Historian presents on researching black ancestry
Hopkins County Genealogical Society (HCGS) learned about tracing the lineage of slave families through a variety of historical documentation at their regular October meeting Thursday.
The meeting was the first of HCGS to take place entirely online, and featured speaker Ari Wilkins. Wilkins, owner of the genealogical company Black Genesis, also works on the genealogical project Proquest African American Heritage Database.
Wilkins addressed the Hopkins County club about how they could discover black ancestors through research in slave records, both on and off plantations.
“You have to remember that slaves were not considered as human beings,” Wilkins told listeners. “They were counted among livestock and work tools.”
While this makes it a challenge to account for the movement of black ancestors, Wilkins said, it also provides insight, as ancestors were often counted on property tax rolls or in wills because they were deeded as possessions.
“These records were created by members of the ruling class. They’re the best source about the movement of slave labor,” Wilkins noted.
These paper records can now be found in collections in libraries across the south, where they have been preserved as microfilm for genealogists to examine. The largest collections have 1 million pieces of paper conserved, Wilkins said.
Records can be very hard to read because of their worn and torn nature, variations in handwriting and the fact that some are written in other languages, Wilkins said; however, it is important to forge ahead as these are sometimes the only records of ancestors, she said. In one instance, Wilkins did a family
In one instance, Wilkins did a family case study in which a last will and testament illuminated much about the lives of slaves on a North Carolina plantation.
The will showed that slaves lived on a plantation in whitewashed, two-room cabins. Slaves were given clothing twice a year, once in spring and once in fall. They were rationed flour, pork and molasses, and were allowed to grow their own vegetables, cane and cotton. More than 300 slaves lived on the property, yet the will only provided that four of the slaves be provided for upon the owner's death. Property records for freed slaves showed they had $30 to their names.
“It makes you understand the day-to-day of the plantation routines… and the struggles they faced,” Wilkins told HCGS. “As you’re looking at plantation records, make sure to think outside the box.”
Wilkins recommended transcriptions, journal articles, and “researching backwards” as methods of genealogical research for records that are often incomplete, such as with black ancestry.