Near the end of my first semester, I began referencing narratives concerning my 4th-great-grandmother, Charity Ann with a series of porcelain objects. Last semester, I began depicting those narratives more directly with Ode to Charity Ann. I've been particularly interested with her story because it is a narrative not only rich in oral tradition but, as I have discovered through months of research, also has extensive documentation. Her biography is a complicated one that connects my family with difficult subject matter such as slavery, the Civil War, interracial relationships, migration, poverty, feminism, and social class.
In following the story of my family through time, from Charity Ann's life to my own, one can see connections between individual and historical narratives in the effects of slavery and its aftermath up through the fall of Jim Crow laws. For example, if you consider the jobs that women have held in each generation in my family there is a pattern that demonstrates changes in opportunities.
Recently, I traveled with my husband to Harris County, the location of the oldest official records that I can find documenting the existence of my ancestors. I recorded my own journey in photographs.
I had three goals for this trip...
1. To pinpoint the location of Negro Heel. This district was listed as my family's home on the 1850 census which was oldest documentation I had uncovered. At some point, the name of the district was changed, making it difficult to determine exactly where inside the 473 sq. mile county my family resided.
2. To find a marriage record of Isaiah Sr. and Mahaley who were my slave-owning 5th great grandparents according to the 1850 and 1860 census records.
3. To uncover evidence of Mahaley's maiden name and family and/or Isaiah Sr.'s family.
Our first stop was to the Harris County Public Library which kept a county archive room that contained old maps, census records for 1830 and 1840, and a written history of the county. I searched the census records first and found 3 possible leads for Isaiah Sr. and Mahaley's household in the 1840 census. None of these leads are a perfect match: listing only the head of household by name, the use of an initial instead of the full first name, and inconsistencies in the number of children that should be in the household make it difficult to be certain.
The photocopy of the 1830 census was in terrible condition. I could only find one person with the appropriate last name. The first name and number and ages of children did not seem to match what I was expected, so I doubt it was the family I was looking for. I did find one possible lead for Mahaley's family based on what is likely to be her maiden name, but it is far from the evidence I hoped to uncover.
The one remarkable discovery that we made at the library was to find a list of the 1850 census district names along with the Georgia Militia District numbers that they were changed to in subsequent census records. We used that information along with a older, yet detailed county district map to pinpoint exactly were Negro Heel was located. This map also contained roads and landmarks, such as churches and cemeteries. We didn't know it at the time but those landmark listings would become significant.
Later on, we took a drive out to the area where Negro Heel would have been. There isn't much there; an old church, a few houses, and a lot of gravel roads through rural land. We stopped at Whitesville Methodist Church, one of the oldest in the county, hoping to find some evidence of my family in the neighboring cemetery. We were unsuccessful in that search.
