RLP 124: Researching African American Ancestors Part 4

Nicole (1s):
This is Research Like a Pro episode 124 African American Research Part four: Southern Claims Commission. Welcome to Research Like a Pro a Genealogy Podcast about taking your research to the next level, hosted by Nicole Dyer and Diana Elder accredited genealogy professional. Diana and Nicole are the mother-daughter team at FamilyLocket.com and the creators of the Amazon bestselling book, The Research Like a Pro a Genealogists Guide. I’m Nicole co-host of the podcast join Diana and me as we discuss how to stay organized, make progress in our research and solve difficult cases.

Nicole (42s):
Let’s go, hi everyone and welcome to Research Like a Pro. I’m Nicole Dyer, and I’m here with my mother accredited genealogist, Diana Elder. Hi mother. How are you?

Diana (55s):
I am doing great. How are you doing today?

Nicole (59s):
Great. What have you been working on?

Diana (1m 2s):
I am trying to wrap up my project for the Research Like a Pro with DNA study group. And it’s been really interesting because this whole project is all about trying to prove or disprove an ancestry Through Line that appeared for my Cynthia Dillard Royston and it’s showing her connected to a Hopson Milner, an entirely different surname. And because I just want to say no, this really isn’t right, I thought I better do a project on it first before I start discounting it completely. So I’ve been working on that and finding myself having to keep from going down rabbit holes with the DNA.

Diana (1m 46s):
I’ve been trying a lot of different tools, which is part of the process, but then when you try a tool, you want to really play with it and explore it. And I’m kind of past that now, I need to get my report written up. So I ran the Genetic Affairs Hybrid Auto Segment tool yesterday and spent a couple hours looking at that, and that can be a huge rabbit hole. So I’m pulling back now, I’m going to just go ahead and get my report written. And then that will be another project to really explore that and the clusters I found there.

Nicole (2m 19s):
Yes, I did the Hybrid Auto Segment as well on your DNA from all the different sites. And it was nice to get a huge Excel file with all of the groups of people who all share on the same segments and they could be on the maternal side or the paternal side, I guess. So it’s important to really check that, but it’s exciting to have them grouped that way. And so it’s going to be fun to go through that and use that in the next phase of my research too.

Diana (2m 43s):
Right. So I did it on a research subject who’s two generations further back on the family tree for my Cynthia Dillard Royston, and so I’m glad that you did mine, but the nice thing has been that I have my mother’s DNA on every single one of the websites. And that kind of has helped me to look at these clusters and realize, yeah, this is definitely the paternal line, not the maternal line, because I do have her DNA out there as well.

Nicole (3m 12s):
Yes, I know. I wish we could have gotten grandpa’s DNA. We just need to find a hair or a stamp we can send off to, ToTheLetter DNA to get that for him.

Diana (3m 20s):
Yup. Oh, I have some hair. I got the hair when I was at my mom’s home.

Nicole (3m 26s):
So we’re, we’re ready to send it in then?

Diana (3m 28s):
I have that in a little ziplock bag whenever that becomes more affordable. I think right now it’s a lot of money. So…

Nicole (3m 33s):
It is, it is like thousands of dollars, but hey, maybe we should do that, for Christmas to ourselves.

Diana (3m 41s):
Okay. Well, we’ll see. Yeah, that would be fun though, but I do have that collected and ready to go. So.

Nicole (3m 48s):
Does it have a root in the hair?

Diana (3m 50s):
I don’t know. See, that’s the thing, maybe not.

Nicole (3m 54s):
That’s the important thing I think. Although there has been some talk lately of rootless hair, being able to find some kind of useful DNA somehow.

Diana (4m 2s):
I’m just hoping that technology improves and we can use whatever we have.

Nicole (4m 6s):
That would be great. Well, today we’re talking about part four of African American Research. So what is the focus of today’s discussion?

Diana (4m 15s):
Today we are talking about the Southern Claims Commission. And our listeners may have heard of that before in conjunction with studying the Civil War, but I’ll just give a little bit of background to help us all remember what this was. And of course, the reason we’re talking about it is because it left a lot of records and that’s what we want when we’re researching our family’s records. So following the Civil War southerners loyal to the Union cause sought redress for the supplies seized by the Union army. So keep in mind that we did have southerners who were against slavery or didn’t uphold the positions of those in the Confederacy.

Diana (4m 57s):
But as the Union army came through, it took from them as well. And they took food and shelter, transportation, ammunition, all these types of things were confiscated or given to the army. And so Congress on March 3rd, 1871 created the Southern Claims Commission. And it was to oversee the process of hearing the claims of these people. And this commissioner was to process all of the claims and it operated from 1871 until 1880. If you can imagine this was a huge undertaking and there are so many records. So the records have claims and testimonies of witnesses, and often these were formerly enslaved people or free people of color.

