Blog Posts
As I sift through the old records of Liberty County, Georgia, looking for documents that name enslaved and free African Americans, sometimes stories, important details, research tips, etc, jump out at me. This is a place to document those. Even if you are not researching Liberty County, these may give you ideas that apply to your own research elsewhere.
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What’s Happening at They Had Names (Week of February 1, 2024)
I’ve spoken in the past about the U.S. Southern Claims Commission, set up by Congress after the Civil War to pay for property taken by U.S. soldiers in the South, and how African American claimants had trouble getting their claims approved if they had only Black witnesses. This week I ran across a letter in one of the claim files that says this so much better than I can. John Lambert, a freedman farmer, had
What’s Happening at They Had Names (Week of January 21, 2024)
I’m still working on the project to record post-Civil War land sales and mortgages involving African Americans in Liberty County and have finished Deed Book P (1860-1870). What did I find? Unlike deed books T-V (1882-1886), there were few deeds involving African Americans, whether as parties to the deeds or even just as neighbors to property. This isn’t surprising, of course, given that they had only recently become free and that their participation in the
What’s Happening at They Had Names (Week of January 13, 2024)
It’s 2024 already! I took a break over the holidays to work on other things but I’m back at it now. Documenting Post-War Land Records I am still working on documenting land sales involving African Americans in Liberty County following the Civil War. In the mid-1880s, most land deed and lien records in Liberty County Superior Court involved local African American farmers. The lien records were transactions in which farmers mortgaged most of what they
What’s Happening at They Had Names (Week of December 12)
During 1884-1886, there were 90+ land sales in Liberty County involving African Americans as buyers, sellers or neighbors. These sales can tell you where your ancestor lived and when. The descriptions of the land are quite detailed, but normally are in terms of who the neighbors were so figuring out where they were is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. Here is an example both of a typical description and one of the reasons why
What’s Happening at They Had Names (Week of November 11, 2023)
Where was your ancestor in 1885? I’ve picked up a new project lately. In the mid-1880s, Liberty County farmers, almost all of them Black, often made their annual purchases from Robert Q. Cassels store at McIntosh Station in the spring by mortgaging most everything they owned. The loans, all carrying 8 per cent annual interest, were to be paid off in the fall after the crop of rice, cotton and corn were harvested. Cassels filed
A Study in Courage: Liberty County’s African American Voters in 1868
In November 1868, Republican Ulysses S. Grant defeated Democrat Horatio Seymour for the U.S. Presidency on the national stage, but Seymour prevailed in the Georgia vote by a wide margin. It was the first presidential election since the Civil War, and the first in which African Americans could vote in the South. Georgia had just been readmitted to the Union with the proviso that it had to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment. It did, but the
What’s Happening at They Had Names (Week of October 15, 2023)
I’ve been busy with other things these past couple of weeks so have found myself working on things that don’t require much thought, like scanning through the “Southeast Coastwise Inward and Outward Slave Manifests., 1790-1860.” This is a record set on Ancestry that provides documentation of enslaved people being shipped along mainly the U.S. East Coast. The record set is particularly informative after 1808, when the Act of 1807 banning the international slave trade required
What’s Happening at They Had Names (Week of 9/25/2023)
Progress on Projects I’m almost done documenting the slaveowners listed in the 1830 Liberty County census. By documenting, I mean adding their names to the overall list of Liberty County slaveowners and building a family tree to try to determine the essential facts of life for slaveowners: birth, death, marriage, names of family who could have gifted them enslaved people or received such gifts, etc. I’ve worked on the 1840, 1850, and 1860 censuses now;
What’s Happening at They Had Names (Week of September 17, 2023)
I’m still working my way through the Liberty County antebellum census records as I create a list of all slaveowners documented in Liberty County. I’m almost done with the 1830 census and don’t think I had ever noticed that there was a list of free people of color by name at the end of the census. This census was not by district. There were few enough white heads of household at that time that they
What’s Happening at They Had Names (Week of September 3, 2023)
Hurricane Idalia and some volunteer work for the Georgia Genealogical Society briefly stalled work on They Had Names so no progress this week. I did add a section to the site with tips for searches. Did you know that you can narrow your search to just the name you’re looking for? For example, let’s say you’ve discovered that Richard Baker was the enslaver of your ancestor. If you enter Richard Baker into the site search