Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Did Your Ancestors

Own slaves? Mine did.

Yes

No.

Iowa farmers. No

No.
But the first one to come here sold himself into indentured servitude to pay
his passage.




Imagine that.
Voluntary slavery, seeking freedom, in order to pay his own way.

Compare that to today's Americans or those coming here.

Not that I could find.
My Mom's side of the family, best i could tell, were all poor, owned small plots of land and no slaves listed on census. I couldn't find much about service in the War, but then again they were not living in the surrounding counties.
My Dad's side of the family. His Dad's side owned a little land but seemed better off than my Mom's. Smaller family. I couldn't find much about service. His Mom's side of the family, though, many were landowners, but could find no records of slaves owned. I found many, however, that served in the war as they were listed in Simpson and Rankin counties where they lived.

My sister did the DNA ancestry test and traced our history for several centuries. Mostly just poor hillbillies. Nothing of consequence that I could see.

No, both sides came to the US after the civil war.

Old70

Those that had money and means, yes,
Those that couldn't afford to buy a slave - no.

It's like now days, do you have a house keeper or a landscaper.

I believe that everyone alive has had ancestors who had slaves, or have been slaves. We are a product of thousands of successful ancestry.

Yes Virginia (pre-Revolution) Kentucky, Missouri and Colorado until Civil wars end.

Nope. Came from England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland (mother's side) and settled in New York.
Nope. Came from Germany, Norway, and Denmark (father's side) and settled in New York.

Naw, they were poor Irish.

Yes

Yes, mine did.

I don't know. My dad's grandpa came here well after slavery was ended. Not sure about my mom's side.

Probably on my moms side. Not likely on fathers side.

Lot of lost records in two courthouse fires.

Nope. Hessian that came to fight with the British, got off the boat and took off over the blue ridge and the shenandoah and started farming in Pendleton Co.
Too damn poor.

Half my family emigrated from Germany in 1923. I think it is safe to say they did not participate in American slavery.

As to the other half, half of those emigrated from Wales in the 1850s and settled in northern Ohio. Louis Davidson Williams was so incensed by the martyrdom of Colonel Elmer Ellsworth , he ran off and joined the Union, leaving his pregnant wife. He asked that if the child was a boy to name him Elmer Ellsworth Williams. I think we can count the Williams out.

Now to that last quarter. These are a mixed bag of Plymouth Rock Wetbacks, New Amsterdam Dutch, and New Jersey Quakers. The latter produced several brothers that fought with General Washington. After they got thrown out of the Quaker Meeting for not renouncing their participation in the war, Washington offered one of them a mill to manage on the Youghiogheny River, near Pittsburgh. This was Israel Shreve. My lineage stems from his brother William. Israel begat at son, Henry Miller Shreve. My branch of Shreves eventually found their way to Meadville, PA and then to Cleveland, Ohio.

Henry Miller Shreve did indeed own and work slaves, particularly on his mission to clear the Great Raft on the Red River. Upon his retirement to a plantation near Saint Louis, he had slaves.

No, they came from Germany after the civil war, in the 1890s.