About Remembered by Name
The names and information contained in Remembered by Name comes from Records of Ante-Bellum Southern Plantations from the Revolution through the Civil War, a monumental microfilm collection, edited by the historian Kenneth M. Stampp, which includes an extensive range of primary source documents from plantation records across the American South. Compiled from the holdings of major archives such as the Southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the South Caroliniana Library, the Louisiana State University Libraries, and others, this collection offers invaluable insights into the social, economic, and cultural dimensions of slavery and plantation life from the late 18th century through the Civil War. This collection also contains the names of thousands of enslaved African Americans.
This database is intended to assist individuals seeking to know and remember their ancestors by name.
Understanding the Variables of Remembered by Name
Person ID
In general, each row in Remembered by Name represents a unique enslaved individual. For this reason, every row in the database must have a unique identifier. Because many names belonged to multiple enslaved individuals, the author assigned each individual a unique four-digit numerical code.
First Name
This is the first name of the enslaved individual as it appears on the document excluding any modifiers (recorded in a separate variable).
Last Name
This is the surname of the enslaved individual as recorded on the document. However, records in this collection rarely included enslaved individuals surnames, even in cases in which the enslaved individual likely possessed a surname, so for most people, this field is null (blank).
Suffix/Modifier
This variable includes any suffixes or modifiers appearing with the individual’s name on the record. For example, if a plantation ledger identified an enslaved individual as “Big Moses,” “Moses” would be recorded in the “First Name” field and “Big” would appear in this field.
Sex
In most cases, this is not explicitly stated on the document and was instead inferred by the database author from the individual’s name. For this reason, this information contained in this field is not guaranteed to be accurate in all cases.
Year of Birth
In most cases, the database author calculated the individual’s year of birth by subtracting their age from the year in which the document was drafted.
Age
This is the age of the individual if indicated by the original record.
Record Year
This is the year in which the document referenced was drafted.
Mother Name
This information is usually only found on documents listing births which occurred on a plantation.
Father Name
This information is usually only found on documents listing births which occurred on a plantation. Even on those documents, however, this information was rarely recorded.
Father Surname
This information is usually only found on documents listing births which occurred on a plantation. Even on those documents, however, this information was rarely recorded.
State
This is the state in which the document referenced was drafted. In most but not all cases, this corresponds with the state in which the enslaved individual lived at the time of the document’s drafting.
Associated Enslavers
This field contains the names of enslavers associated with the enslaved individual.
Source
This field contains a number which corresponds with a source listed in the Remembered by Name database of sources.
Source Excerpt
This contains a PDF of the portion of the source on which the enslaved individual’s name appears.
Source Type
Unlike Oceans of Kinfolk and Louisiana Kindred which are built from thousands of one kind of source (ship manifests in the case of Oceans of Kinfolk and notarial records of sales of enslaved people in the case of Louisiana Kindred), Remembered by Name contains information from many different kinds of sources.