Slave Ownership in Our Family

My mother's family never lived closer to the Mason-Dixon line than southern Illinois. My Dad's grandfather was a carpetbagger, having moved to Texas in the 1880's for the opportunities there. But his daughter married a boy from her Dad's hometown and moved to Illinois, so our southern roots were really shallow. My great-aunt Ruth used to say she'd never get anywhere in Texas society because she couldn't join the Daugters of the Confedeacy. (She joined every other genealogical society in sight, but that's a different story.)

My husband's mother's family were all Swedes who came over in the 1880's. But his father's family never lived farther north than Oklahoma until his Dad moved to Rock Island to work at the arsenal. After Navy training in Chicago, he settled there after WW2.

For a long time I haven't been able to find Peter Jeremiah Norris in the 1860 census. In 1850 he was in Missouri. In 1870 he was back in Culpeper County, Virginia. Yesterday I was working on the McGhees (PJ's daughter marri
ed a McGhee) and clicked on the 1850 census, found my McGhee and looked at the image. Instead of what I expected, I found myself looking at the 1850 slave census. Sure enough, my McGhee owned 4 slaves.

On a whim, I checked the Norrises in Culpeper County in the 1860 slave census. And up came P.J. Norris. So I opened the regular 1860 census and searched for his slaveowning neighbor. And right on the same page was PJ and his family, though you would never know it from the beautiful, but completely illegible handwriting. One of those times where "if you know what it says, you can see it says it," as my Dad used to say.

I've always said in genealogy there is a time when information wants to be revealed, and sometimes you just have to be patient.

By the way, James D. McGhee owned 4 slaves in 1850, and his widow 6 slaves in 1860. One was a woman who was evidently the mother of all the younger slaves. But the McGhees did not own an adult male. So who fathered her children? Did a relative or neigbor own her husband?

Peter Jeremiah Norris owned no slaves in 1850 and 2 slaves in 1860, both adult males. They probably worked in his store or warehouse.

William Rutledge owned no slaves in 1850, nor did his mother. But in 1860 he owned a 56-year old man. I'd sure love to know how that happened, because the Rutledges were always small farmers in southwestern Tennessee.