Nicole (5m 45s):
That’s wonderful how exciting

Diana (5m 47s):
You may wonder how many there actually were filed. And there were over 22,000 claims filed, but only about 7,000 allowed. But whether they were actually allowed and received money from the government, all of the claims have really great genealogical information and they’re available to search.

Nicole (6m 9s):
Wow. That reminds me of the pensions where a lot of people applied, but not all of them got the pension, but then the records were saved. And so they’re still a great resource, even if they were rejected.

Diana (6m 20s):
Absolutely. And the same with the land applications. So there were a lot of land applications that were filed, but didn’t go through the entire process and didn’t get the final land patent that you can still search those land applications. And there’s all that great information there. So this is just another example of that type of a record. It’s important to realize that only residents of 12 Southern states could file a claim. And those states included Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia. So when you hear those, you realize that these are the states that would have suffered a lot of loss from the Union army coming through.

Nicole (7m 6s):
Oh, okay.

Diana (7m 7s):
So that makes sense, right?

Nicole (7m 8s):
Yes.

Diana (7m 9s):
These are the battleground states. Now what if someone had, say, for instance, been in Florida and then they since moved out west, well, that person could also file a claim if they had incurred their losses in one of those approved states. So the claims actually include claims from a total of 24 states because people didn’t stay, you know, after they’d lost everything a lot of times they moved on.

Nicole (7m 35s):
So did they have to then provide evidence that they lived in that certain place?

Diana (7m 40s):
Well, that’s the kicker. They had to provide so much evidence and they had to have all these witnesses and testimonies for not only that they had lived there, but that they had lost the property. And there were strict criteria for this claim to be approved. First of all, they had to prove they had lost the property. Then they had to prove that they were loyal to the Union because during the war and that they had provided no assistance to the Confederate army.

Nicole (8m 9s):
So that’s why only 7,000 were allowed.

Diana (8m 13s):
Right. Cause you can imagine that people would lie. You know, maybe they had been loyal to the Confederate army, but they’d had all their property taken and now they want to change tunes and become loyal to the Union army. So there, there was a lot of sifting through the evidence and, you know, I’m sure that the Southern Claims Commission got some things wrong, but regardless of whether they were wrong or right with their either denying or approving a claim, we have records, but just wonderful for us as genealogists.

Nicole (8m 42s):
That’s a lot of requirements that you have to prove you lost property and prove that you were loyal. How do you prove that you were loyal to the Union? Cause I mean, I guess that would have to be witness statements,

Diana (8m 54s):
Right. So as you can imagine, when this act was approved, there was an overwhelming response and the government set out special agents to gather the evidence for these claims. So you have thousands of witness and personal statements of the former slave owners and the formerly enslaved. Now that many to keep in mind is that we had free people of color all throughout these states and their property was taken along with all the property of everyone else. And they also filed claims, but they had a little bit more difficult time because the agents didn’t always believe them, that they had really owned any property. So you’re going to see all sorts of different things in the records.

Diana (9m 35s):
Now there were three different categories of claim status and the records are available for all three categories. And it’s important to know about these because you will see in the databases, these different categories. So there’s something called a Barred claim. And these are those where the process was never completed or rejected without any consideration. These could have also had lack of proof or the claimant could have been shown to have had ties to the Confederacy. So right up front, they were just barred and they will be shown in the indexes with a B. And then we have Disallowed claims that were completed and have the witness statements, property descriptions, referrals for appeals.

Diana (10m 19s):
But despite the evidence, no money was ever authorized for them. And this is a rich records that with many, many records and in the indexes, you’ll see these with a D for disallowed.

Nicole (10m 31s):
Does it always say why it was disallowed or does it just have the D on it?

Diana (10m 35s):
Well, in the index, it just has the D. You have to delve into the actual set of records to find why.

Nicole (10m 43s):
Okay.

Diana (10m 43s):
Then for Allowed claims we’ll have an A, for Allowed. And this represents those where the claim process was completed and approved, and these files can contain the appeals depositions testimony of witnesses. And as you would imagine, these provide the most information and are rich with the details.

Nicole (11m 4s):
Yeah. That does sound like those ones would be very detailed. And I’m also just really curious to read some of the claims just out of historical curiosity and to see why some were allowed and some were not

Diana (11m 18s):
Exactly. Well, let’s talk a little bit about these records. Before we dive into a new record set, it’s always really valuable to understand what could be found in them. So for African American Research, particularly in these crucial years, following the Civil War, we want to gather every piece of evidence for an ancestor, because it helps so much in reconstructing families. A claim file might include any of the following things that we’re going to talk about and notice that when we take all of these items in total, that they are our really unique journal of this time and place. So as we’ve mentioned, there are official statements and these could be from the actual person claiming or any of his witnesses.

