As you might expect for someone with heritage from the southern states of the United States, I have a number of slaveholder ancestors. As I research my family history, I inevitably come across associated records of enslaved people.
The term ‘Beyond Kin’ is used to refer to: people who had an important connection to each other, without being biologically or legally kin. As well as being used for slaveholder/enslaved person relationships, the methodology could be used to record other circumstances where there are family associations such as indentured persons.
Since coming across The Beyond Kin Method, I have started to use it to organise what I find in relation to my slaveholder ancestors. I haven’t used it extensively yet but I can already see the potential for better identifying patterns in the information.
The more people who use this method in their tree building, the more consistent people’s trees will be when it comes to making connections between slaveholders and enslaved persons and the easier it will be to interpret what we find in each other’s trees and to collaborate with others in areas of mutual interest.
I have been making notes to record these findings, especially where an enslaved person is named in the records. Initially, I was making use of the notes space in each slaveholder’s profile in my Ancestry tree. This gave me a means for noting the information about the enslaved people associated with slaveholder ancestors but it is not necessarily effective for understanding how enslaved persons moved within, or between, families or for encouraging collaborative activity with others researching the same individual(s).
More recently, I discovered The Beyond Kin Project and its method for recording enslaved persons.
a way to encourage and facilitate the documentation of enslaved populations, particularly by recruiting the resources and efforts of the descendants of slaveholders.
The Beyond Kin Project and Method
The Beyond Kin Project was conceived by Donna Cox Baker and Frazine K. Taylor in 2016 as:
a way to encourage and facilitate the documentation of enslaved populations, particularly by recruiting the resources and efforts of the descendants of slaveholders.
The Project provides a specific method for documenting slaveholder/enslaved person connections using existing software tools, such as Ancestry family trees. It also provides the ability to share data via a Research Directory.
The term ‘Beyond Kin’ is used to refer to: people who had an important connection to each other, without being biologically or legally kin. As well as being used for slaveholder/enslaved person relationships, the methodology could be used to record other circumstances where there are family associations such as indentured persons.
Since coming across The Beyond Kin Method, I have started to use it to organise what I find in relation to my slaveholder ancestors. I haven’t used it extensively yet but I can already see the potential for better identifying patterns in the information.
The more people who use this method in their tree building, the more consistent people’s trees will be when it comes to making connections between slaveholders and enslaved persons and the easier it will be to interpret what we find in each other’s trees and to collaborate with others in areas of mutual interest.
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