Verifying a Slave Shipping Manifest by Signature Matching

+7 votes
303 views

[[Category:USBH Heritage Exchange]]

I have created a profile for [[Lee-43707|George Theodore Lee (abt.1792-1879)]], a slave owner, and listed 3 slaves named in a will. 

Other named enslaved persons still need to be added, from the New Orleans Slave Manifest you can find on the sources links. 

However, further verification is needed. I believe he took a large number of slaves to New Orleans to sell in 1857. His 1850 slave schedule lists 14 slaves. His 1860 slave schedule lists 5 slaves. A problem with the manifest is that it states he is from Texas. He does have in-law relatives -- Joseph Weisiger and some of his sons, living in Texas. I'd love for someone to see if they can find a signature from George T Lee of Danville, Boyle, Kentucky and compare it to his signature on the manifest, or in some other way verify the manifest.

I'd appreciate any help you can give, as I don't know how to verify this information, but do believe it is valid.

WikiTree profile: George Lee
in Genealogy Help by Karen Lee G2G6 (9.1k points)
retagged by Emma MacBeath
Hi Karen, as a Moderator I retagged your post so more people will see it. Make sure you have spaces between separate tags (underscore is only used when a tag has two words like black_heritage) and if you always add the black_heritage tag, people from our project will see the post. Thanks!
Thanks Emma. Just leaning how all the software works.

1 Answer

+7 votes

Hi Karen,

Good to see you here. It's an interesting idea to find another signature for him. I don't have the time to do that research, but maybe someone here does. :)

I do work with a lot of slave manifests and I can tell you that the George on this manifest looks like a George L. Lee or from his signature, George S. Lee. I do not think it is a George T. Lee. So it may not be the right manifest. But maybe others can chime in.

Here is a link to the image on Ancestry: https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/89573:1562

Gina

by Gina Jarvi G2G6 Pilot (175k points)
Hi Gina,

Thank-you for taking a look.

Yes, the link you provided is the manifest I was referring to. I really do see a T as the middle initial, but when reading 19th c. script it can be hard to tell the difference between the capital letters! I am slowly getting better at reading script, but each person's handwriting, especially in the "flourishes" on the capital letters gets very individualized.

I wish I knew where to look for his signature, but I haven't a clue.

Karen

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