Former Slaves (1870 Census): should I show a connection to their previous owner?

+3 votes
154 views
I have found an African American family (named Brewster) in the 1870 Census which I am fairly certain are on the 1860 Slave Schedule for a distant connection of mine, Brewster-3058. I have reflected that on his bio as much as I can. Should I set up this family as relations of his? Should I somehow set them up as unconnected profiles -- something I haven't yet done ?? Or just leave them alone for now?
WikiTree profile: Patrick Brewster
in Genealogy Help by AM Hayes G2G6 Mach 2 (25.1k points)
I think you have a great start. You suspect a genealogical relationship with the identified mulattos but you don’t have any direct evidence that is true. So I would link them genealogically. But linking profiles of owners and slaves is appropriate In the bio. It will help other researchers.

2 Answers

+4 votes

A, I don’t know if here’s is a policy on this, but my first impulse is that they should be unconnected profiles, unless there is some legal (adoption, ward, etc.) or biological reason for connecting them. Someone one else might provide you with better guidance on this, for although I had many ancestors who owned slaves, I’ve never come across this situation,

by Pip Sheppard G2G Astronaut (2.9m points)
+3 votes
I would not add them as relatives in the "header" portion of the family because that would mess up the tree itself, but I would add links both ways, from the owner to the enslaved person, and from the enslaved person to the owner, because that will make it easier to find the connection for some future researcher.  You can see how I have done this on two of my profiles

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Richardson-15411 the slaveowner - each of the enslaved persons in the succession (the inheritance documents) has a link to their own profile.

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Unknown-383754 -- this is one of the profiles I have created for one of the enslaved persons.

Also I believe it is best practice when setting up a profile for an enslaved person that you include ALL last names of prior slaveowers as alternates since they might have used any of them.  But LNAB is Unknown, of course.
by Crispin Reedy G2G6 Mach 4 (47.9k points)

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