Progressive One

By RACHEL L. SWARNSDEC. 23, 2016

A ledger that includes slave policy information is on display at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Credit George Etheredge for The New York Times

Times Insider delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how news, features and opinion come together at The New York Times. In this article, Rachel Swarns provides a behind-the-scenes look at the reporting she did on a story about life insurance policies that allowed slave owners to recoup their slave’s “value” in the event of the slave’s untimely death.

The names of the slaves line the pages of the 19th-century ledger books. Hundreds of names. Harriett. Warwick. Godfrey. Squire Lockett. Nathan York. Robert. Solomon. Alfred.

In the 1840s, New York Life, the nation’s third-largest life insurance company, sold 508 policies on enslaved men and women. The beneficiaries? Slaveholders, who collected cash after a slave’s untimely death.

I spent much of the year looking at institutions, particularly universities, that benefited from this painful period of American history; the idea was to better understand how the legacy of slavery reverberates through our own times. So as I studied the names in the fraying New York Life ledgers at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, I wondered: Could we identify their descendants?

Earlier this year, we confirmed the ancestry of several readers who wrote in to tell us that they believed their ancestors were among the 272 slaves sold in 1838 to help keep Georgetown University afloat. I thought we might be successful again. So I pulled together a list of 16 slaves with uncommon surnames and punched them into the search engine at Ancestry, a website that helps people trace family history through archival records and DNA testing. I hit a brick wall.

I reached out to Ancestry to see if someone there could help. They connected me to Crista Cowan, a genealogist for the company. She was intrigued by my request, she said, particularly given the “larger national discussion about race, which, of course, leads into a sobering discussion of slavery.” She was hopeful, but well aware that our search might prove fruitless.

The vast majority of African-Americans did not appear in the census by name until 1870, so it is difficult to locate those who lived before the Civil War. Newspapers at the time rarely reported on the births, deaths, marriages and other family milestones of African-Americans. Journals and letters penned by slaves? They are exceedingly rare because slaves were typically barred by law from learning to read or write.

“It’s heartbreaking,” Ms. Cowan said. “But it’s the reality of doing research into their lives.”

In June, I sent Ancestry my list of enslaved laborers along with the names of the slave owners who insured them. (You can find the names of the hundreds of slaves insured by New York Life and other companies in the state of California’s Slavery Era Insurance Registry.)

“I struck out at every turn,” Ms. Cowan said.

Audrey Mozelle Ross in Midlothian, Va., found that the founder of her church, who was a former slave, was also her great-great grandfather. Credit Chet Strange for The New York Times

So she suggested a different approach: Focus on the slave owners, on the wealthy Southerners who sometimes included the names of their human property in wills and other documents. I sent a new batch of names. This time, we got lucky.

In July, Ms. Cowan emailed me some information about a mining community in Midlothian, Va., where New York Life had insured dozens of slaves. She included the name of a church that had been founded by the slaves in the 1840s. I Googled the church — now known as First Baptist of Midlothian — and found that it still exists. I also discovered that it has a website that includes the names of its founders.
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Within minutes, I determined that Nathan York, one of First Baptist’s founding members, had been insured by New York Life. Within a few hours, I had traced his descendants, following a trail of census and death records that led me from the 1870s to the 1970s. I emailed the church historian, Audrey Mozelle Ross, and told her what I had learned about Mr. York and his descendants. She immediately recognized the names of Mr. York’s daughter and grandson. They were members of her own family.

Mr. York, it turned out, was her great-great grandfather.

“I can’t believe it,” said Ms. Ross, who had researched the history of several families in her church, but not her own. “You have opened my eyes.”

THUNDERBOLT

For 4 years...A black guy...me, I'm white.
shared an apartment.

We had a discussion about race and his comment about
slavery...I stoppppped him and asked one question.

"Are you glad you are here in the U.S.A.
The BEST MF'in country in the world?"

I said that I did not know how my Great, Great, Great Grandfather
got here, but I am GLAD that somehow, someway, twist of fate or
any story that got me here.............Are you glad that you live here?

He looked at me and said..."I am glad"

I rest my case.
ThunderBolt

Progressive One

toadie....I know rich Africans who came here to go to graduate school then became citizens..............too bad toadies don't think like that.....you've convinced that type that blacks are inferior...people like me know better than that

pftspd

Your research efforts are interesting to me. That said, if you will please, or if can, please enlighten me as to exactly HOW the negro came into existence. I have attempted to discern this, to find some something reliable, and factual, about this but my attempts have failed. I am so curious as to exactly how AND WHERE, and when, the gentic negro came about. I cannot get an answer.. Can you help me with this? Please?

Progressive One

You might want to talk to some researchers in that area or conduct more rigorous independent research of your own........