Fugitive slaves and their options

CAUTION: I have not read this book. I found it noted in the Legal History Blog.


Fugitive Slaves and Spaces of Freedom in North America was recently published by the University Press of Florida; it's edited by Damian Alan Pargas, a professor of history at Leiden University. According to the publisher, the book aims to provide

"a groundbreaking continental view of fugitive slave migration, moving beyond the usual regional or national approaches to explore locations in Canada, the U.S. North and South, Mexico, and the Caribbean. Using newspapers, advertisements, and new demographic data, contributors show how events like the Revolutionary War and westward expansion shaped the slave experience."

Obviously this is not genealogy, but it might provide useful leads as well as historical and geographical context.

WorldCat shows it in many college and university libraries, where it can be viewed before deciding to lay down $90 for your own copy. 

Two provoking new books

Here's a book and a blog that might be of use to genealogists focused on the southern US and/or African-American ancestors. So far I have only seen the first blog post. Court records may be the least efficiently used of readily available sources in genealogy! And blogging is a cool way to tempt people to read your big book.


Speaking of books about history, on a whole 'nother level, here's a review of James C. Scott's Against the Grain, one that could turn your mind inside out.

Methodology Monday (NGSQ): Paul Graham reopens a chapter of African-American history in Georgia

There's a strange idea out there that "genealogy" is boring and technical, while "family history" is the fun story-telling stuff. If any article can refute this notion, it's Paul Graham's lead article in the December National Genealogical Society Quarterly, "A Love Story Proved: The Life and Family of Laura Lavinia (Kelly) Combs of Atlanta and Augusta, Georgia."

Graham, whose work is showing up everywhere these days, is one of the few who hold both the AG and CG credentials. This article, which won NGS's 2012 Family History Writing Contest, carefully marshals a variety of indirect evidence to clarify and confirm a long-standing story that Mary Combs, a free woman of color, sold her property in Atlanta in order to purchase the freedom of her enslaved husband -- a tale that had stumped previous writers and historians who tried to verify it.

This is a great article for those who are new to the specific challenges of African-American research, or who are beginning to suspect that there's a whole world of genealogy out there beyond just chasing names on Ancestry or looking them up in indexes.

Just to start, Graham had to get the name straight. No African-American Mary Combs appeared in local records, but Laura Combs did. No deed stating that she bought or sold the city lot exists. But a neighbor's 1854 deed identified her as its owner, and a tax list the following year showed that Laura Kelly, under the name of her legally required guardian -- that same neighbor -- paid taxes on property worth $1000. And the white Combs women who lived on the property in 1859 owned a slave named John.

Already a trail snaking through property records (but not "Mary's"), tax records (under another name altogether), and a city directory.

If you want to know how Graham figured out the rest, join the National Genealogical Society and read the article on line, or make your way to the nearest good genealogy library. We can't even begin to tell the story without having done the technical work.




Paul K. Graham, "A Love Story Proved: The Life and Family of Laura Lavinia (Kelly) Combs of Atlanta and Augusta, Georgia," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 101 (December 2013): 245-66.

Harold Henderson, "Methdology Monday (NGSQ): Paul Graham reopens a chapter of African-American history in Georgia," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 17 February 2014 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : viewed [date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Fun Things Picked Up Along the Way

Too short to be separate posts, too good to forget:

• You may have seen maps that shrink and squeeze the US Electoral College map in order to show states in sizes proportionate to their population rather than land area. (Here's a crude one.) Well, here's one that divides the existing map into 50 states of equal populations. The names are great too. (This may be the most interesting re-imagining of the Midwest since Jefferson's proposed states.) Thanks to Barbara Mathews for mentioning this on Facebook.

