For Diane and any others, As far as I know there are no slave files _as such_. I have checked Pat Duncan's LoCo Birth Register 1853-1879 which covers a bit of slave time; there are a number of Tates listed who are born after 1865. If you have a first name, I will be happy to look them up. However, Balch may also have a vertical file in the black history room. Slave material IS available; you just often need names, dates, owners, areas of the county--other details to help you look. SOME of Balch's family files, for example on the white Braden family, have extensive material on their slaves because descendants of the slaveholders, in this case Sue Beach of Indiana, did the research and placed them there. I present below a transcription of one of the many runaway slave ads from the Genius of Liberty, a weekly newspaper printed in Leesburg 1817-1843. Balch has hard copy from 1817-c. 1823; I have been fortunate to have had access, for scanning purposes only, to originals in a private collection, from which the ad below is scanned. Hard copies and a CD of these will eventually be available at Balch and at other area resources; I am meeting this Friday with Jenny Masur of the National Park Service to discuss dissemination of this material. IF this Tate is the one you are looking for, I expect it could be xeroxed from Balch's copy. Let me know. $30 Reward. Ran away from the subscriber on Tuesday night last, the fifth inst [instant], tawny colored negro man, calls himself James Tate, about 20 or 21 years of age, five feet 10 inches high, well made, and very likely. Took with him one brown lapelled cloth coat, tolerably wellworn, one roundabout jacket, drab colored, a pair of grey cloth pantaloons, one striped cassimere vest, one white jacket, 3 coarse linen shirts, one darker than the rest, two red silk handkerchiefs, a pair or two or brown linen breeches, and other clothing not recollected. $10 dollars will be paid for apprehending and securing said runaway so that I get him again, if taken in this state, or $30 if apprehended out of the state. N.B. --it is supposed he has shaped his course towards the western part of Pennsylvania, where he will probably endeavor to pass for a free man. Thomas Muse, Sen. Loudoun County, near Goose Creek Sept.12, 1820 Bronwen Souders Waterford Foundation,education comittee Waterford VA