A slave schedule refers to a census taken of slaves that lived in the United States. There were only two slave schedules taken, one in the year 1850 and one in 1860.

The 1850 slave schedule asked the following questions:

* Name of slave owners
* Number of slaves
* Age of slave
* Sex of slave
* Color of slave (B for Black, M for Mulatto)
* Whether a fugitive from the State (meaning that the slave listed had fled and not returned
* Number of slaves manumitted (Freed)
* Whether Deaf & Dumb, blind, insane or idiotic

The image to the left is an example of what you might see when looking at the 1850 slave schedule. Notice that only the names of the slave owners are given. In some instances a schedule taker did write down the names of the slaves, but that did not happen very often.

The 1850 slave schedules were taken in Alabama, Kentucky, North Carolina, Arkansas, Louisiana, South Carolina, Delaware, Maryland, Tennessee, District of Columbia, Mississippi, Texas, Florida, Missouri, Utah, Georgia, New Jersey and Virginia.

The 1860 slave schedule asked the following questions:

* Name of slave owners
* Number of slaves
* Age of slave
* Sex of slave
* Color of slave (B for Black, M for Mulatto)
* Whether a fugitive from the State (meaning that the slave listed had fled and not returned
* Number of slaves manumitted (Freed)
* Whether Deaf & Dumb, blind, insane or idiotic
* Number of slave Houses

The questions are the same but for the last one which was not included on the 1850 schedule.

The 1860 slave schedules were taken in Alabama, Kentucky, South Carolina, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, Delaware, Maryland, Texas, District of Columbia, Mississippi, Utah, Florida, Missouri, Virginia, Georgia, North Carolina.

You may be wondering what value these slave schedules can hold for the genealogical researcher. On occasion the listings will appear to take the form of family groupings, though not always. Many households or plantations of slaves are simply listed in order of age. This combined with the lack of names can make it very difficult for the descendants of those slaves to locate them using these schedules. But don’t count them out. Juliet Culliver Crutchfield, Ed.D offers some wonderful insight into better understanding the slave schedules and using them in genealogical research in her article, Gleaning Information from Slave Schedules.

Perhaps your ancestor was a slave holder and you didn’t even know it because you have not checked the slave schedules yet.

It is also possible to find names of slaves listed in the wills of these slave holders. In a previous post I put up a picture of my 10th Great grandmother’s will. Within that will she has listed the names of her slaves and who they are to pass to upon her death. If you suspect your ancestor was the slave of a certain slave holder you may want to try finding a will or other probate document for that slave holder to see if the names of any slaves are mentioned.