HOW CAN I FIND MY GREAT GREAT GRANDMOTHER'S SLAVE SHIP AND PLACE OF BIRTH?

QUESTION for ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY

HOW CAN I FIND MY GREAT GREAT GREAT GRANDMOTHER'S SLAVE SHIP AND PLACE OF BIRTH IN AFRICA?

ANSWER

There is no one way this is done, when it is possible.  Learning the actual nation can be about DNA rather than following documentation as the documentation may not exist.  Slave Ship databases may help you learn about what ships went where but do not have slave names.  But in order to gather information to set you on the right path you still have to methodically go back in time and learn as much as you can about the history and culture of that time and place. Don't take wild leaps going back 100 years or more. Also expect to research around her, following her children and other relations you may have never met.

You have shown me your great great great grandmother is on the 1870 census and so let's take a good look at that census page.

Here is what I think:

First this is only five years after Emancipation and yet she is living in a farmstead with a planter and her daughter and their family where she is listed as being the mother in law of the head of household.  The value of this farmstead is such I believe that this planter did not earn a huge sum of money in five years.  I also see that the neighbors are listed as W while he and his family are listed as B.  They are not living in a B ghetto.  I believe that pre emancipation this person was free so look at the regular U.S.  census (free person's rather than slave registers) and continue backward as far as you can, to come up with a possible date of freedom.  Maybe the planter was born free.  Maybe he bought the freedom of his wife and mother in law.  If so there may be records of the transactions or court hearings.

Then there is the issue of his wife who would be a child of your GGG Grandmother.   I see based on children that they have been together for a good 10 years before Emancipation. I want you to follow her and her family forward.  I want you to see if you can get a possible death era or date for her.  Then check with the present day county of their location to find out where any possible death records might be kept.  it is possible that if the daughter lived as many years as her mother than she just might be on a civil register.  If they didn't have civil records in this time and place, perhaps church records.  You want to find the daughter's death record because it may name her parents even if it is a notation by a priest at her funeral Mass.  Likewise following the GGG Grandmother forward  you may try for a record of her death, hoping that there is familial information on it.

Obituaries are not out of the question and local Louisiana historical societies and libraries may help.

You show that on the 1870 your GGG Grandmother is listed as coming from Africa and family history is that she came into New Orleans.  You want to check New Orleans resources.  Make some phone calls and find out what they have or know that might help you.

Additionally the surname of the family group in 1870 is not the surname spelling that was brought forward.  Be sensitive to that.  I ran a Freedman's bank record check for this surname and came up with nothing.  However the English variant had many records.  My sense is that this family had no Freedman Bank account because they were already free.

Ancestry has some New Orleans slave ship manifests.

Here is the SLAVE VOYAGES (TRANSATLANTIC SLAVE SHIP DATABASE)  it lists ship names and captains.

Gwendolyn Midlo Hall (who is of Russian and Polish Jewish ancestry and a historian) is highly respected for what became a life's work and great contribution to slave research.  This is a link  about her work:

THE LOUISIANA SLAVE DATABASE AND THE LOUISIANA FREE DATABASE: NPS GOV GUIDE   (I believe this is a compact disk for purchase.)

A couple years ago another database became available from the Archdiocese of New Orleans.   ARCHIVES LOUISIANA - CATHOLIC CHURCH -BAPTISMALS SLAVE AND FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR   It begins with a note about how it was written in Spanish and to convert French names into their Spanish equivalents - or at least be sensitive that this may have happened.  Try for her daughter first since you know her birth year from the census.

GOOD LUCK!  Check in with me after you've done all this!

PRINCESS CHARLENE OF MONACO IRISH ANCESTRY JUST LIKE PRINCESS GRACE!

INDEPENDENT: PRINCESS CHARLENE MONACO IRISH ANCESTRY REVEALED

I am rooting for Princess Charlene!   She converted to Catholicism, married Prince Albert II, a confirmed bachelor till she did, and now she is due to give birth to her first child and a heir to the throne (so to speak) who will be mostly of Irish heritage since Princess Grace, the mother of Albert was an Irish-American.  Though she is accomplished and lovely, she seems to always be attacked by the press and I'm sorry, but the Royal Family of Monaco can be difficult.  Like other high profile Princesses she dare not step outside without a fabulous up-to-the-minute-but-age-and-station-in-life appropriate wardrobe and that is the total focus on someone who has so much more to contribute.

