The Filson Historical Society Digital Projects

Our Research Process

This project, including the digital collection and digital exhibit, was generously funded in part by the Kentucky Genealogical Society. The original proposal for this project included digitizing sixty-five folders of archival material, but the Filson team digitized over ninety. We found much more evidence of enslaved people than we anticipated, and we were able to confirm over three hundred names of enslaved people within the Bullitt Family Papers-Oxmoor Collection. 

Researching this collection came with challenges and obstacles: some unique to this collection, and some common to those research Black genealogy in general. 

The whereabouts of the people enslaved by the Bullitts are more difficult to track after emancipation. This is known as the "1870 Gap" among genealogists and Black historians. For many Black families, the gap between emancipation and the 1870 census leaves a silence for those looking for their family lineage. Many enslaved families took the surname of a former enslaver (not necessarily their most recent enslaver, as with the case of Jim Sanders), but others didn't. Some young men enlisted themselves in the Civil War under a new surname and may have switched to an entirely different surname after serving.  

The spelling of some names, especially of enslaved people, aren't consistent among items, but curators have tagged items with the name most often used in sources. A full list of names, as well as their other spellings used in the collection, is here

As many enslaved people didn't have surnames, or were at least not written as having one within these records, differentiating between enslaved people from item to item can prove difficult for researchers. 

For example, nicknames and shortened names can complicate the tagging system. Little Jimmy, James, Jim, and Old Jimmy could be either the same person through different stages of life or four separate individuals. Likewise, it is difficult to confirm the race, age, gender, or enslavement status of someone who is only mentioned once in passing. While we try to provide as much detail as possible through this digital collection, it is ultimately on the scholar or interpreter to argue the specific timelines of enslaved people’s lives.

Furthermore, many of the transcripts found in this collection were produced by William Marshall Bullitt. Bullitt would read these letters aloud to his secretary, who would then type what Bullitt said. Some original letters do not have a transcript, and some transcripts are without originals, either at this repository or any other. Thus, the accuracy of some transcripts to the original source material is uncertain. 

Scholarship will be revised as further information arises, and as new evidence of the people enslaved by the Bullitt family is found within the archives. This project does not and never can include every single person the Bullitt family enslaved, as many enslaved people in Kentucky and beyond have been intentionally erased or ignored from the historical record. Furthermore, the fact that few enslaved people had last names while in bondage can make genealogical research difficult for descendants. This collection includes people who were enslaved by the Speed, Bullitt, Stites, Fry, Chenoweth, Christian, Massie, Dixon, Gwathmey, Huie, Garrard, Breckenridge, and Courtenay families, among others. We hope the digitization of and open access to these materials can aid descendants of these families in their search for their ancestors.