The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom 1750 -1925

The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom 1750-1925 by Herbert G. Gutman is a valuable resource for any one researching the origins and culture of the African American families on number of southern plantations.  Information in this book led me to the slave birth registers and family papers of the slave holder of my ancestors. Paying it forward, here is the list of all of the plantations that are studied in Gutman's book:

• Stirling Plantation, West Feliciana Parish, Lousiana
• Carlisle Plantation, Concordia Parish, Lousiana
• Good Hope Plantation, Orangeburg, South Carolina
• John C. Cohoon's Cedar Vale Plantation, Nansemond Couty, Virginia
• Benehan-Cameron Plantation, Orange County, North Caroina
• Henry Watson Plantation, Alabama

Gutman includes charts and tables of family and kinship structures, naming patterns and a few illustrations of birth registers. There was a copy of the birth register which contained complete birth record - day, month, year- for my great-grandmother and two of her siblings.