For instance she had the nerve to CRY at her wedding!  So what!  I cry witnessing weddings too!  Many brides are overwhelmed by their weddings and emotional about moving their love into a life long commitment.


FROM THE ARTICLE!

"The research, carried out by genealogy researchers Eneclann for Tourism Ireland, shows that Princess Charlene descends from one of the most successful gentlemen-merchant families in Dublin in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Fagans made a number of enduring contributions to the development of Dublin. In 1592, Richard and Christopher Fagan, the Princess’s great (x12) grandfathers, were key figures in the foundation of Trinity College; and in the 1660s, Christopher Fagan, the Princess’s great (x9) grandfather, sold the manor of Phoenix to the Duke of Ormond to create a royal deer park – which we know today as the Phoenix Park.

Yesterday, Princess Charlene was presented with a Certificate of Irish Heritage by HE Rory Montgomery, Irish Ambassador to France, in the Prince’s Palace in Monaco, with her husband, Prince Albert, also in attendance."

BUILDING THE ALASKA HIGHWAY : DID YOUR WORLD WAR II VET SERVE IN ALASKA? WORLD WAR II DRAFT REGISTRATIONS

LINKING TO THE PBS PAGE FOR BUILDING THE ALASKA HIGHWAY

Did you know that during World War II our largest state, Alaska, was considered terribly undefended from the Japanese?  Did you know that our service men built a 1520 mile road, facing temperatures so low that men cried, and when the thaw came, mud called muskeg so deep that logs had to be used to float  a road across the muck?

If you're ancestor served in World War II and you've looked at his World War II Draft Registration or service records on one of the databases such as Fold3 and it says ALASKA then he may have served to build the road which helped make Alaska defensible.

The road building began in May of 1942 and eventually went across sub Artic Alaska, British Columbia and the Yukon Territory involving thousands of U.S. soldiers at a time when troops were segregated. In this video we learn also about the respect that African American men earned though their hard labor.

While watching the archival footage you'll be tempted to want to stop the film to see if you recognize anyone.  Could that be Grandpa?

Picture from the PBS site linked above.

 

 

PENMANSHIP AND SIGNATURES in GENEALOGY RESEARCH - BE CAREFUL!

Recently I happily confirmed that an ancestor I found on the World War I draft registration and the World War II "Old Man's Draft" Registration were the same person.  The addresses worked with census and city directories and the signature was the same - almost identical.  It's a special thrill to have the signature of an ancestor!

However, finding this person's naturalization papers has been fraught with issues as the name is common, there are at least five persons with the name in just one city, dozens within a state, Fold3 and Ancestry have microfilm copies that show some final papers and in the back of the front image you can see papers that are covered over that might not have been filmed individually, none of the addresses seem to match, family groups are wrong or not revealed.  (Oh how I wish I were rolling up my sleeves, wearing gloves, to turn the pages of the actual paper in an archive!)

It's a temptation to look at the signatures for a match!

I looked at the signatures on several final papers in which there is no address given and no family mentioned and I noticed that these signatures, different from that of the court clerk or other officials who also wrote on the papers, were very much alike.

The reason is that in those pre typewriter and computer days there was a huge emphasis on perfect penmanship in schools.  The individuality you see in penmanship in America - using the signers of the Declaration of Independence as an example - versus men educated in the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, reveals this emphasis.  Additionally, there seems to be a difference in the signature and handwriting of those who did a lot of it and those whose literacy was confined to signing their name, something they must have practiced over and over since they would not use handwriting on a daily basis.  Sometimes you will see the signature of a woman who is otherwise unschooled which looks to be that of today's second grader though she is an intelligent and mature woman.  There was so little emphasis on women having education that even some noble women never learned to write their name.
But to write your own name was to be educated well past those who could only make their mark - an X- while someone else signed that they had witnessed this!

Therefore, signature alone cannot be used as evidence enough to accept that a person is the ancestor you seek!  There must still be other evidence to proof it.  I know you may be tempted to hire a professional graphologist or handwriting analysis person!