Celebration Sunday-Genealogy Happy Dance!-Finding a Manumission Record

 

  You know the dance. You know you've done it. The one every researcher does after finding something new. The one where you want to jump up and down and shout to everyone that you found the document, contacted a cousin with the family Bible, made a DNA connection, or found a new branch to your tree. The one that is met with glazed stares and eye rolls.

                                                          Celebration Sunday is a place to share your discoveries. 

This weekly series enables everyone to tell about their Genealogy Happy Dance moment. 

Share by scrolling 

down and add your story to the comments section, or you may also put a link to a blog post telling about what had you dancing this week.

Sumter County, South Carolina Conveyance Records, (FamilySearch.org),
William Doughty to Hester, Edward, Sarah, and Susan,
Book D, 1812, pg. 26

My Happy Dance Moment for this week: 

As a researcher in the south, I often run across records of enslavers buying, selling, or willing the enslaved as pieces of property. These are hard records to reconcile with.

This week as I was looking for information on my maternal Daughrity line from Sumter District/County, South Carolina, I was surprised to come across a manumission record.

William Daughty, Jr. gives "the mulatto wench Hetty, and her three mulatto children, named Edward, Sarah, and Susan their full and absolute freedom.....releasing them from a state of slavery and bondage.....making them fully and absolutely and free forever every sense conception and meaning of the word free."

At this time, I am not sure exactly where William fits into my Daughrity family. A grandfather to my William, perhaps?  He may not be part of my line at all. But, he gives me hope. Hope that someone in my family line did was right regarding the holding of the enslaved. 

A genuine happy dance of thankfulness for his huge act of humanity during a time and place when it was uncommon to do so.

What's your Happy Dance Moment?

 Please share, and let's celebrate together!

                                                                      

                                                                                              

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Looking forward to reading about your Happy Dance moment!

Thanks so much for stopping by!
Helping you climb your family tree,