Diana (12m 4s):
And then you’re going to get a firsthand account of events and circumstances, because they’re going to talk about exactly what happened. They’re going to describe the troops that came through. They will likely have to have details about who was the commander or exactly which regimen it was and a date as well as they can remember. So you get some history of the military as well, which you may not have thought about. And then you get descriptions of the property that was lost. And this gives you a really good idea of how they were really living. And some of the records, the property is huge and others is just really simple. Like the example we’re going to look at of just a seemingly small amount of property, but to them, it was huge.

Diana (12m 49s):
And they wanted to recoup some of that loss. We will get loyalty oath. This can include things like a little genealogy, some family history, naming parents or children. For African American Research this is huge. And you will get slave owner names, which also is huge in going back before emancipation and relationships. I mean, that is amazing that that will be listed there. You’ll also get witnesses because they’re not just going to take your word for it. You had to provide some witnesses. What does this give us? Well, this gives us our FAN club names of the neighbors.

Diana (13m 30s):
It could be other slaves who are family members that have been freed. And now you provide as your witness. So, so much good rich information in these records.

Nicole (13m 42s):
There’s a lot of good information there. And so this is not going to be included in the index. So after you find your people in the index, you have to go order the record, and then you get all this.

Diana (13m 53s):
Yes, you have to go find the records. And we are going to talk about how to find those in a little bit, before we go onto how to find the records, we need to talk about the standing interrogatories. And these are 80 questions. If you can imagine that were asked of every person to determine that their loyalty. And it’s so interesting to look at these questions, they’re very repetitive. And the whole idea was to test the truthfulness of the information. And these answers became part of the claim file. So we can read all the answers to these questions. And these could reveal personal details for the African-American witnesses and claimants, such as whether they were slave or free the date of their freedom, their slave owner, and occupation, if they’re a property owner, how that property was obtained.

Diana (14m 45s):
So as you look through the questions, you can just imagine someone sitting in a room and being asked these questions, the same thing over and over to see if the story changes, or if it agrees throughout the interrogation, which is really what it was.

Nicole (14m 59s):
I can’t imagine an interrogation like that. It just seems like very intense.

Diana (15m 5s):
It probably was. Oh, but the records are so interesting. Now, what if your ancestor is not named in the records? You know, we hear about these great record collections and we go to the index and we do our quick search for our ancestor and nothing comes up. And that can be so disappointing that we have to remember that the FAN club principle or of research applies here and we want to seek out records of anyone living in the known area. So look for friends, associates or neighbors of the ancestor. And this will give you a broad view of the community through the eyes of a diverse group. You will see it through the eyes of a white slave owner, the enslaved people, the free people of color.

Diana (15m 47s):
And this will give you so much better of an idea than just one point of view. So for example, let’s look at the record for a former slave, Spencer Harris. He was in Alabama. So this is from the FamilySearch digitized collection for Alabama Approved Claims and Spencer Harris was awarded $160 because his horse and corn were taken in 1864 by General Hatch. The entire file is 38 pages long. And it gives you additional details that the horse was worth $130 and the 15 barrels of corn were worth $5 each. So we get really detailed on how much everything was worth.

Diana (16m 30s):
And then we get that information about the military troops. And we learned that the horse and the corn were taken for use by the army in the spring of 1864 near Athens, Limestone County, Alabama.

Nicole (16m 45s):
Wow.

Diana (16m 45s):
So that’s a fun, little interesting detail. Now we had four witnesses that were all of Limestone county listed, and these were Bob Harris, Dick Harris, Awesome Malone and Henry Malone. So who were these witnesses?

Nicole (17m 3s):
These were his former associates.

Diana (17m 5s):
Exactly. And if they are giving witness for him, they have a strong connection. There was a reason why he asked them. And so we would want to research every single one of those people to figure out their connection. Now, the standing interrogatory for Spencer Harris, remember those 80 questions. We learned that he was about 32 years old and was a slave. He farmed and chopped wood for the railroad. He bought the horse from some refugees from Tennessee and paid $75 of greenback money. His master’s name was Dudley Harris, who is dead. His residence was near Athens, Alabama, and Spencer lived on land bought from Tom Hill Malone, a white man, now dead.

Diana (17m 51s):
The witnesses attested to the fact that they saw the horse and corn taken in the daytime openly.

Nicole (17m 57s):
That’s really interesting. There’s so much detail here and that there were witnesses who actually saw the corn and horse taken.

