Free Negro Registries

Free Negro Registries

Many of the individuals named in freedom documents can be found listed in city or county Free Negro Registries as early as 1793 and 1803 respectively. Though these registration requirements were antithetical to liberty and a restriction on the freedom of movement for free African Americans of the time, this documentation now enables historians, genealogists and researchers to follow the lives of freedmen through the years. Many manumitted individuals were freed with only a first name listed in the freedom document, but when registered a first and last name can be found, as well as notes on physical description, and even family relations (such as name of parents), which can be very beneficial for researchers and genealogists today.

Most of these registries start on a page number other than "1" as the previous pages are either blank, missing or have some notes or writing that do not include any information regarding the freedmen of the locality. We have included all pertinent pages we were able to obtain. Some jurisdictions kept much more detailed records than others, while there were also differences in population totals of free people from one locality to the next. It should be noted that historians have surmised that only some lesser percentage of all free people in a jurisdiction ever registered.

While the information noted for each individual follows a certain pattern, the style and layout of the registers are far from uniform, differing from one jurisdiction to the next, with no two appearing to be identically formatted. Some appear organized by rows and columns with information entered in a minimal, straightforward manner, while others appear in a paragraph form with a narrative style of writing. One example of the generally required information for registering an individual can be found in this template from Amherst County.