Indexing Slave births in Virginia census under father or slave owner?

Marliese Lloyd

I have a column that says "Father's name, in full, if born in wedlock" - Some of these are the father's name (when the person is free) but when they are a slave, I assume they are mostly the slave owner's name and not the father (especially when the name looks like a woman's name)

There is no column that asks slave owner's name

There is a column for the informant's name and relationship to the baby which sometimes says master so in those cases I can figure out that the name in the father's column is actually, usually the master (perhaps father too but can't judge).

How do I go about indexing the rest of the names in the father's column? Do I put them as father anyway (including names like Isabella) or do I put them in the data as slave owner? Do I record them as both father and slave owner and let the relative search the image on their own to figure it out?

TIA

Melissa S Himes

It is always best to share your batch to give others a better sense of what you are seeing.

But, there are very extensive instructions in this project about what to do when there is a column for free and slave. You don't record the names in two places.

• When the columns Free or Slave appear on the image, a mark or letter will be present in one of the columns. When the mark or letter appear in the Free column, index the name from the Father's Name (or Name of Owner) column in the Father's Name fields. When the mark or letter appear in the Slave column, index the name from the Father's Name (or Name of Owner) column in the Slave Owner's name fields. If there is no mark or letter in either column, leave the Father's Name fields and the Slave Owner's name fields blank.
• When the columns Free or Slave appear on the image and a slave owner's name is indexed, do not index the father's occupation, residence city, or residence county. Mark these fields blank, and index only the Slave Owner's name fields.

If those instructions don't help, share your batch by clicking on the third icon from the right and following the instructions, or at least provide the batch code that follows the title of the project - like [M3QD-WR1]

You can always pull up the project instructions once you have closed them by clicking on the last icon in the tool bar.

Marliese Lloyd

Thanks so much! I had read the instructions a week or so ago and only had the column that said "Father's name or name of owner" so I understood it when that was the title. When it just said "name of father" and didn't talk about the owner it threw me for a loop since my other batch image mentioned both father or owner in the same column. When in doubt, re-read the instructions ... oops.