Sunday, April 18, 2010

Slemmons' Bible entry regarding the Huffman family

While looking through some previously copied family records, I ran across a bible record that recorded births of some of the slaves that the brother to my 2nd great-grandfather, Asher Slemmons, owned. I had remembered reading the entry back when I first made the copies in 1993 (wow how time has flown), but I didn't follow up with it after that. This morning when I saw the bible entry, something told me to do a little digging on this family (and having learned a long time ago not to ignore my gut feelings) I decided to do a little more research on this family.

The following bible entry comes from the book, "Bible and Family Records of Barren County, Kentucky Vol 2" by Sandra K. Laughery Gorin, page 272 titled "Slemmons Bible."  This book is still for sale by Sandi Gorin and can be found at her website found here. The entry states:
"Bible belonged to John Crenshaw Slemmons and now is in possession of Mrs. R. I . Taylor, Edmonton Road, Glasgow, Ky.

Record of a black woman Eliza Huffman, a slave of John Crenshaw Slemmons: 
Woman Eliza born Sept 1838.
Her first child Martha Francis was born January 24th 1859.
Her second child Mariah Catherine was born August 2nd 1860.
Her third child James Preston was born April 8th 1862.
Her fourth child William Right was born May 3rd 1863.
Her fifth child was born January 26th 1865 her named was Amanda Elizabeth.
Her sixth child Leathy Jane was born Jul 16th 1868
Cageniel Alexander Huffman seventh child was born Jul 2nd 1869
Hulet Huffman and Eliza was married December 26th 1853."
I found John C Slemmons in the 1860 Slave Census for Metcalfe County, Kentucky on Ancestry.com. It shows two female slaves, who we know to be Eliza and Martha Francis, listed as being owned by him. My ancestor, Asher Slemmons is listed seven entries above, entered as Ashel.
I am interested in the fact that John C Slemmons doesn't own Hulet Huffman according to the listing. Wonder by whom he was owned?

Here is the family in the 1870 Sartain's Precinct, Barren County, Kentucky Census found on Ancestry.com
I followed the family forward in 1880 and found them on the Sartain, Metcalfe County, Kentucky Census. (Metcalfe was formed from Barren County in 1860)


I continued to follow Eliza forward and found her and one son in the 1900 Summer Shade, Metcalfe County, Kentucky Census.
I was able to find a couple of the Eliza & Hulet's children in the Kentucky Death Records 1852-1953 database on Ancestry.com. One of the death certificates, that of Elex, has his mother's maiden name listed.
Although the death certificate has his father's name as Hushey, I do believe it is the same person that is listed above in the bible record as Cageniel Alexander Huffman. From a quick look at the 1870 census, I was unable to find another Huffman family with a head of household close to the name of Hulet. The birth date on the death certificate is very close to the bible record. Given the fact that the bible record is a transcription and not the original, there could have been an error made on it, or it could have been written down wrong in the original bible entry.

I hope this information is useful to someone that is looking for this family. I have been actively researching a co-worker's lineage, who happens to be African American. I found that researching other nationalities has helped expand the knowledge that I have on researching in general.

Hope you enjoyed, glad you stopped by and please come back again ;)

3 comments:

  1. Thanks so much Deborah for this post & your AFoF contribution! I've gotten it posted ~ http://afriendoffriends.com/?p=551

    Cheers,

    Luckie.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you so much for sharing. Eliza Jane Petty was my great great grandmother. My great grandfather was Cageniel Alexander Huffman and my grandfather was Alexander Herman Huffman...Karen G.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Karen, I'm so glad that you stopped by and hope it helped with some part of your search. I stopped by your blog and found it very interesting and agree with so many of the things that you were saying about American's eating habits. My husband and I have changed our eating habits in the last five years and have really enjoyed knowing what we are eating is good for us.

    ReplyDelete

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails