Morgan County Archives assists New York woman in locating enslaved ancestors

Jun. 12—All that New York resident Clarice Rodgers knew about her great-great grandmother Clarissa Wolf was that she had been enslaved and they shared a similar first name, but research by the Morgan County Archives revealed the ancestor's origins, family members and other facts.

Rodgers, 86, has never been to Alabama, but her family has roots here.

"My ancestors were enslaved by (David) Wolf in Morgan County," Rodgers said. "Before my mother died, she always talked about family in Alabama."

David Wolf (1787-1859) and his wife Margaret are buried in the dismantled Wolf Family Cemetery on Tanner Road in Danville, according to findagrave.com.

Wanting to learn more about her family, Rodgers contacted Morgan County Archivist John Allison, and he was able to locate Wolf's will and land appraisal records dating back to the 1840s and 1850s. He also located Clarissa Wolf's husband Scott and daughter Francis whom Rodgers referred to as "Franky," her great-grandmother. All were slaves on the Wolf plantation.

Franky Wolf's family eventually migrated to Colbert County where Rodgers' mother Beulah Smith Oates was born in 1900.

Franky had several children with a white man named Jones Eady, and there are still Wolf and Eady descendants in Colbert County today. Rodgers said they did not marry because of state laws that prohibited interracial marriage during that time.

"I interviewed an Eady cousin in Colbert County around 1989 and got information about the Wolf-Eady family history," Rodgers said. "I had names that my mother had given before she died in 1980, so that's how I got on track. I was very fortunate for (Allison) and Libby (Boggess with the Archives), they were very helpful."

Allison said he has been able to track slave ancestors before, but the information isn't a common request.

"It's fairly rare, but there have been instances before where people have come ... like we had one family from California who we were able to locate some folks," Allison said. "Another gentleman, I remember a few years back from Chicago, Illinois, who was able to locate some people, so it does happen."

Rodgers said Allison transcribed relevant portions of David Wolf's will, "mainly the owned slaves. He gave them to his wife (Martha)."

Rodgers said she felt fortunate that Allison and his team were able to provide missing pieces to her family's history.

Finding African American ancestors presents several challenges according to John Makowski, history professor at the University of North Alabama.

"The first essential problem is that it's difficult in the enslaved population because of the lack of last names and the movement of people from one place to another," Makowski said.

After the birth of Rodgers' mother, she said, some of her family relocated to Arkansas to escape the racial violence in north Alabama in the early 1900s. Rodgers has been living in New York since the 1970s.

Jordan Collier, assistant local historian at Florence-Lauderdale Public Library, said Rodgers' knowing the surname of the family who enslaved her ancestors is a vital piece of locating African American ancestors before the Civil War.

"People aren't enumerated by their first or last name if they were enslaved before 1865," Collier said. "1870 is going to be the first federal census that actually lists people of color by their name. Before that ... they were literally just tallied as a male or female and whatever their age is."

Despite this challenge, Collier said there are some resources and websites that can guide African Americans with their research on family history such as Fold3, the Southern Claims Commission, AlabamaGenealogy.org/AA and AAHGS.org.

"Fold3 is a service of Ancestry.com that focuses in on military records, so if your ancestor served in the Union Army and they had a pension, you can access that information on Fold3," Collier said. "The Southern Claims Commission was set up by Congress in 1871 to reward Southerners who were loyal to the Union during the rebellion, and many of those claimants are people of color who were enslaved during the war. This (source) gives valuable genealogical information where a person was born, who held them in bondage, who their next of kin was and things like that."

Fold3 is a paid service, costing $50 yearly.

— wesley.tomlinson@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2438.