
Favorite Music	I do love all sorts of music but what I listen to has much to do with what mood I'm in. I listen to everything from Gregorian Chants to Indian Music to Rock and Roll!
Favorite Books	I seem to always have a book ordered in to one library or another and over the years I've found I love memoirs most of all.

How do you pronounce the 'g' in bologna?

You don't. Where I come from, back in the day when we actually ate this meat, we said BA LONE EEE!

CUPID'S SAFE

 

VISIT THE AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURAL CENTER in LONG BEACH CALIFORNIA

 AACCLB - African American Cultural Center - Long Beach California

Long Beach is far south in Los Angeles County and far from the fires.  I was able to see this exhibit - small but impressive - and suggest YOU might find it as interesting as I did.  The AACCLB has changing exhibits and opportunities to explore.

ATLAS OF THE TRANSATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE : ANCESTRY WORSHIP BOOK RECOMMENDATION

This big, impressive hardback book is quite the accomplishment for the authors. Eltis is the a the Robert W. Woodruff Professor History and Principal Investigator for the electronic Slave Trade Database Project, at Emory University.  RIchardson is the director of the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation, and professor of economic history, University of Hull, England and also is on the advisory board for the Slave Trade database 

The book contains old art that depicted slavery (as the artist imagined it), maps of the slave trade word of the Atlantic including routes and numbers of slaves transported from place to place (or region to region),  quotes from journals of slavers, and discussion of the roles various ethnicity-nationals played in the trade; the Portuguese - who dominated Africa to South American, the Spanish who moved slaves from Central and West-Central Africa to the Caribbean,  the Dutch who moved slaves from Dutch owned Africa to Dutch owned plantations of Spanish America - and from there, British slave trafficking and how it changed over the years ... and an overall history with details and specifics.

Consider that fewer slaves died on the way to Brazil as the length of the voyage was shorter but there were also other factors such as, possibly, that the slaves taken started out in better health, or - perhaps - this is my notion - that the slavers became more careful to take those who were healthier as they had more money to gain with an alive shipload of humans than not.

So, you may be wondering how this book might benefit you and your ancestral research into genealogy.

Many people who know or suspect they have African slave heritage go with DNA testing to get information about the ethnic group or groups they have lineage with.  But maybe the testing could lead to a discovery that is more unusual.

According to Henry Louis Gates, Jr. this book is a "gold mine" of information.

For instance on page 216  (Map 143 New England, 166-1802) it says:

Relatively few slaves (some 10,000) reached New England directly from Africa.  Most came from areas west of modern Nigeria.  Ninety percent arrived in Boston - and Newport owned vessels.  More African captives reached New England through inter-colonial trafficking or as the residual of a larger group of slaves sold from New England Transatlantic vessels in the West Indies.

EMORY SLAVE INDEXES

Excerpt:  The Slave Voyages site now provides resources detailing more than 36,000 Slave trading Voyages between Africa and the New World, another 11,400 intra-American Voyages from one part of the Americas to another, and data on some 92,000 Africans forced to make those journeys. 

C 2025 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot  All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights.

SLAVE VOYAGES ORG - TWO DATBASES : TRANS-ATLANTIC and INTRA-AMERICAN

SLAVE VOYAGES ORG  TRANSATLANTIC - era 1514-1866  - INTRA-AMERICAN

year -name of vessel - where captives were purchased - where ship landed - numbers of slaves alive on ship at arrival - name of captain.

**************************************************

Slavery As It Exists In America.
Slavery As It Exists in England

source: Library of Congress -Washington DC -Prints and Photographs Division

ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY BLOGSPOT

Our genetic and spiritual ancestors help us with our research quests 

and, while we follow a linear research path, 

amazing dreams and synchronicity abound. 

We explore multicultural ancestry worship 

and the use of genealogy for past-life verification, 

as well as practical ways and means to achieve your research goals.

THE LAST SECRET OF THE ANNEX by JOOP VAN WEJK-VOSKUIJL and JEROEN DE BRUYN

My copy's front cover stated "A Fascinating attempt to unlock this mystery and a case study in how Holocaust trauma can ripple through the generations." - The Wall Street Journal.

