Phebe:

That is an unusual situation and one I've never encountered as a  
consistent pattern among a diverse set of slave owners. As you know,  
the names of the slaves are not given on these schedules. (This had  
been a lively debate in Congress when passing the first slave  
schedule act.) Another good source for you to check are inventories  
of estates which will provide names, in some cases even surnames, and  
in some cases relationships. While a will may have named certain  
slaves, more often than not there were several more not named.  For  
other details, study the accounts of an estate to see who was sold,  
hired out or otherwise inherited by descendants. There are lots of  
goodies in those records concerning slaves.  On a slightly unrelated  
topic, a recent survey we made for estate records in Lancaster County  
revealed that only 37.5% of decedents died leaving a will. In nearly  
every case where a person died with a will and named slaves, there  
were other slaves not named at all in the will.

Craig Kilby

On Jul 30, 2009, at 9:06 AM, Phebe wrote:

> There are several folks on this list that have a great knowledge  
> about slavery.  So I am asking if we could in a civil manner just  
> answer one question.
>
> In looking at the 1850 and 1860 slave census I noticed that several  
> owners did not list the men.  Rather they just listed young  
> children male and female and older women.
>
> Now men had to be around as children are born to women at a regular  
> interval.
>
> Thoughts please..............
>
> Phebe Morgan
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