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State online resources for African-American genealogy: Maryland
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This is part of an ongoing series of state-specific resources for African-American genealogy research.
The website of the Maryland State Archives contains several exhibits for African-American research. The largest exhibit, “The Study of the Legacy of Slavery in Maryland,” consists of several smaller databases, each focusing on a specific subject, and each providing access to digital images of original records
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1. “Beneath the Underground: The Flight to Freedom and Communities in Antebellum Maryland,” highlights records and stories of slaves escaping along the Underground Railroad. The site details the laws concerning runaway slaves prior to 1860, case studies—with digitized original records—of fugitive slaves and their free accomplices, interactive maps from the 1860-1865 period, and a searchable database providing access to indexes and some record images. With this database one can search census records, runaway slave ads, Maryland Penitentiary prisoner records, pardon records, slave jails, chattels, and inventories, including other records.
2. “Blacks in Annapolis,” covers the African-American population of the city of Annapolis, from 1800 to 1920. The original records include the 1776 state census, 1800 through 1860 federal census population schedules, several years of slave and real estate assessments from 1783 through 1880, 1850 through 1870 federal census mortality schedules, 1867 Anne Arundel County Slave Statistics, and an 1875 business directory for the city of Annapolis.
3. “Belair at Bowie: Flight to Freedom,” centers around one specific geographic area, and describes several prominent planters and plantations. This project also has interactive maps for the Bowie, Maryland, area.
In addition to these exhibits, the long-running publication The Archives of Maryland Online also has several resources available, namely,
Agnes Kane Callum, whose work Slaves Statistcs of St. Mary’s County... (Volume 369) helps identify the final owners of former slaves in St. Mary’s County, Maryland, is a true force in African-American genealogy in Maryland. A member of the Baltimore chapter of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society which itself bears her name, Ms. Callum recently received a PhD. from St. Mary’s College for her dedicated work.
Maryland has many other resources for African-American genealogy research. Future columns will highlight other individual collections available online.
This article has been posted on November 10, in response to the NaBloPoMo challenge of posting one article every day throughout the month of November.
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