From: pmccurdy@alcalde.Corp.Sun.COM (Patrick McCurdy)
Newsgroups: soc.roots
Subject: Re: Mulattos and the census
Date: 5 Jan 1993 16:59:38 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Distribution: world
Reply-To: pmccurdy@alcalde.Corp.Sun.COM
NNTP-Posting-Host: alcalde.corp.sun.com

In article 24769@news.eng.convex.com, Robert Cox <rcox@convex.UUCP> () writes:
Does anyone know of any good reference books or other materials which give
suggestions on researching people of mixed race (what the census refers to 
as mulattos)?  Also, are mulattos always people of mixed Caucasian-Negro 
ancestry, or is this term also used in the census for people of any mixed
racial ancestry?  Also, what percentage of a person's ancestry must be of 
a non-Caucasian race before that person is considered mulatto?  Did the 
census taker ask for the person's race, or did he just give his own best 
guess? 
						Many thanks, 
						Robert Cox


   

About two years ago I found that my 3GGrandfather, Nasa McCurdy,
was a freed slave in Greene County, PA.  I had to do a lot of studying
(fast) on black/slave genealogical research.

   I had very poor luck with black genealogical societies.  They were
all nice enough to write back, but none had anything approaching the
level of organization of the average county society.

   The vey best book I found on the subject was called something
like "Slave Genealogy with Case Studies".  It was quite helpful
and I heartily recommend it to anyone.

   In it, it says that the average slave was not on a big southern
plantation, but worked on a rural farm in a state such as Kentucky.
He/she probably worked with 5-10 other slaves, and was treated much
better than a slave in the deep south.  The case studues in the book
focus on researching this type of slave ancestor.

   I have found through other research that there is definite precedence
for a person of Indian blood being labelled as 'mulatto' in the census. 
This is particularly true with state censuses in states that had large
Indian populations.

   As far as Federal censuses are concerned, there was no rule about
how to define a mulatto.  It was completely up to the enumerator.
I have always worked with the assumption that if the enumerator had
any reason to believe that a person had *any* black or Indian blood,
they would be listed as mulatto.  The only things that I have ever been
able to find with regard to instructions on this matter was a sentence
in the instructions to the enumerator, "Utmost care should be used in
making these determinations."  

   Before a certain date (1830, I think), they didn't use the term mulatto
in federal censuses.  There were free whites, slaves, and "all others."

   My Nasa was a slave who was freed in 1797.  He is listed as "all other".
He married a white woman, Hannah, and their children were listed as
mulatto.  Joseph married a white woman and their children were listed
as mulatto for two censuses, but then later as white.  One of these
is my GGrandfather, William H. McCurdy, and we *never* suspected that
he had any black blood.  His daughter-in-law (my father's mother)
would have absolutely *died* if she would have known this.

   I think that the most interesting part of this story is that I recently
had lunch with a black cousin (descended from Nasa) who lives right here in 
the Bay Area.  I had always wondered that if, while my line of the family 
got progressively lighter, another line of the family would have gotten 
darker, or simply stayed black.  Well, they sure did.  Having lunch
with Charles was the most exciting thing I have ever done related to 
genealogy

   As my mother said, it really doesn't matter if these people were white,
black, Indian, or other.  What matters is what kind of people they were.
The McCurdys were hard-working, industrious people who started out with
nothing and did quite well for themselves.  It makes no difference what 
color their skin was.  It DOES, however, complicate the hell out of the 
research...


Patrick McCurdy			"A man can only drink 30 or 40 glasses of
1155 Weyburn Lane #1		 beer a day, no matter how much money he has."
San Jose, CA  95129				- COL Adolphus Busch
408-446-1499
	
Work:	pmccurdy@corp.sun.com	  
CServe: 76346,2764

Researching:  McCurdy, Murphy, Hartmetz, Hyne, Martin, Routt, Hess,
Prather, Grinage, Atchison, Duckworth, Cooke, Kendall, Honey, Hendrix,
Kennedy, Maguire, McPhilips, etc.


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