In Slavery’s Legacy, I’ve finished the pages for the wills of John S. Magruder and his son Roderick McGregor, also for the William & Matilda Bowie family, and for Washington and May Magruder. African American surnames that show up on those pages include: Magruder, Bowie, Dodson, Godfrey, Henry, Buchanan, Vermillion, Chapman, Shaw, Chase, and Stewart. I can’t list all the first names, but you can use the Search function to look for them–that’s why I type out all the names, even when I’ve uploaded an image of the document they come from.

I thought I knew this material backwards and forwards, but in fact there was a lot to learn. Writing out the details, listing the names and ages, checking the sources, I stumbled on a couple of new connections and several  unanswered questions.

I also invented some new curse words for the broken Search page on the Archives of Maryland “Beneath the Underground: The Flight to Freedom” site. Good thing I compulsively download and save copies of just about everything…and can even occasionally find them.