These “research snippets” are correlations found while documenting references to named African Americans in Liberty County, Georgia, probate, court, and church records. This is analysis and not confirmed. Please refer to the original documents referenced below to compare these speculations with your own research.
In 1843, Barbara* R. Screven [see note at end] sold to Robert Taylor of Atkins, Clark County, Georgia, 16 enslaved people with names and ages as follows:
Trim 44
Betty 37
John 19
Tamer 16
Jim 12
William 8
Robert 5
Barack 2
Buckey [alt: Bucky] 34
Nancy 26
Matilda 7
Cato 4
James 3
Harry 18
Hector 26
and a child about 8 months old.
A useful technique for finding people on TheyHadNames.net is to take several names in a list and search for them all at once to find other documents that name them as a group. In this case, I tried “Trim Betty John Tamer” since they appear to be a family. (I left out Jim, William, Robert and Barack because those names could be spelled with nicknames or other spellings.) I got no results.
It’s best to avoid using the names of children in the searchs because then you will miss older documents for which they might not have been born yet. Concentrate on unusual names, but be aware that they might be spelled differently in different documents.
In this case, Hector, Nancy, Trim and Matilda were older people whose names are usually spelled the same way, so I tried searching for them all together. An 1830 estate inventory for Charles O. Screven appeared! Trim, Betty, John and Tamar were listed in order. So I didn’t get a result for my earlier search because Tamer was spelled Tamar. (I have now added alternate spellings in both documents.)
Jim, William, Robert and Barack are too young to have been named in the 1830 document, but there is a man named Baruck, so it is possible that Barack was named for him and that he might have been a relative of Trim or Betty, an avenue for further research.
The other individuals old enough to be listed in both documents — Buck, Nancy, Harry, and Hector — are in fact listed in both documents.
Even though these are relatively common names, it would be quite a coincidence for all 9 people old enough to be listed in the 1830 Charles Screven estate inventory to also be in the 1843 Barbary Screven document. It appears that we can assume that they were inherited from Charles Screven and were being sold out of county in 1843.
The next step is to search for Charles Screven on TheyHadNames.net and thus we find his will, written in 1830 and in which he names his wife and children and specified which property goes to each. Although he does not name these people, he does specify that if his wife wishes to may move out of the county to a healthier location and sell her inherited property, she may do so. Charles Screven also states in his will that he is the owner of Retreat Plantation, an adjoining island named Belle Isle [or Belisle], Erin Plantation near Midway, and land near Sunbury called Seabrook. All of this, and other information in the will, can be used to learn more about the enslaved people named.
NOTE: The name in the 1843 bill of sale was spelled: Barbary R. Scriven. Even though the name was clearly spelled, it appears likely from the other information developed that this was an alternate spelling for Charles O. Screven’s wife Barbara R. Screven.