In a message dated 04/28/2001 3:40:21 PM Mountain Daylight Time, CASH KILBY writes: > This is because the terms used in the records at that time were "negro, > slave, servant, etc.. Not "African-American". I And sometimes mulatto or colored. Or maroon or octaroon. In fact, many of them may have been mixtures of several races--a number called themselves Indian for want of a better term. The point is, somewhere back along the line was African heritage, but they were free men--the important point. In Thomas Kersey's census records some are labeled B for black, others M for mulatto. Prior to 1850, they were simply "other free."