I posted previously about an image I found in a book that had been created by combining parts of several historical documents. I posted about it to illustrate the need for all of us to research thoroughly any such documents we find outside the original sources. That same source had another example: an altered estate inventory.
I am not naming the book or author because I don’t know the source of these documents and don’t want to falsely accuse anyone. I’ve made several attempts to contact the author without success.
Here is the image from the book. It shows an estate inventory for William Spencer of Liberty County, Georgia, naming enslaved people David, Damon, Joe and Emanuel. No citation was given.
I know this estate inventory. An abstract is online on my Liberty County website TheyHadNames.net, along with a citation and a link to the digital copy of the original on FamilySearch. You’ll see in the image below of the digitized copy from FamilySearch that three of the four names after “Little Bob” in the inventory have been erased to insert the names David, Damon and Emanuel in place of the original July, Cudjo, and Cuffee….whose identities have been erased for their descendants who might find only this record in this book and not the original record.
Want to verify this? See the digitized copy of the original image in “Wills, appraisements and bonds 1790-1850 vol B,” at FamilySearch, page 348, image 615 of 689. Original source: Liberty County Court of Ordinary. See also the abstracted version that made it possible to find the records to do this copy-and-paste so easily.
It would not have occurred to me to doubt or check the copy of this inventory I found in the book if I hadn’t already noticed that one of the other Liberty County images wasn’t what it appeared to be. It was easy for me to find the original estate inventory by searching the TheyHadNames.net website, but if a searchable abstract hadn’t been online, it would have taken quite some time to find the original, especially since there was no citation in the book. (Always be suspicious of an image you don’t have a citation for!)
Would it have occurred to you to check this image?
Click here to see an example from the same source that presents a slightly different issue.