The Slaves & The Planter's Will

I mentioned this article in passing on yesterday's blog. A bit of background and then I'll let you read the article. It was shared with me by a cousin of my husband's who also does genealogy.

Samuel Winstead, named in this article was born ca1778 in Virginia and died 1 JULY 1851 in Williamson County, Tennessee. He was married to Susannah Pryor ca1797. As you will see from this article Samuel Winstead was not your run of the mill slave owner.

Article shown is from The Nashville Tennessean Magazine, Aug.28, 1966. I post it here not for profit merely out of interest in the Winstead surname. I am going to just post it and let it "speak" for itself. I personally found it quite interesting. Remember that clicking on the article will open a larger version for reading. Use your back arrow to return to the blog.

You may have to enlarge the article in your viewing window. I had to really reduce it to get it to work on the blog.

Happy Researching!

Karen

Relatively Speaking - Names Names Names

Last week over at Genenotes cousin Anne mentioned that Carol, Anne & myself had been chatting about slaves. More specifically about the names of slaves. Both Anne & Carol stated that they had no luck finding slave names.

So I thought I would do some digging in my files and I actually came up with some interesting places I have found slave names in my research. I want to share those places with you. Tomorrow I will be sharing an article involving a great uncle of Mark's and the story behind his freeing of his slaves in his will. You'll want to check back on this one!

First the places I have found slave names:

1. Wills - Here the will of Jane Pleasants, ca1726 makes mention of her negro slave, "Doll". The Pleasant family was in Virginia and owned many slaves, and many of them were found named in wills.

2. Estate Inventory - The estate inventory of Thomas Pleasants, ca 1745 names many of his slaves including children.

3. Deeds - Yep, deeds are another great place to locate slave names. In the early days of American history slaves were considered property so deeds were sometimes exchanged when slaves changed hands. The following deed is dated ca1741.

Hopefully if your ancestor searching includes slaves this helps give you some alternative places to look.

Happy researching!

Karen