Since slaves were not allowed to attend school, formally marry, own land or vote, African-American genealogical research is difficult. Paper trails rarely exist.

What further complicates matters is that many slaves were sold to various masters and consequently took several surnames during their lives. Many freed slaves also chose new names to distance themselves from their oppressors.

But resources do exist for African-Americans who want to learn more about their ancestry, said Vivian Fisher, manager of the African-American Department at Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Free Library.

“It’s like solving a mystery,” she said.

This story continues below
Advertisement

She suggests that people search probate records, wills, criminal records, chattel records and advertisements searching for runaway slaves.

“Many people might not think to look at slave advertisements, but they include a description, the last owner and where they think the runaway is headed,” she said.

Being a border state, Maryland had both Union and Confederate sympathizers during the Civil War, and its location made it a common stop along the Underground Railroad, a network of people who helped guide slaves to freedom. Bounty hunting for runaway slaves became a profitable business, particularly in Carroll County because it borders Pennsylvania, historian Mimi Ashcraft said.

Maryland’s proximity to the free North also made slaves a risky investment, so fewer people owned slaves than in the Deep South, said Jeannine Disviscour, the curator and deputy director of collections at the Maryland Historical Society in Baltimore.

“People could see freedom, knew family members who were free, and that gave them hope” to run away, Disviscour said.

Southern Maryland and the Eastern Shore, where abolitionist Frederick Douglass was born in 1818, saw the largest concentration of slaves.

The society’s current exhibit, At Freedom’s Door: Challenging Slavery in Maryland, features a book that lists the hundreds of slaves owned by Charles Carroll of Carrollton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and for whom Carroll County is named.

When President Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, he freed only slaves in seceding states, so slavery continued for another year in Maryland until a Constitutional Convention abolished it. – Kelsey Volkmann

SOCIAL INJUSTICE: Contrary to Carroll County lore, Taneytown was not named after Roger Brooke Taney. That’s a good thing. This Taney was the Supreme Court chief justice who, 150 years ago, proclaimed slaves as non-citizens in the court’s famous Dred Scott decision.