Diana (18m 5s):
And do you notice the names? So his master was Dudley Harris. Two of his witnesses were Bob Harris and Dick Harris, so they could be connected to the white slave owner family, or perhaps they were previous slaves of Dudley Harris who had taken that surname. We don’t know. So that’s why we need more research to figure out who they are and what the connection is. And then we learned that Spencer lived on land from a Malone and he has two Malone’s as witnesses, Austin and Henry Malone. So you can see interwoven through his witness statements and then his witnesses more connections. So doesn’t that just make you want to go research that and discover who everybody is in that little, that record,

Nicole (18m 49s):
Wouldn’t it be great to have this for so many more people?

Diana (18m 54s):
Absolutely. So the question everybody is wanting to know, I know you’re all listening and you’re thinking, okay, I want to go research this well, start with the FamilySearch Research Wiki article, Southern Claims Commission, which gives a detailed strategy for finding your ancestor in these records. And it gives you the links to online record collections on Ancestry.com and Fold3. And then also you’ll want to search the FamilySearch catalog with Southern Claims Commission and their collections are organized by state. So you can even just do a Google search for Southern Claims Commission, Virginia, or Southern Claims Commission, Alabama, and get to collections like that. So it’s kind of like with all the records we’ve been talking about for these African-American research questions, there’s not just one place that you go to for all the records they’re scattered.

Diana (19m 46s):
And if you’re doing your locality guide, you can gather up all the different locations and the record collections and put those there so that you have them in one place to help you get back to them when you need them again. So we also have a couple of other good resources. The St Louis County Library has a really good research page and the National Archives page for Southern Claims Commission case files gives many details about this group. So a good place to start of course, is always in the indexes and on Ancestry there is a wonderful index that has been digitized. This was originally created in print by Gary B.

Diana (20m 27s):
Mills, and it’s titled Southern Loyalists in the Civil War. This is a fun index to look at and to explore it’s the master index. And it will list all claimants in alphabetical order with the county state commission number, office number, report, number, date, and status. So remember when we talked earlier about those letters that B for Barred and D for Disallowed and A for Allowed, well, it shows up there on the index. So you know what you’re looking for.

Nicole (20m 57s):
Okay.

Diana (20m 58s):
And with Spencer Harris that we talked about, his listing shows in A, because his claim was allowed. And once you see some information or you find your person in that master index, then your job is to go find the full file, whether that’s on FamilySearch, which is where I found Spencer, that was completely digitized on FamilySearch under the Alabama collection, use the index, and then you go find the full file. So don’t ever just look at the index and go, oh, look, great. There is a record here. You want that full file, which gives you all the wonderful details.

Nicole (21m 33s):
Absolutely. So when I’m looking at this FamilySearch Wiki article describing a strategy for using the Southern Claims Commission records, it’s talking about the most effective strategy is to search all of the Southern Claims Commission records for everyone living in the same Southern county as an ancestor. And wow, that would be a time-consuming search, but with so many witness statements and people mentioned in the standing interrogatories, it really does make sense that if you’re going to find any information about your person, that you would have to do some extensive research.

Diana (22m 7s):
Exactly. And I think we just have to recognize that that this is not fast and easy research. It can be if you find your person in the index, but if you don’t, then that FAN club research is always more involved, but it does yield results. And if you are feeling like you’re at a brick wall, then that’s exactly what you need to do is expand your research and your thinking.

Nicole (22m 32s):
Yes, exactly. Reading through all of these Southern Claims Commission files would be so fun and interesting to really understand what life was like during the Civil War in a certain place.

Diana (22m 43s):
And, you know, you have the census, you can use the census for some help. Perhaps you want to start with all the people on the same page as your ancestor, and maybe 10 households before, 10 households after see if any of them are in the Southern Claims Commission records are in the index and then keep expanding. You wouldn’t have to take the entire county all at once. You could do it in an organized fashion and start in that little neighborhood and then keep expanding out. I think that maybe would help to narrow it down just a little bit as you’re getting started.

Nicole (23m 19s):
Yes. All right. Well, that was fun. Thanks for teaching us about the Southern Claims Commission.

Diana (23m 25s):
Well, you’re more than welcome. I was really grateful that I learned more about this record set and how to use this at my IGHR course. It’s always so fun to learn new avenues for research and new ways to think about the research and researching the African-American ancestors.

Nicole (23m 44s):
Yes. Good luck to everyone researching your African American ancestors. And hopefully this record set will be something new that you can try to get more information. All right. Good luck everyone. We’ll talk to you next time. All right, bye. Thank you for listening. We hope that something you heard today will help you make progress in your research. If you want to learn more, purchase our book Research Like a Pro a Genealogist Guide on Amazon.com and other booksellers. You can also register for our Research Like a Pro online course or join our next study group. Learn more at FamilyLocket.com. To share your progress and ask questions join our private Facebook group by sending us your book receipt or joining our eCourse or study group.

Nicole (24m 30s):
If you like what you heard and would like to support this podcast, please subscribe, rate, and review. We hope you’ll start now to Research Like a Pro