8 Steps for Tracing Enslaved Ancestors Using Slave Schedules

Before starting to trace enslaved ancestors, you’ll need research your family back to the Civil War in censuses, vital records and other genealogical sources. Find as much information as you can.

Then review a family group sheet of the post-Civil War family members you want to focus on. You’ll need a list of their given names and ages to 1) determine which family members might have been born as slaves and 2) determine the slaveholder’s name.

If you know the slaveholding family’s name, you can start researching that family. If not, start with the presumption that your ancestral family kept its former or most recent slaveholder’s surname—but be alert for clues that imply otherwise. Here are eight steps for getting started tracing your slave ancestors:

1. Using your list of ancestral family members from the 1870 census, subtract 10 years from your subjects’ 1870 ages to estimate their ages in 1860.

Isolate the names and ages of those who were living in 1860 for the next steps.

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2. Look at the neighborhood where your ancestors lived in 1870 for white families with the same surname.

Make your search countywide, or even statewide, if your ancestors’ name was unique. Create a list of same-surname candidates for the slaveholding family. Include possible spelling variations: Harget(t), Hargit(t), Horgett, Hargot, Horgatt and so on. Consider going back as far as the 1850 census, or that county’s marriage and deed records, to look for white families of that surname.

3. Determine which of the white families on your list owned slaves in 1860 by looking at that county’s 1860 slave schedule.

You might be able to eliminate families whose names aren’t there, but also check the 1850 slave schedules before you do.

The 1850 and 1860 slave schedules are rarely indexed and name only slaveholders (with each slaveholder, they list slaves by sex, age and color, but not by name). You’ll find a free index for the 1850 slave schedule on FamilySearch.org. Subscription site Ancestry.com hosts both the 1850 and 1860 slave schedules (see if your library offers Ancestry Library Edition free to patrons).

4. Compare the ages of your ancestor’s family group in 1860 with slaves’ ages in households in the slave schedule.

Does a group of slaves in any household match the list of your family members’ sexes and ages? Remember that the slaves were grouped under the name of the slaveholder and identified by sex, color and age—rarely by name. Your ancestors might have been a family prior to the war, but the parents might have lived on neighboring farms, so search for the mother and children together.

5. Prioritize the slaveholding candidates according to what you find in the slave schedules:

• Likely candidates: The ages of your ancestral family members fit within the ages listed in their 1860 slave schedules.
• Less likely candidates: The ages of your ancestral family members and those listed on the 1860 schedule don’t appear to coincide.
• Least likely candidates: Those candidates not listed in either the 1860 or 1850 schedules. Some slaveholders might have been omitted, but the schedules are probably the most complete resource available.

6. Repeat this for the 1850 slave schedule, especially if your ancestors’ ages indicate they were a family before 1850.

Sometimes, people were accidentally omitted from both general population and slave schedules.

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7. If your search produces enough evidence to suggest further investigation of a particular candidate, start researching that white family.

Study the leading candidate(s) in the county records to determine if your family is included in those records.

8. Don’t try to make your ancestor fit into an obviously unlikely match.

If these steps above don’t produce the name of the slaveholder, consider these factors:

• Your family might have moved from its 1860 home after the war to a neighboring county or town. Although some freed men and women moved away after the war, often they remained on the same land for many years.
• The slaveholding family might have moved away after the war. Prewar county records might reveal their identity.

If you don’t find candidates of the same surname as your family, consider slaveholders from the 1860 slave schedules who lived near your family in 1870. Review others who owned slaves in your focus county in 1860. Your ancestors might have lived on a plantation near the same-surname white family.

Tip: For information on researching non-white slave owners, see Black Slaveowners: Free Black Slave Masters in South Carolina, 1790-1860 by Larry Koger.

A version of this article appeared in the December 2002 issue of Family Tree Magazine.