A comprehensive survey of every major free public database, archive, and record collection for researching enslaved ancestors and the families that held them in bondage. This guide synthesizes findings from every major free public source — documenting what each database actually contains, how to search it, and how records connect to each other. No subscription is required for any source listed. Collectively, these archives document over one million individuals.
This interactive map visualizes the African origins of enslaved people brought to the Americas. It traces the specific coastal ports and regions from which enslaved Africans were taken. Use the filters to explore by time period, destination, and origin region. All links within the map open in a new tab.
The federal government created the largest body of publicly accessible records relating to enslaved people and their enslavers. These are the essential starting points for any genealogical search.
The single most critical free platform for this research. Hosts both the 1850 and 1860 federal slave schedules (Collections 1420440 and 3161105), which list enslaved people by age, sex, and color under each slaveholder's name. The 1870 census — the first in which all formerly enslaved people appear by name — is fully searchable here and is the critical bridge backward in time. Additionally hosts 32 separate Freedmen's Bureau collections (1865–1872), including labor contracts, marriage records, hospital records, ration lists, and complaints registers.
Preserves 1.2 million pages of original Freedmen's Bureau records — microfilmed and increasingly digitized — covering DC and 15 states including North Carolina (NARA microfilm publication M1909, 78 rolls). Also holds coastwise slave manifests: ship records naming enslaved individuals transported by sea 1790–1860. The National Archives Catalog (catalog.archives.gov) contains over 146 million digital images and grows annually.
Jointly maintained by FamilySearch and the National Museum of African American History and Culture. The most user-friendly portal for searching the entire Freedmen's Bureau database. Provides names of freed people and their former owners, residences, family relationships, and post-war circumstances. The Bureau served roughly four million formerly enslaved people.
Harvard-affiliated open-source database holding records of over 750,000 people, places, events, and sources. Entries span from the 15th century to the late 1800s and cover Western Europe, West Africa, and North and South America. Draws from runaway ads, baptismal records, ship manifests, bills of sale, and emancipation documents — cross-linked so records of a single enslaved person from different sources connect into a single profile. Also hosts 650+ enslaved and formerly enslaved individuals with documented life histories.
University of North Carolina at Greensboro's Race and Slavery Petitions Project — contains detailed information on approximately 150,000 individuals from 2,975 legislative petitions and 14,512 county court petitions across all 15 slave states plus DC. Home of the People Not Property project indexing named enslaved people from NC deed records. NC runaway notices from 1750–1865 total over 5,000 individual advertisements.
The largest and most comprehensive database of its kind, incorporating 40+ years of archival research. Contains data on approximately 36,000 individual slaving expeditions between 1514 and 1866 — estimated to represent 66–80% of all slaving voyages that ever crossed the Atlantic. For each voyage: departure and arrival dates, vessel name, captain, places of African purchase, American destination, number embarked and landed, and mortality figures. The Intra-American database adds 10,000 more voyages documenting trade within the Americas.
Provides personal details on approximately 91,491 Africans whose names were documented because their ships were captured by the Royal Navy in the 19th century. Records are sortable by African name, gender, estimated age, African origin point, and place of disembarkation. The only known method by which a descendant might trace an ancestor back to their specific African region of origin.
Enslavers placed "runaway ads" in newspapers through the Civil War. These ads — wanted posters for people whose only crime was seeking freedom — accidentally preserved more detailed personal information about enslaved individuals than almost any other record type: appearance, mannerisms, speech patterns, clothing, family members, places of origin, and suspected destinations. An estimated 200,000 such notices appeared in American newspapers.
A Cornell University database containing over 33,000 newspaper runaway advertisements. Each ad is transcribed and tagged with the enslaved person's name, physical description, skills, family connections, and suspected destination. Crowdsourced transcription continues to grow the database. Essential for identifying individuals who resisted their enslavement.
Formerly enslaved people placed "Information Wanted" advertisements in newspapers from 1865 onward, seeking family members separated by slavery and the Civil War. These ads document the desperate post-war search for husbands, wives, children, parents, and siblings. Each ad names both the searcher and the person they're looking for, often with last known location and slaveholder's name.
During the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration's Federal Writers' Project conducted over 2,300 interviews with formerly enslaved Americans still alive in their old age. The resulting volumes — officially known as the Slave Narratives — are among the most powerful primary sources for African American history. They document daily life under slavery, family relationships, slaveholder names, plantation locations, and the experience of emancipation. North Carolina's volumes (Parts 1 and 2 of Vol. XI) are fully accessible at the Library of Congress at no cost.