Researching two men with the same name, one man African-American and one White.

Robert Lindsey Helmig

This is new ground for me, maybe someone has some suggestions.

My mother's brother's name was Robert EALEY. There was a Black musician whose name was also Robert EALEY.

Ealey, not being a very common name, makes me wonder if some of my ancestors were slave owners and their slaves adopted their owner's surnames. Certain lines of my Ealey family were certainly in the right areas to have used slaves but my dilemma is that in my research I don't find any slaves mentioned. The African-American Ealeys don't give me any clues either.

Are there any approaches to such a conundrum that can be suggested?

Thanks,

Robert Helmig

Robert Lindsey Helmig

Thank you for the many ideas and directions to turn. You’ve obviously been “around the block” numerous times on this subject and I admire your knowledge. I am now better educated.

Why is it a conundrum? Because if you know, you know but if you don’t you don’t. I don’t pretend to have all the answers to anything and that’s why I come here to ask questions of people who are a lot smarter than I and certainly more experienced. You are obviously in those categories. Hopefully you are donating some of your time and expertise to helping others like myself who have little to give but much to offer.

Thank you again,

Robert Lindsey Helmig

Gail Swihart Watson

I'm not sure why you think there is a conundrum. In the early records (colonial era) slaves are normally found in tax records, wills and VERY occasionally, bills of sale. Later on they are also found or inferred in census, birth and death records. Virginia and Kentucky have detailed birth and death records begin in 1853 and include the enslaved. Have you looked in those documents? If you have a lot of family lines documented to go back to the colonial era, you will almost assuredly find ancestors who were enslavers because slavery was legal everywhere. I have found slave owning ancestors in New York, Indiana, New Jersey and possibly Pennsylvania. In southern states, I have found them in Kentucky and Virginia.

Have you taken a DNA test? That is the most proactive thing you can do to get to the truth. I, and cousins on both sides of my family, have hundreds of distant African American DNA matches. This makes sense as all of the instances of my enslaver ancestors that I've found lived prior to 1810. I can find no direct ancestor or sibling to a direct ancestor after that time who were enslavers. When I do surname searches in my list of DNA matches, I have African American DNA matches with family surnames that are found only in my past at the enslaver time period.

I can also look at matches I share with African American matches. In some cases there are many shared matches who have trees that indicate the families of the past that I already know were enslavers. Thus, one can assume relations between male enslavers and female enslaved happened. There are also many of my DNA matches who have surnames in their trees of free persons of color. Since 23andme indicates I and multiple cousins have a small amount of African DNA, somewhere in my past is a person who was so light they were able to pass for being white.

FamilySearch now offers an enslaver-enslaved relationship option in the "Other Relationship" function. I am using it.

Once you find evidence of enslaved, there are many web sites you can post this information on which will help African Americans find their ancestors. Having engaged in African American research, it is very difficult and very emotional.