This is a book about a mystery that those familiar with the now classic book, The Diary of Anne Frank, has wondered about: Who revealed that that Anne Frank, her sister, her parents, family friends and son Peter, and another - a dentist she shared her little bedroom area with, were hiding in the annex?  It is also a book about some things that were not quite a secret but the readership did not know - that there were others including the author Joop Van Wijk-Voskuijl's mother, Bep Voskuijl, who collaborated to hide these Jewish people. These were employees of Otto Frank. Bep chose not to be revealed when Anne's diary was edited. Central to the story is that quite possibly a family member was the person to testify to the authorities of their location, resulting in a raid, but also possible leniency for Bep, and that might've been her sister Nelly. 

Nelly was not exactly a Nazi but was associated, something some young Dutch women did, which was have German soldiers as boyfriends. It was an ordeal to hide Jewish people and Bep was showing that wear. Such a person (called The Righteous Among Nations by Yad Vashem, the Holocaust database in Israel)  could face arrest, deportation to camps, or being murdered on the spot.  An individual helping hid Jews could also bring disaster to their family. It is not certain that this was the case as there were other possible candidates when it comes to who squealed. There is good reason why... 

To pause a bit before I begin more of a book review here, I wish to let you know that The Diary of Anne Frank was required reading when I was in the fifth grade.  I recall focusing on the budding romance between Anne and Peter, and that I simply could not understand why people would be so horrible to people. Anne was a hopeful person but there must have been some class discussion of a depressing nature. Torture and systematic murder, war and genocide, had not effected my young life and so there I was, ten years or so, and not quite understanding. I don't recall the diary so well, but I will say that The Last Secret of the Secret Annex, provided me information I had not come across before in all the years since, and I think that this is valuable information.

This book is also excellent in explaining the conditions that the people of the Netherlands experienced when the Nazi's came into power there, the deprivations, especially hunger and cold.

"Thousands of Jews were now hiding all across Holland.  The Franks knew that there were bounties on their heads - initially 2.5 guilders for every Jew found, but the Nazi's kept raising the price as their hunt intensified until it reached 40 guiders." (page 38 of the paperback.)

First, I had not known that "The Annex" was a room within a pectin and spice factory that Otto Frank owned, called Opekta, and that he actually owned the whole building, which he had purchased in 1940. The Franks were well off. I imagined it as an attic in a house somewhere and not owned by the Franks.  In fact the annex was planned, refurbished to some extent, and furnished and supplied in advance of the need to flee. Later the bookcase hiding the entrance stairway was built and installed by another employee who had to know.  And as such,  Bep, and eventually at least yet another employee there, the warehouse manager, actually knew that the Franks were there.  However, also new to me, is that the kind of silence I imagined - the family sitting still all day until nightfall and being active at night, isn't correct.  Apparently sounds they made were heard during the day. Therefor it might have been that all the employees knew or suspected. 

"From the moment the Annex was occupied, the helpers fretted over its security.  Sounds rattled through the walls and pipes of the old canal-side building.  The rule inside the Annex was that the inhabitants had to whisper during the workday, and they had to wear slippers instead of shoes to muffle the sound of their footsteps.  yet despite such measures, arguments and even loud shouting would sometimes break out and echo loudly."...  (page 53)

Their benefactors were sneaky, of course, but I was surprised to learn that Bep spent hours socializing with the Franks in the annex.  

I imagined food being scrounged up for those hiding, barely this and that, but apparently requests were made that their benefactors go shopping for things they needed or wanted.

I think of the Franks and the others as far more vulnerable to being found out than I had before.

Besides Nelly, it was suspected that a new warehouse manager named Willem van Maarent may have been there person who told the Nazi's where to find the Jews. He was known to go snooping around the office and suspected someone was coming into the warehouse after dark and even suspected the bookcase hid a door.

Perhaps more personal to Bep was that she was both in love with a much older colleague at the factory and probably had an affair with him while also seemingly destined to marry a nice younger man who wasn't as interesting to her during those years she was relied upon.  Implied is that, seeing that Bep was under severe stress, one of these men might have thought they were saving her by ending her need to hide the Jews in the annex.  Anne wrote about the young man that Bep told her about in her diary.

Last but not least, I learned that Anne was quite ambitious about being a writer, especially for a thirteen year old!  She asked Bep to help her get published, as she wrote autobiographical stories as well as fantasy fiction!

