Stacy Ashmore Cole is the creator and curator of “They Had Names: African Americans in Early Liberty County, Georgia, Records,” an online compilation of antebellum Liberty County probate, deed, church and other records with more than 37,000 references to African Americans, enslaved and free. She is a descendant of an enslaving family from Liberty County. You can read more about the people her family held in slavery at: Toby Ashmore, Sibby’s Son, Andrew Law, Sibby’s Son, and Sibby’s Family. 

 She is on the board of the Georgia Genealogical Society, and a member of UJIMA Genealogy of Coastal Georgia. As of 2023, she is secretary of the Board of the Susie King Taylor Women’s Institute and Ecology Center. She served on the board of the Midway Museum (Liberty County) from 2018-2022 and was president of the Coastal Georgia Genealogical Society from 2019-2023. 

She has presented at the Afro American Historical & Genealogical Society’s 2021 and 2023 annual conferences (video, video) and the Sons and Daughters of the United States Middle Passage 2021 annual conference (video), as well as the Susie King Taylor Mami Wata Rising 2018 and 2019 annual conferences. 

She has also presented for the Georgia Genealogical Society, the Rockdale-Newton County Genealogical Society, Statesboro-Bulloch County Library, the Liberty County Historical Society, and the Lower Altamaha Historical Society.

The Georgia Genealogical Society Quarterly has published her articles “Abram Houston: Bridging the Gap from the 1870 Census to Slavery — A Liberty County, Georgia, Case Study Illustrating the Benefits of a Community-Focused Approach to Slavery Documentation” (vol. 57 number 1) and “Where Did My Surname Come From?: Researching the Slaveowner James James of Liberty County, Georgia” (vol. 57 nos. 3-4). 

The Journal of Slavery and Data Preservation (Issue #2, 2020) and the Enslaved.org project have published her work as a peer-reviewed data set, and the Family Locket blog published a 2-part series she wrote on evaluating Southern Claims Commission case files. 

In October 2022, she was awarded the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society (AAHGS) Jean Sampson-Scott award, their 2d highest award, for a “significant and measurable contribution to African American history and/or genealogy within the last two years.”

 In October 2023, the University System of Georgia’s Board of Regents gave They Had Names an Award for Excellence in Documenting Georgia’s History at the recommendation of the Georgia Historical Records Advisory Council (GHRAC). 

The TheyHadNames.net website has been featured on the Conversations With Kenyatta podcast in November 2022 and on  Bernice Bennett’s “Research at the National Archives and Beyond” podcast in April 2019. The “They Had Names” site won the individual “Unsung Heroes” award from the Genealogy Guys podcast in 2019. Mrs. Cole retired from the U.S. federal government in 2014. Contact her at jnscole@yahoo.com.