The Midway Society and Congregational Church was established in a log meeting house in Midway, Georgia, in 1754. When slavery became legal in Georgia in 1750, planters from South Carolina moved to Midway and Sunbury with large numbers of enslaved people to establish plantations for rice and other crops. Records were kept of Church sessions from its early days, and because both white people and enslaved (and free) African Americans were Church members, these records include the names of African Americans. The Midway Church records were published in a book, “History and Published Records of the Midway Congregational Church, Liberty County, Georgia,” by James Stacy, but only the names of the white members were included. 

Using a digitized copy of the original records available on FamilySearch.org, and the typed transcript done by the W.P.A. and Savannah Public Library in the 1930’s, I have created a sortable, searchable speadsheet with all the names and identifying details of the Midway Church’s African American members from 1756-1864. 

Church sessions were “paused” from November 1864 to June 1865, while Union forces ravaged Liberty County, and when the records resumed, the enslaved people were being referred to with last names. The records from 1865-1867 have been transcribed separately.  

For more information on the Midway Church, see the Midway Museum’s website. 

Find the digitized handwritten records here and the typed transcript here. The typed transcript includes an index to all the names found in the documents, including the African Americans [images 1-116]. 

The spreadsheet below is sortable by column. Note that the enslavers’ names were not standardized. To find a record for a particular session, note the image numbers (for either the original digitized documents or the typed transcript, depending on which you want to see). Then go to the appropriate link above. It will take you to the records on FamilySearch.org (you must have an account, which is completely free). Enter the image number to find the session.

“Dismissed” means that the person was given letters of dismissal to take to another church, to prove that s/he was in good standing in the previous church. Being “cited” appears to mean that the person was instructed to attend the next session. “Pr” appears to mean that the person was present, and is contrasted with “abs” for absent. Other common abbreviations: ady = adultery; forn = fornication; th = theft; profy = profanity; est = estate; excom. = excommunicated; com. = committee; sus. con. = suspension continued. For example “ady abs sus con” is a common notation that means “adultery absent suspension continued.”

The early records of the Church indicate that candidates were first propounded for membership, then baptized, then received into full communion. White and black members were recorded in the same way, though were usually listed separately.  

Latest version: 8/1/2019 (typos and page numbers corrected from previous version)