Researching Your Slave Ancestry

While combing through Mississippi records searching for my ancestors, I stumbled upon hundreds of slave narratives. These narratives were collected during the late 1930's and early 1940's as part of a Federal government project. Intrigued, I began reading them and soon I was lost in their stories. While I was reading one compelling story,  I wondered if anyone had compiled any of this information and put it on the Internet.  I discovered that there are only about a dozen or so of the hundreds of narratives published. Several are printed in a short book and a few of them are available on the Mississippi Genweb site but there are hundreds of narratives that remain unpublished.

I was shocked by my discovery. These records are a genealogy gold mine. Many of them hold vital clues in unearthing African American genealogy!!! I immediately decided that I wanted publish this information but before I push the publish button I need to explain how to use it first.

While African American genealogy can be difficult, all is not lost.  If you can trace your ancestor to a specific location (state or county) than you can begin your search.  Most ex-slaves took their former slave owner's name. One man, Mr. Westly Little, of Trenton, Mississippi said, "When I gets my name, that's all the name us ever knowed was our masters name and we changed names if we changed masters."  So finding out where your ancestor lived at the end of the Civil War can make a huge difference.

Mr. Westly Little was born about 1846.  He was the slave of Mr. Alexander "Sandy" Little who was the son of James Little, both of Smith County, Mississippi. Tracing the James/Alexander Little family can help with finding out more about Westly. So how do you do that?  Well, begin your search with the 1850 and 1860 census for Little family. They lived in Smith County, Mississippi. Once you've found out more about the Little family, ask yourself these questions. Did James Little have a will? Who did James leave his estate too? A lot of wills and estate records list slaves. Specifically, they list slave names and sometimes family relationships. The next step in your research is to look through the  Smith county records for James or Alexander Little. This information is important because you can begin to piece the puzzle together.

Other good sources of information are the 1850 and 1860 United States Slave Schedules. While these schedules don't list slaves by name, you can find out who owned them, where they were living, and their age at the time the census was taken.  From the narratives that I've read so far many of the families remained together so you can piece the family together by the ages listed on the census.

For some the information provided in these narratives will trace back several generations while others will have to work harder to piece together their family history.  It's a start and hopefully someone out there will find success and be able to find a connection with their ancestors.