If you're interested in the Holocaust - World War II era, European history, and that of the Jewish people, you'll find this book will add to your understanding, for the focus has not so much been on the Netherlands.

C 2025 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot

FREE PRINT OUT GENEALOGY RESEARCH FORMS - CHARTS and RESEARCH LOGS ? IMPROVEMENTS NEEDED!

I've posted a number of pretty charts that may inspire you when you have completed your research and are ready to calligraphy or print neatly. 

This may surprise you but I don't like ANY of the free research charts that are offered by big genealogy databases or genealogy clubs that I've found. I mean are the ones you use while you're doing your research. 

My main reasons are:

NOT ENOUGH ROOM : Lines or boxes too close together. To handprint or type in these you may have to read with a magnifying glass. 

PRESUMPTONS ABOUT HOW MANY CHILDREN BORN IN A FAMILY.  Some family group forms are limited to two pages. There isn't even an option to list more than seven children such as a third or fourth page.

BAPTISMAL DATES MORE IMPORTANT THAN BIRTH DATES. One of my big issues is that the what is more important to genealogy is the birth date.  When every child in the village seems to have been baptized within days of its birth, OK, maybe that's not too far off, but I've found the baptismals that took place months after the birth too. In the databases the baptismal date is being used instead. This means you have to read the originals and go back and forth a few months at least. Some of these forms are overly religious to me.

THE SOLUTION?  Just type it out, neatly, and KEEP CONSISTANT TO YOUR OWN FORMAT.

C 2025 Ancestry Worship Genealogy BlogSpot  All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights.

HOW TO DECIDE WHICH OF TWO CANDIDATES FOR MARIA IS HER ANCESTOR? : QUESTIONS FOR ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY

Q : I have gone like gang-busters on all my lines but one, my dad's mother's mother. The name is common and I found two candidates. How do I decide which one to go with?  I'll explain.

I found her parents marriage (my great-grandparents) which had the ages of the bride and groom in a Roman Catholic church record in Slovakia. The bride, Maria, is listed as age 20 in 1888.  That would make about 1868 the date of Maria's birth.

Maria #1 is recorded born and baptized in the same church record as her descendants. (Her husband was born elsewhere but in the same general area - just a different church.) However, the only Maria candidate in that church record was not born in 1868 but in 1869.  As her groom is listed as age 24, and his birth/baptism is correct as proven by his birth/baptismal, it doesn't seem to me that she might be a bride who wished to appear younger than her groom or anything like that. The wedding was in mid November and her birthday was in September.

Maria #2 is not in the same church record as her descendants. But again is the same general area, just a different church. Again I found that this Maria is not born in 1868.  In this case she is born and baptized in 1867...  I went back and found her parent's marriage and that was when I realized that her mother was very pregnant with her when they married. She was born about a month later. Therefore I can imagine that by claiming to be older than she was, she might have been hiding the fact that her parents "had to get married."

I used FamilySearch database for my research and other candidates are not coming up.

Help!

Lisa

A: I see the dilemma Lisa. It is compelling to think that Maria #2 gave a wrong age at marriage because she wanted to hide her parent's need to get married when pregnant with her. However, it is also compelling to find the birth/baptism of the bride in the same church record, though it's possible the groom met his bride elsewhere. In either case we are speculating when creating a story about what happened. I do it all the time as I'm interested in the story - the culture - the society - which includes religion and expectations upon women. And sometimes that speculation - a hunch - a synchronicity - leads us to the documents we want. 

As a side I once read that an infertile wife was so unwanted that a first pregnancy without marriage was actually desirable by some.

I looked at the records you referred me to and I think that the first Maria is your best candidate. However, in writing my book I would provide the genealogy for both Maria's with an explanation for why you did that. Remember that we write our books in a way that our reader can follow us and so can another person who may go further with that information if and when more documents are available. State it as a fact that you have two candidates and why.

This is also a case where maybe the answer is in DNA as it's always possible that the man who married the pregnant bride was not the father of her child. I always say that we would still want to do the genealogy anyway because if there is a "match" with DNA an the relationship is given, you still want to figure out who is who. (As these are a set of your great-grandparents, it's not as easy as finding out who a birth parent is where a parent, sibling, or half sibling could be revealed.)

