If she was emancipated she will have a deed recording her freedom being given to her, or if it was given to her in a will there will a deed listing of who her white guardians were, these men and sometimes rarely women, were to oversee her transactions and ensure that she gets a fair shake in the courts when she goes to buy land and prevent her from being stolen back into slavery. Most likely her children were not freed when she was freed so her children were purchased from their owners there will be deeds showing the transfer of ownership. Since she was a Free woman of color she will have to pay of poll tax on her slaves and on any free people of color that she has in her household. This will be a special assessment on them, so the tax records are a good place to look. Also check were the family was living in the 1870 census, then look in the Freedman bank records. There may be information in there about where the family came from, and how long they may have been free before the civil war. She might have been "bright" enough to have passed or even to have been quadroon or octaroon. If she or her children were Quadroon then the next generation of mixing with white would have made them Octaroon and until the 1800's that would have required that the children be released, for they would have been considered white. If she herself were Octaroon she would have been considered white under most state laws, after 1800, the doctrine of one drop of Negro blood in the lineage came into and the Octaroon practice was dropped in most of the eastern seaboard states. Deborah Byrd > > From: Virginia Crilley <varcsix@hot.rr.com> > Date: 2007/07/23 Mon PM 01:00:18 EDT > To: gagen-l@rootsweb.com > Subject: [GAGEN] Free Blacks ?? > > Can someone suggest a way to find out the answer to this question? > > MY ANCESTOR RITTER DORSEYA/A IS LISTED ON THE CENSUS 1850 IN TROU[P COUNTY > GA. SHE WAS LISTED AS A FREE BLACK WITH HER CHILDREN. HOW CAN I FIND > DOCUMENTS ON HER. I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW IF SHE WAS BORN FREE OR GIVEN HER > FREEDOM. PLEASE LET ME KNOW HOW I COULD SEACH FOR THESE DOCUMENTS AND WHERE > I MIGHT LOCATE THEM. > THANK YOU VERY MUCH AND HAVE A NICE DAY. > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to GAGEN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >