African American Probate Records
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Online Resources[edit | edit source]
- 1775-1867 Race and Slavery Petitions at Digital Library on American Slavery - index; court records regarding enslaved peoples; covers 15 slaveholding states
- Enslaved: Peoples of the Historical Slave Trade - includes records of those enslaved, including court records, and links to relevant databases and projects documenting individuals
- The Lantern Project (Legal Records Documenting Enslaved Persons) at Mississippi State University Libraries — index & images
Introduction[edit | edit source]
For the most part, besides being counted as chattel on tax records, land deeds, and census slave schedules, African Americans were not counted as people until the 1870 census. Other records of interest would be church records, which notes people of color being allowed or dispelled from the church, etc., but they were not always given a surname. Sometimes they were noted by their first name and "as belonging to 'X' slaveholder." Therefore, African American researchers are very dependent upon getting information from the slaveholding family's documentation.
- Gleaning Information About Enslaved Ancestors from Probate Files, by LaBrenda Garrett-Nelson, NGS Magazine 48 #3 (April-June 2022): 23-27. FS Catalog book 973 D25ngs v.48 no.2
Resources for Marriage, Census, and Cemetery Data[edit | edit source]
1850 Slave Schedules[edit | edit source]
- 1850 United States Census (Slave Schedule), 1850 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; index & images
- 1850 U.S. Federal Census - Slave Schedules at Ancestry - index & images ($)
1860 Slave Schedules[edit | edit source]
- 1860 U.S. Federal Census - Slave Schedules at Ancestry - index & images ($)
- 1860 United States Census (Slave Schedule), 1860 at FamilySearch - How to Use this Collection; — index & images
Wills[edit | edit source]
Public Auction notices for enslaved persons can be found in probate records.
Documentation of names of African Americans are mentioned in the 1790-1865 wills of white slaveholders in Liberty County, Georgia.
- See the FamilySearch Catalog for Liberty County, Georgia, Probate Records.
Missouri State Archives[edit | edit source]
- Guide to African American History at the Missouri State Archives
- Missouri's African American History
Description of Records on Film
Roll-by-roll listing of Missouri County Records on microfilm by county:
For African American researchers, the items below are of interest. If a family enslaved individuals, records of purchase, sale, rent, mortgage, gift, lawsuits, etc., can be found under the various listings related to probate. Of particular interest are books and other resources that transcribe or are abstracts of Wills, Administrations, and Probate. The following websites are helpful.
Land Deed Records[edit | edit source]
Final Settlement and Inventory Records
These records show the final disposition of an estate, including who the enslaved persons in a household were sold to or given to and for how much. Land Deed records are equally important. Tax records will note how many people a slaveholder had enslaved.
Registers of Enslaved Persons, Registers of Freedmen, and Manumission Papers. From the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, about ten percent of African Americans were free. Most free African Americans carried their own papers, but these could be stolen. In order to distinguish between the enslaved, runaways, and free African Americans, many counties or states in the upper South, and border states kept one or more sets of registers or papers. Some had registers of enslaved persons. Some kept registers of Blacks, Freedmen, Free Men of Color, or "free Negroes." Some kept copies of manumission papers of people freed from slavery. To find these kinds of registers or papers look in county courthouse records. They are most likely found in the court papers, among the land and property deeds, or occasionally in probate or tax records. Sometimes these kinds of records are found at state libraries, archives, or historical societies.
For more information about registers of enslaved persons, see the article How to look for records of Enslaved people and slave owners, from the National Archives - UK.
Websites[edit | edit source]
- Slave Archival Collection
- Using U.S. African- American Records to Trace Ancestors Abroad. - ExploreGenealogy