Doing genealogy research has exposed me to a lot of information about slavery that I was unaware of I never knew that slaves were listed in Census schedules without a name. I also didn't know why slaves chose the names they did. It seemed odd to me that someone from Africa would choose a name like Samuel Jones or Benjamin Scurlock instead of an African name from their ancestry.
I read something today about slaves maintaining two names - the one their masters gave them and their real name from Africa. Among other slaves, they were known by their African name. But, I imagine, as time passed and new generations were born into slavery, that tradition was lost. If anyone knows of a good academic study on the naming of slaves, I'd appreciate a pointer.
Recently I was doing research on a family that were slave owners and the owner manumitted a slave family (mother, son, daughter and her children) in his will. So, I thought, one of these days I'm going to research that family and see if I can connect them to the tree.
The greatest frustration I've had in researching African American people is the brick wall you hit in 1860. So, trying to unearth a family that was manumitted in 1804 seemed like an interesting challenge that might actually be doable. They should actually show up in Census records by name.
Today, while doing some research, I came across a book that I immediately ordered from my local library - Slavery in the Family. It's written by Edward Ball, whose family goes back to the founding of the country and kept extensive records on all their slaves (some 400 over the decades.)
Ball researched his family records and tracked down the descendants of his family's slaves and interviewed them.
One thing I found interesting in the promo for the book was that he discovered that slaves tended to NOT take the name of their slave owner but instead chose names of notable people that might give them additional respect. So, the surname of a freed slave might not always indicate who their owner was. I actually thought the opposite.
Reading the names of slaves in a will, alongside cows, pigs, horses, and household goods is disturbing. But, to do the research, you have to overcome the revulsion and look at the evidence with a dispassionate eye.
I admire anyone who does this research. It's so much more difficult than the work I've done uncovering my wife's ancestors.
