Adding Enslaved Ancestors

Question

Just a reminder - if you come across bills of sales, slaves named in wills, or other documents naming enslaved ancestors in the course of your regular research - please see the Heritage Exchange Portal to see how to connect the enslaved ancestors to our tree.  If you're not comfortable creating the profiles yourself, no problem, just email your document to wikitrees-usbh-exchange at googlegroups.com

Just for reference, here is our initial announcement post from a few months ago: Announcing USBH Heritage Exchange

Also, here is our most recent USBH join post: USBH - volunteers

Answer 1

I'm answering in order to be able to find this post.

Comments

Not to take Best Answer away from Emma, because that was a great answer! But I like the way Mark thinks!

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I keep a folder on my internet browser of bookmarked pages for WikiTree. I keep the pages there that I use the most so I don't have to hunt for them.

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Thank you, Stephanie!

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I too have had much trouble finding things. At the top of every question is a blue-gray cross. Click there to add the page to your Favorites on your G2G page.

Answer 2

Thanks for the reminder, Elaine! And thanks for overseeing this important work. The more documents we process (use to create profiles from) the more people we can get connected!

Answer 3

I would have no problem creating profiles of enslaved ancestors. I require at least a name and an approximate birth date. My problem is finding any data at all. Moreover, my black ancestry is from the Bahamas, so US-specific sources are not much help. These black ancestors have hundreds of descendants in the USA so solving the mysteries would help to "fill in the blank" for many cousins.

Comments

Great, Marion! Just curious, around when were your Black ancestors in the Bahamas?  Also, yes, we do require a first name, approximate year of birth, and surname (though sometimes this is the name of the slave owner), all outlined on the Portal/help page. And we do have ways to document unnamed enslaved people, with the hopes of tracking down their identity, but they don't have their own profile until then.

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Thank you, Elaine, for your prompt reply. I will attempt to explain most of what I know about my African ancestry. I am about 7% West African. I have identified at least two ancestor families who owned slaves.

Armonell Edgecombe Necks (Edgecombe-273) was compensated for freeing slaves in the 1830 s in the Bahamas. Two were named, Betty, 31, and Rachel, 9 months. These freed slaves were not likely my ancestors but I mention them because it is unusual to know their names. Most records in the BWI just cite numbers.

In Jamaica, Mary Sawyer Wark Lynch (Sawyer-6399) was compensated for freeing her slaves in about the same time frame.

Ancestor Matthew Lowe (Lowe-2422) had an unknown wife who could have been African, we do not know. His maternal grandmother was Martha, wife of Jared Gilbert (Gilbert-16524), race unspecified. Jared owned "3 negroes." I have a hard time writing about this because I know that they must have suffered all the time even when their owners were trying to be nice. This still does not explain my 7% West African ancestry. Hope this helps.

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Thanks for the info, Marion! I don't have experience in the Bahamas, though I hope to someday .... but I have been working on an area in Florida where I believe some of your relatives ended up.... I'll keep an eye out for them!

Answer 4

Thanks for the reminder, Elaine. I love having a place that I can send information as I find it rather than trying to remember to get back to it.

Comments

Sure, Debi :)

Answer 5

I attempted to post information and received the following message:

The address "wikitrees-usbh-exchange at googlegroups.com" in the "To" field was not recognized. Please make sure that all addresses are properly formed.

Comments

Forgot to mention to replace "at" with @   Hope that was the issue!