SLAVE SCHEDULE HELP SECTION

Navigating Sankofa's Slave Schedules
I Strongly Suggest You Follow These Three Easy Steps

STEP ONE: Click Your County. At the CENSUS RECORDS AND LINKS page, select your county of interest and click on the link.You are now at the index page for your county of interest.
STEP TWO: Read the Slave Owner Index. Click on the Slave Owner Index link before you click anything else. On the index page, all slave owner's names are listed alphabetically. If you attempt to browse the census pages for names, you will get very confused and probably very dismayed. The census itself was not taken in alphabetical order. Save yourself some heartache and find your name of interest on the Slave Owner Index page first! Once you find a name, click on the first page number (example: 109B) next to that name. You are now on the census page where slaves are listed. If the list of slaves continues onto the next page, click the "next page" link at the bottom to see the rest of the list. If you already know what page of the census you would like to see, click on a page link after step one.
STEP THREE: Do your research. Unfortunately slave names are not listed. But if you have made it this far in your research (knowing the slave owner's name) you can confirm that he/she did own slaves and even do some clever detective work (using birthdates, physical appearance, health) to figure out which slave is your ancestor.

Still confused? E-mail Sankofa

Reading the Slave Schedule Transcriptions

Transcriptions are re-written data, where information from old, barely legible handwritten records are typed and formatted into a more easily readable form. It is the duty of the transcriber to keep the transcription as similar as the original record as possible.

The Main Headings and Column Headings

  1. Microfilm: The catalog number of the microfilm on which the actual images of census pages are stored
  2. Enumerator: The name of the actual person who went door to door and hand-recorded the census information
  3. Enumeration date: The date the census was recorded. In many cases, enumeration took place over the course of several days.
  4. Page: The page number of the census info. you are reading. The CD on which the census page images are stored numbers each page as "A" (front of page) and "B" (back of page). For example page 112 is shown as pages 112A and 112B.
  5. Line no.: Census data for each slave is written on separate lines
  6. Slave owner/ last name, first name: Name of the person owning the slaves listed. Sometimes the owner's name is listed once (on the line of the first slave) with all subsequent slave owner spaces left blank. Assume that for each slave where the owner's name is left blank, he/she is owned by the owner listed above. Sometimes the owner is listed (repetitively) for each slave on each line.
  7. Slaves/ number: This can be interpreted two ways. (1) Number of slaves described on that particular line of the census. In this case, the enumerator just wrote "1" for every slave listed. (2) An arbitrarily assigned number to keep track of how many slaves were owned by one master. In this case, the enumerator recorded the first slave as "1", the second slave as "2", the third slave as "3", etc. This would make it easier to see the total number of slaves at the end of the enumeration.
  8. Slaves/ age: Age of the slave
  9. Slaves/ sex: Gender of the slave. F = female, M = male
  10. Slaves/ color: Physical-racial identity of the slave. B = black, M = mixed/mulatto
  11. Slaves/ fugitive: A slave listed as "fugitive" is a run-away slave. If the slave escaped his/her owner an "X" will be placed in this column.
  12. Slaves/ freed: A slave listed as "freed" was set free/ manumitted by the slave owner. If the slave was freed by his/her owner, an "X" will be placed in this column.
  13. Slaves/ deaf, dumb, blind, idiotic, or insane: General health status of the slave.
  14. No. of slave houses: Number of slave cabins/houses that were on the slave owner's property.
  15. Transcriber remarks: Sometimes the enumerator put special marks and notes on the census to specify special ownership, twins, african slaves, and other important information. Transcriber remarks are descriptions of the enumerator's extra notes. Pay special attention to this column.

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Making Use of Slave Schedule Data
Clues in the Census

Ages Of Slaves
---If you have the birthdate of your ancestor, use it to estimate his/her age during the year the census was taken. This will help you narrow down which of the slaves is your ancestor.
---INFANT ages (less than one year) are written as fractions. These fractions represent the age in months (# months old / 12 months).
---For some of the large plantations, you can see "age groups". I have noticed older slaves being listed first, then decreasing ages, then suddenly an older slave again, and decreasing ages after that. It is my guess that the enumerator recorded all slaves in each separate slave house in descending order according to age.

Slave Houses
---The number of slave houses may (or may not) give you some idea of the number of slave "families" that were on the plantation.

Health Status (deaf, dumb, blind, insane or idiotic)
---Here, it is crucial that you get as much oral/written historical information as you can. This sort of crucial information could instantly pinpoint your slave ancestor in a slave schedule. If your slave ancestor was known as "Blind Eddie" chances are that the one slave listed as blind on your plantation of interest is your ancestor.

Color of Slaves
---There seemed to be a big concern about "race mixing" in the census records I have transcribed. Knowing physical descriptions of your ancestors will help here. The color descriptions "black" and "mulatto" could help narrow down your search.

Twins
---I have found twins denoted in some of the census records. This is noted in the Transcriber Remarks column.
---Do not assume that two slaves of the same age are twins unless the census says so.

"In Trust For a Minor Heir"
---From Historian, David E. Paterson
Minor Heir: "When a white man died leaving minor children (termed "orphans" even if their mother was still alive!), there was a court designated by state law to oversee the care of the orphans (in Georgia, the only state I know about, it was the Court of Ordinary - same court that handled probate. In Alabama, I believe there was a county "Orphans Court."). The court would appoint a "Guardian" for the minor children to some adult - usually a male relative, but sometimes the mother. Not all orphans of the same father necessarily had the same guardian.
In Trust: The guardian had custody (in "trust") of whatever property the minor heirs may have owned. Most often., this property came from the deceased parent's estate, but might include bequests from grandparents or other relatives. The guardian was usually required to make detailed annual reports ("returns") showing how the trust property had been used. Guardians' returns contain the same type of information as estate administrators' returns. If the trust property included slaves, these annual returns will usually name them and who they were hired to that year. When minor heirs reached age 21 (or married), then they came into possession of the property in their own name, and the trust ended.
Using This Information:When attempting to identify slaves enumerated in the Census as trust property, hopefully the census will read something like, "John Doe in trust for the heirs of Richard Roe" - then you know what estate the slaves originated in. If the trustee is named, but the estate or heir is not named, then you would have to search court records to find an appointment of that guardian to learn which estates or persons he represented.

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