• Michigan State University has 42 Civil War collections on line, including letters, regimental records, sheet music, and more. In an illustration of the endless perversity of archiving, some records of Company A of the 4th Ohio are here. (Some "collections" consist of as little as one letter.) Surnames: Austin, Baker, Bostock, Carpenter, Cole, Davis, Eaegle, Farr, Fields, Foote, Goodale, Hardenburgh, Havens, Henson, Hoffman, Jewell, Kennedy, Kirk, Lickley, Lucas, McGowan, McLain, Miller, Nelson, Noble, Outwater, Parkhurst, Parsons, Peck, Pinckney, Porter, Shaw, Stoddard, Thompson, Tooker, Waldron, and Whitman. So the Big 10 is good at something besides basketball.

•  Three economists claim to have discovered "the first evidence that distinctively racialized names existed long before the Civil Rights Era," using death certificates and census records from Alabama, Illinois, and North Carolina.  

•  Find out what "petroliana" means.

Harold Henderson, "Fun Things Picked Up Along the Way," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 4 March 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

December 2012 NGS Quarterly

Well, 2012 isn't quite done yet. I just received my physical copy of the December 2012 National Genealogical Society Quarterly in the physical mail a couple of weeks ago.

Midwesterners play bit parts in this issue: a Bible record certified by the county clerk of Pope County, Illinois, and a slavecatcher getting his comeuppance in Hillsdale County, Michigan in 1839 (at least that's how the Liberator retold it; apparently that issue of the local newspaper no longer exists).

Michael Hait, co-winner of the 2011 NGS Family History Writing Contest, chronicles four generations and a century of the Maryland Ridgely family from slavery to freedom and success as professionals. In a recent post on his blog, Planting the Seeds, Michael tells the backstory of how this article came to be.

George Findlen examines duplicate records in French Canada for a baptism, a marriage, and a birth to teach a double lesson: don't rely on published abstracts, and know the customs and canon law.

Allen R. Peterson follows the border-crossing Hyde family in Cheshire and Derbyshire, England, from the 1650s to the 1820s.

James W.  Petty discusses a variety of legally required records that document enslaved and emancipated black people in Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere in the north.

Genealogy doesn't get better than this. The quarterly can be found in good genealogical libraries everywhere, and in your mailbox if you're a member of the National Genealogical Society.



Michael Hait, "In the Shadow of Rebellions: Maryland Ridgelys in Slavery and Freedom," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 100 (December 2012):245-66.

George L. Findlen, "Resolving Duplicate Roman Catholic Parish Register Entries: French Canadian Examples," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 100 (December 2012):267-78.

Allen R. Peterson, "Living on the Edge: A Hyde Family of Cheshire and Derbyshire, England," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 100 (December 2012):279-92.

James W. Petty, "Black Slavery Emancipation Research in the Northern States," National Genealogical Society Quarterly 100 (December 2012):293-304.

Harold Henderson, "December 2012 NGS Quarterly," Midwestern Microhistory: A Genealogy Blog, posted 18 February 2013 (http://midwesternmicrohistory.blogspot.com : accessed [access date]). [Please feel free to link to the specific post if you prefer.]

Two good free resources via Scout Report

The Internet Scout Project dates back to the DOS and maybe even the green-screen Apple era, and they're still at it. Recently they highlighted two genealogically useful resources:

From the Iowa Digital Library, a collection on African American Women in Iowa. There are a variety of resources here, with more scope than the title makes it sound. Being a text guy, I gravitated to the typewritten 27 June 1963 newsletter of the Fort Madison NAACP. It is (I must say) rather like a blog, with lots of specific news entries: "Freesmeier's Dairy has hired one of our number, Thomas Humburd," calling off the boycott and encouraging patronage. And it is searchable!

And completely searchable images of "every known issue" of Chicago's Hyde Park Herald, covering most of the 1880s and then everything since 1926 -- a primo resource right into the 21st century!

Methodology Monday with Tony Burroughs

Chicago's own Tony Burroughs has a nice post at AC360. Much of it pertains to the stringent methodological requirements of doing African-American genealogy successfully, and one part should be required reading for all genealogists:

Many are unaware of the vast amount of records that exist, and the scarcity of those that are digitized or even catalogued. One institution alone, the National Archives, has only 125,000 scanned images on their website out of 4 billion documents in their collection. That’s one page for every 34,000 documents.

