Life before 1870

Learning how an African American person lived before emancipation can be challenging. Especially if you make a genealogical brick wall that keeps you at a standstill.

How do you make a genealogical brick wall you ask? By not exhausting all options and limiting your scope of search. I did just that with my ancestor, Thomas Jefferson Holly, who went by his middle name Jefferson. I found him in the 1870 census with his wife, Maria, and children: Andrew, Maggie, and Lucy in Westernport, Allegany County, Maryland. The record revealed that Jefferson and Maria were born in Virginia. Their surname was phonetically spelled H-a-w-l-e-y.

Due to their location at this time, I assumed they lived in the Western part of Virginia. Are you familiar with the expression around the word assume? I searched all of West Virginia’s county databases for Jefferson and Maria before their lives in Maryland. I spelled their names in various ways hoping for a hit, but no success.

The next area to look was all of Virginia. Finally, I found Thomas twice in the 1860 census with two different families, one Black and one White. On June 20th, the census taker entered him as Thomas J Holly with the Shelton family. William Shelton’s occupation was a Blacksmith. In the other entry dated August 15th, Jefferson Holly was counted with his mother, Grace, his six siblings, sister-in-law, niece, and nephew.

What’s so exciting about finding teenaged Thomas Jefferson Holly is that he was a free inhabitant of Rockingham County. He and his family were free people of color!

How do I know that this is the same person, my ancestor? I compared the age, and how frequently he used his middle name which is consistent with the later documents I undercovered for him. He developed his skill in Blacksmithing. It is how he supported his family in Maryland. Blacksmiths made more than horseshoes. They made and repaired tools, which is what he did for coal miners sharpening their picks in Western Maryland.

I recommend that you expand your research borders before for your African American ancestors. Go beyond the geographical area. Play with the spelling variations. Consider their occupations.

Have you been climbing a brick wall?

Want my help in breaking that wall down?

Reach out to me at Admin@diggin4myroots.com