This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/5519/BMB.2ACE/1251 Message Board Post: My great grandparents, Jacob and Anna Speidel, settled in north Missouri, just north of Hopkins on the IA line, in 1855. Prior to the Civil War, they had slaves whom they had set free long before 1861. Beyond that, I know little about it except that apparently it was common for people to have freed their slaves prior to the Civil War.