Digging Deeper

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kellytf via pixabay.com: Public Domain


Have you ever discovered something shocking in your research? I've found terrible tragedies, murders, accidents, and such, but not often something that blindsided—jolted me physically.

To be "blindsided" means to be caught completely off guard by an unexpected event, particularly one that is harmful, distressing, or leaves you unprepared to react, according to Dictionary.com. Google adds that the term originated in sports like football—referring to a blindside tackle, a hit delivered from outside a player's field of vision.

I shouldn't have been shocked to find Alexander Hamilton (not the famous one) in this place and time as a slaveholder, or to see his name in the 1850 Slave Schedule in Grainger County, Tennessee. But my research there so far had turned up little evidence of slaveholding, so I'd neglected to seek out those records. I'm not alone—few other researchers on Ancestry, FamilySearch, or WikiTree had linked him to this record either. East Tennessee wasn't a hotbed of enslavement, but slavery was legal there until the Emancipation Proclamation, and while the region didn't want to secede from the Union, many of its men joined the Confederate forces anyway. Checking the Slave Schedules should have been part of my research plan from the start. What else have I overlooked? For now, I plan to check every county where I have ancestors in both 1850 and 1860, and scan those records for what I've missed. If nothing else, I'll learn more about each community. 

As I've begun researching Hamilton's heirs after his 1852 death, the 1860 Slave Schedule is turning up slavery in Missouri counties that surprised me. One heir's family in Buchanan County shows only free white people in 1840, three enslaved people by 1850, then six in 1860. Digging into Hamilton's probate papers may show whether he was the source of any of those enslaved people.

I think many of us overlook these records because they open a window on a painful part of our history—our American legacy. What they reveal is distressing, and none of us enjoys pain and distress. But I'm looking forward to putting my discoveries toward reparative genealogy. I've long known I had slaveholding ancestors, so finding the US Black Heritage project on WikiTree was a welcome discovery, and I've slowly been learning how to find and document the names and histories of people who are nameless in federal records but named in private ones. That work can help reconnect families whose history seems to begin only after the Civil War, when the formerly enslaved first appear by name in official records. Honestly confronting my own family's part in this shameful history matters to me personally, and I believe it matters to the health of my country and culture too.

These old records are often hard to read and understand, but recent technological breakthroughs are opening a way in. Full-text search is one example—AI reads the old handwriting and reveals details hidden for centuries. As researchers link the names and histories of the enslaved together in free public databases, families descended from the formerly enslaved can finally move past the "1870 brick wall," which used to be nearly insurmountable. Adding DNA supercharges what's possible. It feels good to contribute in a small way.

Helpful steps

  • Search platform catalogs
  • Link records to profiles
  • Tag profiles
  • Add profile note, memory, etc.
  • Write about your discovery
  • Look at FAN Club*
  • Repeat on more platforms
*FAN Club: Friends, Family, Associates, Neighbors

Thanks to MaryLynn Strickland and ClaudeAI for writing help on this post.


Valorie Zimmerman


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Send your stories to m.strickland@skcgs.org




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