Because there are some church books that have not been indexed by FamilySearch, and some handwriting is sloppy enough for a transcriber to make errors however, and the deaths and marriages are not Indexed for Slovakia which was Hungary in 1888, I would, to have peace of mind, also look for a possible Mary in the church where the groom's birth/baptism was located and around at other parishes in the area. Last but not least, do also consider the names of villages and house numbers as well as the godparents when making the decision.

Love your research!

Christine

Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot  2025

JAPANESE FARMER BEFORE EVACUATION - LOS ANGELES COUNTY

source of photograph : Library of Congress - Washington DC - Prints and Photographs Collection

Los Angeles County, California.  The evacuation of Japanese and Japanese-Americans from West Coast areas under United States Army war emergency order.

LOC.GOV Home Page

TERMINAL ISLAND : LOST COMMUNITIES ON AMERICA'S EDGE by NAOMI HIRAHARA and GERALDINE KNATZ ; ANCESTRY WORSHIP BOOK RECOMMENDATION (NAME DROPPING THOSE LIBRARIES AND ARCHIVES)

This is a tremendous book about the history of residency on Terminal Island which is now part of the Los Angeles Harbor complex, one of the largest deep water ports in the world. The photographs and images and the story of how people made use of the resources takes us back to a pre-industrial time and then moves us forward to the development of the port. Surprises abound: the squatters shacks, burials of sailors, and an artist's colony, including a women's writing establishment. Then an important fishing village built by Japanese immigrants and the beginnings of the canned tuna enterprise developed, first fisherman, then their families. 

The book is especially strong in describing the history of the Japanese immigrants and what happened after Pearl Harbor was bombed and the United States government moved the people to internment camps.

I attended the presentation by the authors at Los Angeles Public Library Central, and then read the book page by page, rich with artistic and photographic displays. 

For the purposes of this genealogy blog, I want to focus a bit on the authors research. In the acknowledgements it mentions that besides the individuals with a personal or familial history who were interviewed and contributed, including photographs from their own collections, a number of libraries and archives were consulted. Many of you forget to contact the local libraries, historical societies, and colleges so perhaps this will be an inspiration. 

Who would have thought that Los Angeles Harbor College would have an archive that according to the authors, "opened an archive into another world for us."  Additionally the San Pedro Historical Society helped with getting back issues of the local newspaper News-Pilot. Also mentioned was the Rosemead Library's Asian Pacific Resource Center for microfilmed issues of Rafu Shimpo dating back to 1919.  California State University - Dominguez Hills Archives and Special Collections, Taiji Historical Archives, California State Historical Society, Los Angeles Public Library, Los Angeles Times (newspaper), UCLA Special Collections, Japanese American National Museum, California History Room of the California State Library, Autry National Center - Braun Research Library, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Huntington Library.  Port of Los Angeles Archives was especially helpful. Have you heard of all of these?

One of the things I thought of as most helpful for Japanese-American genealogy was the 1912 map of the island, showing the layout of streets and houses - with the full names of the residents - that was probably prepared before the removal of the squatters.

I thought about was how these people, the squatters, created homes from lumber and driftwood on land they didn't have to buy or rent, which is what our homeless are doing too. From these squatters sprung some people who became important to the history of the city of Los Angeles

C 2024-2025  Ancestry Worship - Genealogy BlogSpot

All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights

FAMILY RECORD DESIGNED BY A.L. SILVERNAIL

 

Title

• Family record / designed and executed with a pen by A.L. Silvernail, Ionia, Mich.

Summary

• Design drawing for a family record, with winged angels, birds, blank ovals for photographs, and spaces to list births, marriages, and deaths.

Names

• Silvernail, A. L., artist

Created / Published

• c1886.

Headings

• Drawings--American--1880-1890.
• Family trees--1880-1890.

Notes

• -  18876 U.S. Copyright Office
• -  Title from item.

Medium

WISHING MY READERS THE BEST RESEARCH YET IN 2025

We are all learning to be better researchers and writers!

 

ANCESTRY WORSHIP - GENEALOGY BLOGSPOT

Our genetic and spiritual ancestors help us with our research quests 

and, while we follow a linear research path, 

amazing dreams and synchronicity abound. 

We explore multicultural ancestry worship 

and the use of genealogy for past-life verification, 

as well as practical ways and means to achieve your research goals.