Indexing Slave Names From Wills

Kristi Kofford Kielman

I was recently reading a will from 1820 Virginia and several names of slaves were listed. I then found the name of a deceased slave mixed in with other information on another document. There would be no way for someone looking for their ancestors to know where to look for this information. After deciding to contact you to suggest indexing old wills from slave states, I came across an article describing a new initiative called 10 Million Names project and thought it would be wonderful if Family Search could partner with them in creating a data base for descendants of slaves to find family names easier.

Áine Ní Donnghaile

FamilySearch already partners with American Ancestors. 10 Million Names is an American Ancestors project.