Our connection to the Jesuit slaves has been known for approximately 12 years. It was first discovered in the spring of 2004 as the family planned a reunion in New Orleans. I continued to look for Nace, Jr., having found a person I suspected was my ancestor buried in the St. Ignatius Church Cemetery, St. Mary's County, Maryland, online on the church's website in 2007. The website included photos of the church, St. Ignatius, and a list of the people buried in the cemetery. An Ignatius Butler was listed on parchment in the church, as were Gladys Butler, Lucinda Butler, and Johnston Butler.
The search for Nace, Jr. took on a new life after the Georgetown Memory Project(GMP) was formed. In November 2015, Richard Cellini, an alumnus of Georgetown University, founded the GMP to identify the enslaved people sold in 1838 and to locate their living descendants. As a member of that organization, a new search was launched, first by me and then by a member of the Butler Research Team. We came to the same conclusion: Ignatius Butler, buried at St. Ignatius, is our Nace Butler, Jr., the runaway.
I thought we were on the right track when Ignatius "Nace" Butler and his family were located on the 1870 census in St. Inigoes, St. Mary's County, Maryland. His birth date was estimated to be 1818. In the Jesuit Plantation Project records, which include the profiles of the enslaved people, Nace Butler's birth- date is 1818.
In December 2016, I was contacted by Glendon Stubbs, the great-great-great-grandson of Ignatius Butler. He provided me with a descendant chart for Ignatius Butler constructed by Malissa Ruffner, a professional genealogist hired by the GMP. Her research confirmed what we found: Ignatius Butler is the runaway who was born in 1818 and died
to be continued
