A Database of Names to Trace Slave Ancestry

[C. Dianne Zweig Editor's Desk]

A Database of Names to Trace Slave Ancestry

By EVE M. KAHN

Published: September 8, 2011

 

Scholars at the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond have set out to leaf through eight million documents dating back to the 17th century, seeking the names of slaves. The preliminary results, listing about 1,400 enslaved people and 180 owners, will start appearing on Wednesday in a database posted at vahistorical.org.

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Virginia Historical Society

An unidentified woman included in a database of slave names and images of original source documents that the Virginia Historical Society has assembled.

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“Unknown No Longer: A Database of Virginia Slave Names” is searchable by locations, professions and first and last names, among other keywords. Listings for Thomas Jefferson’s holdings do not yet mention Sally Hemings, but they do include “Thruston the son of Isabel” and “Bec daughter of Minerva.” A search for nurses brings up Judy, age 10, valued at $900, working at a plantation near Fredericksburg, Va., with dozens of other slaves including Jef Davis, Magnus, Fenton and Jinney.

The historical society is finding the names in inventories, wills, correspondence, family Bibles and memoirs, among other paperwork. Each page has been scanned in such high resolution that researchers can zoom in “down to the pores of the paper,” said Paul A. Levengood, the society’s president.

 

Read More:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/09/arts/design/database-of-viginia-s...

[Bigsarge]

Something how this data base does not work for any of my family names, wonder what that could mean.