Very crudely put, your odds of finding what you're looking for on the internet alone: 33,999 to 1.

Up to Date on Ohio Civil War Genealogy

And at last, the current, #3, 2008 issue of the Ohio Civil War Genealogy Journal:

"Eight Days in Camp Toledo, Or My First Experience as a 'Volunteer,'" submitted by Leslie Korenko. The kind of day-by-day journal fragment that you wish your ancestor had kept, complete with jokes and little episodes of daily life in camp -- a resource for what life was really like, whether your people ever saw the inside of Camp Toledo or not.

"Berne Township, Fairfield County, Ohio: Volunteers as of 1863," abstracted by Thomas Stephen Neel

"African-American Strange Family of Ohio: Reuben R. Strange & Sons William E. & George F. Strange, Army & Navy Veterans of the Civil War," by Harryette Mullen

"John Wallace Campbell, Civil War Veteran, Co. G. 71st O.V.I.," by Sheri Taylor Bockelman

"49th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Company C: The Kellers and Other Veterans from Annapolis, Crawford County OH," by Ken Striker

"Ask the Experts" on saber sharpening, wheelwrights, and much more

"Newspaper Articles on Shooting of Three Soldiers in Bucyrus OH on 11 March 1864," submitted by Diane Gagel

"1883 Census of Pensioners, Mercer County, Ohio," by Michael Elliott

The New Philadelphia story

Today brings a press release from the University of Illinois about another year's archaeological work on New Philadelphia, Hadley Township, Pike County, Illinois, the first town platted and subdivided by a black man -- "Free Frank" McWorter, who used his own work and the proceeds of subdivision to buy family members out of slavery in the 1830s and even after his death in 1854. The town was integrated and peaceful; it's not named in the 1860 census but a browse of the township in HeritageQuest Online shows families designated "M" (mulatto) or "B" (black) on images 16, 18, 26, 28, 29, and 33 of the 33 imaged pages of the township. (It's a telling point that although the from asks for color -- "White, Black, or Mulatto" -- the census taker evidently saw no need to record the race of the white people in the township.)

This township map from Pike County Genweb gives the geographical location; many more detailed maps and further reading are at U of I anthropologist Christopher Fennell's website.

There's a video link in the release. Also on line is an article from the 2004 Living Museum giving some more background and showing a little bit about how land and census records have been used to help design the essential and ongoing archaeological digging.

Blogging in the act of finding ancestors

If I actually read all the good blogs that describe the proprietor's own research struggles, I'd never get any work of my own done! But ever since I read this post from Jennifer's "But Now I'm Found: Genealogy in Black and White" from Chicago/NW Indiana, I've kept her widget on my protopage home page collection for easy checking:

"I am so excited!" she wrote. "I received an email from someone who had the actual receipt naming my great-great-great grandfather."

Actually, the receipt doesn't just name her great-great-great grandfather Solomon; it's a receipt for him acknowledging his being sold.

Read the whole thing.

The Cemetery Detective

Shirley Wolf has rediscovered 10 African-American cemeteries in southern Indiana's Floyd County, and she may be on to 10 more, according to a long feature story by Katya Cengel in the Sunday Courier-Journal newspaper published across the river in Louisville. The story, perhaps inevitably, leads with Wolf's controversial use of dowsing to find burials, but farther down we get a taste of her genealogical technique:

To locate the unmarked cemeteries, she went through the county's death records, from the early 1900s to the 1960s. When she found an unfamiliar burial site, she would check if the person was African American, and if he or she was, Wolf would check to see if the person owned land. If he or she did, Wolf would visit the property to see what she could find, asking those in the area if anyone knew about a cemetery. ... A picture framer of German, French and Swiss descent [and a past president of the Southern Indiana Genealogical Society], Wolf is focusing on African-American cemeteries because she wants people to know that, despite the ravages of slavery, "there are things that can be found."