Official probate records index enslaved families as grouped property units

Evidence

Probate records reveal that at the death of Colonel Thomas Taylor, the slaves were indexed in a February 20, 1834, document and divided among the Taylor children. Death records confirm the residences of the Taylor children at that time as Columbia and Charleston, South Carolina, and Mount Meigs, Alabama. Identified as slaves owned by Colonel Taylor were Delia, Renty, Tena, George, Eve, Fed, Prince, Hannah, and “Big Renty.” All of them are my ancestors. Slave index records group these families together in the “Little Boy Renty” document, later in the probate record of Colonel Thomas Taylor of 1834, and finally in the will of Benjamin Franklin Taylor after his death in or about 1851. — Tamara Lanier, From These Roots, 1151

Categorization

• DEFINE: Documents how slave index records work as genealogical evidence and as property registers simultaneously.