Enslaved Ancestors' Names

If you are potentially a descendant of an African American enslaved in Northern Kentucky before the Civil War, please browse this list of soldiers to see if any of them share a last name with one of your ancestors. Though your ancestor may not be the soldier, a soldier may have been a relative or may have been enslaved on the same estate. Keep in mind that only men of a certain age group were eligible to enlist; your ancestor could easily have been a sister, younger or older sibling, or cousin of a soldier. These counties aren't huge.  If you share a last name and a close county of origin, you might be well on your way to a connection.

One of my U.S. Civil War ancestors had a common first name, George, and his last name was misspelled such that I would never have recognized it. We had his name as George Gans, but in the military, he was listed as George Gautz. While searching for George, I came upon another soldier named Reuben Gants, which caught my eye because "Reuben" is a common family first name. So I followed Reuben back to his regiment and the George closest to him turned out to be my ancestor. How do I know for sure? (a subject for another exciting blog entry...)

Spellings of Soldiers' Names

Spellings of soldiers' names are pretty arbitrary.  Of the enlistment records I transcribed, not one bears an actual soldier's signature.  The spelling of the names is based on the way the soldier spoke his name at the enlistment site. In later records during the war, the returns and rolls were filled out by copyists who also made judgment calls as to how to spell a soldier's name. Spellings changed from copyist to copyist.

My advice: Say the name aloud. Say it with your best regional accent. Mumble it. Try to imagine how a person might hear such a name. Sometimes middle names and last names are heard as a single name. For example, "Thomas Wood Forman," the name of my ancestor's enslaver, was transcribed on one pension document as Tom Woodfirmin.

Another little thing to mention is that modern transcriptions of Civil War service records are often gleaned only from the first iteration of the name as it is written on the cover of a file, rather than within the file. We modern transcribers sometimes have trouble with the old-style calligraphy. "ss" is often written as "ps" or as something that looks like a "B" with a tail. The letters m,n, and u are completely interchangeable, as are "o", "a" and "u" sometimes. The capitals "L" "Q" and "S" can get pretty fancy. Capital "I" and "J" are interchangeable, even in the same hand. But if you stare hard enough and see enough iterations, you start to work it out. 

Nicknames of Enslavers

By now you have probably noted that lots of names were abbreviated in the mid 1800's. William is Wm. Jonathan is Jno. or Jack, Charles is Chas., Christopher is Kit., and George is Geo.

Many formerly enslaved soldiers referred to their masters using familiar forms of the names.  Arthur might be called "Art," Thomas called "Tom".  Just as we are accustomed to hearing enslaved people's names in their short and informal forms, like "Bess," enslavers also are referred to in this way in the transcribed oral interviews in pension files or in a note on an enlistment form. It was conversely very common to give a middle name of an enslaver. This is probably because the names recurred so commonly within slaver families in Northern Kentucky.  There might be five James Wiltons in the extended family alive at the same time, so one might be called Jimmy S. Wilton and another might be called Jamie Marshal Wilton, etc.

Last names

Contrary to what I had always learned prior to this project, it does appear that for the usual practical reasons, slaves in this Northern Kentucky county had last names. The names seem to most frequently come from either the enslaver of one's father or from one's current enslaver. Sometimes a soldier would enlist under his current enslaver's name, with his father's name as his middle name or initial, and then sometimes switch to the use of the father's name on the rolls. If you see a middle name or initial on a soldier, definitely treat it as a breadcrumb leading to something.

If you are looking for Alfred Jones, and you see a soldier named Alfert J. Wilson, it could be the same person. "Alfert" probably does not have the "J." for vanity reasons. But you will need to check around a bit more to determine who he is.