Unique Resources to Find Enslaved African American Ancestors, Especially in Border States

Our organization, Reckoning, Inc., has for the past several years been trying to find collections of records that mention the names of enslaved people in relationship to one another and to their enslavers. To our surprise, we found enslaved people mentioned by name in all sorts of legal documents–in wills, estate settlements, bankruptcy proceedings, deeds, and mortgage records. But also in church records, where we found that many denominations kept records of the baptisms, marriages, and sometimes burials of enslaved people. This was especially true of the Catholic Church, which has kept careful records of the baptisms of enslaved people, often noting the identity of both the enslaved child’s parents and godparents, as well as the names of their enslavers. Baptismal records in Protestant faiths may only note the child’s first name and their enslaver’s name, but even this information, coupled with the child’s birth year, can turn into a goldmine for African Americans seeking information about who their enslaved ancestors may have been. African Americans with ancestors who lived in border states have a unique set of resources available to them that can help them leap over the 1870 brick wall that bedevils so many Black genealogists. During the Civil War, the Lincoln administration offered $300 in compensation to enslavers in Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri for every enslaved man who joined the U.S. Colored Troops (USCT). The Union Army then created a record-keeping system to keep track of who enslaved each soldier. Luckily, these records still exist and can provide a powerful way for African Americans to learn the identity of their ancestors’ enslavers. This knowledge then opens up multiple opportunities to find additional members of the soldier’s family in church records, probate records, and other legal documents that pertain to the soldier’s enslavers. As a demonstration of how much information can be learned from this combination of records, our organization has researched over 500 USCT soldiers from the counties surrounding Louisville, Kentucky, where we are based. On average, we were able to find 14.5 family members for each soldier–parents, grandparents, siblings, children, grandchildren, etc. This has allowed us to create family trees for each soldier, in some cases stretching as far back as the late 1700s and as far forward as the present day (you can find these at KYUSCT.org).