Empolyment , Homeland And Surnames ~ Part 6

They found worked on farms. And lived in Forest Green Missouri area.
They kept their own names. White And Blakey

 More clues and a mystery. 

They were employed and made their homes in Forest Green, MO.
Where did they work? As farmer or as farm hands?

What names did each family member take?
The mother in this article was unknown.
But later I came across her name in 1989.

What names did each one take?
The mother, WHITE
Isaac BLAKEY
John WHITE
Spencer WHITE
Matt WHITE
Dick WHITE

It appears that Isaac was the only one in his group that took the surname of BLAKEY. Don't know why Isaac kept the BLAKEY surname. Perhaps he was with the BLAKEYs for a long time. They may have helped him to his freedom. Two of the former slave owners gave affidavit of who Isaac was. Isaac applied for his pension records in 1890's.

Also for the mother, Did she have other children? Yes. She had about 12 or 13 children. Some of the children may have passed away before the turn of the century. Some of the family members may not have know about them.

The article states that Matt WHITE never married. As I searched for Mattie White, I came up with her as a widow with about 5 children. I don't know how this information got lost.


The big mystery to this part of the article: Who was the great grand mother? Was the writer in this article speaking of Ted Blakey's great grand mother? The mother of the slaves  or the mother's husband's mother?

The mother was believe to have passed away and was buried in Forest Green, MO. Most those who passed away in this family were buried in Forest Green, MO and area.
There are some descendants who still live in the Forest Green Area.

Blog continues

Isaac Blakey Reunites With Family ~ Part 5

Here are some more clues: Some time after Isaac was discharged from the army, he started to look for his family. Wonder how long it took him to find them? Note: Isaac was wounded in the War.

Isaac didn't know where his family was... But found out that they were shipped MS. Isaac had to have had some connections to where the where a bout of his family. Perhaps the info was from his former slave owners.

Isaac did located his family easily because he was familiar with the area where his family was. The article mentions the names of Isaac's other siblings. Spencer, Dick and sister, Matt.. 

The article states that Isaac's siblings were shipped to Natchez, MS. I wondered if they were ever in MO? Also if this Spencer, Dick and sister, Matt White were other relatives on the other generation? It was just a thought. However, Isaac did have siblings named Spencer, Dick and Matty White.

As for Isaac Blakey, he was born in Roanoak , Fayette or Shannondale Missouri between 1845 - 1847. The slave owner, John BLAKEY passed away in 1844. Most of the slaves where born after John BLAKEY passed.

John's widow, Frances (WHITE) BLAKEY and her children were the slave owners to Isaac, his mother and her children. The father of the slaves weren't mentioned in the article. I wonder why? Nor was the name of the mother.

 As for Spencer, Dick and Matty, they choose the WHITE surname. According to this article, John carried the BLAKEY surname. But through searching, John carried the WHITE surname.

Isaac somehow convinced the family to move back to MO. I think that other relatives may have been there. Why would some one what to move back to the area where they were once held captive as slaves? I think that there was some family connections in Chariton and Howard County Missouri area.
Blog continues....

John and Isaac Blakey: Civil War ~ Part 4



John in Forest Green MO.
While Isaac joined The Union  Army after Emancipation Proclamation was signed.

More clues: The Emancipation Proclamation which was signed on Jan 1, 1863. John remained in Forest Green, MO as a slave. And Isaac somehow ran away and joined the Union Army for three years and nine months.

I began to search more on my Blakey ancestors in 1980 - 1981. One of my sisters heard of some Blakeys living in South Dakota. We set out to find more information.

It wasn't until we visited some cousins in Yankton, South Dakota, we came across some news that we didn't know about. I was surprised to hear that Isaac was on my family lineage. I thought John, Isaac brother was on the direct line.

This information sparked my desire to find out.I was hoping there would be some record on Isaac. So I searched more.

As I searched for information on Isaac Blakey, I found out much more about on the family tree. I thought if Isaac served in the Civil War than there should be some record of it. I received that information through the mail. But it took a while. Isaac's surname was BLAKER.


In the military records: I  came across information that I thought was long lost. I pieced together some of what I discovered. There was listed the names of the slave owners; John and Frances (WHITE) BLAKEY. That explains the two family surnames. It appears that the WHITE slave owners was on Frances' side.


Isaac did joined the Union Army in Natchez Mississippi on Nov 1, 1863. He was between 16 -18 years old. He was honorable discharged on  May 13, 1866. Isaac date of birth was unknown. He's accepted birth was on June 30, 1847. Yet some records stated his birth year about 1845.

A great wonder would be, how did a young teenage slave travel to MS?  It would have been hard to escape without help. Perhaps he was sold to some of the WHITE / BLAKEY relatives in MS.

According to Isaac BLAKER's pension records, Isaac and his mother were sold about the breaking out of the War and they went south. That could explain how Isaac ended up in the army.

There was no mentioning of where the other slaves were . Oral history states that they were in Natchez, MS. What a coincident? Isaac was there too.

Question: Was John the only slave relative left in Missouri? There could have been other relatives with John. As for John, his surname was WHITE. That was the confusion in the article. John took the WHITE surname.

I thought to myself. Who was John BLAKEY, the slave? I came across that answer. He was John WHITE (1858- 1918).  There was a John Blakey mentioned in the article. He was the son of Isaac Blakey, brother of John WHITE.

Blog Continues

The Arrival And Names Taken ~ Article Part 3




The next three sentences

When they arrived in New Orleans, the slaves were sold at slave auctions and given a bill of sale.
The slaves were given the slave master's name.

The two oldest brothers, Isaac 12 and John 10 sold to a man by the name of BLAKEY.
He took them to Forest Green, Missouri.

Here were some more clues. There should have been a record of the bill of sale for these slaves. I don't know if the records still exist. So we can figure out about what year Isaac and John were born. I assume that the year was 1843 when the slaves were sold. Here's the math.

1843 - 12 = 1831 the year about when Isaac was born
1843 - 10 = 1833 the year about when John as born

Assuming that the year was 1843, the years don't match up with the John or Isaac BLAKEY. There may have been another generation with a mother and her 5 children. According to this article Isaac was the oldest. As I searched on I found out that Isaac had older siblings. Isaac was born about 1845 - 1847. John was born about 1858.

There was a slave owner named BLAKEY. I search for the slave owners. They moved to Missouri about 1835 from Virginia. The slave owners did live in Forest Green, Missouri. Chariton and Howard County Missouri Area.

As I searched more, I came across more leads. Those leads led to more questions. I was surprised by what I stumbled across. Oh, I wouldn't have though of this. The question to the mystery began to unfold.

Blog Continues.

Part 2: Blakey - White Families: The Year 1843

The first two sentences of this article:  

The introduction of the article gives some good information: the families surnames, a year, a name and the place; Riverside Park. The date of the article was not listed or the State where the reunion took place. I later found out the reunion was held in Iowa around 1971.  

According to one of the descendants, Ted Blakey from Yankton, South; a mother, and her four sons and a daughter came to New Orleans on a ship in 1843. I don't know where Ted Blakey got this info -

Ted could have been oral history from his father, Henry Blakey who passed down what he heard and or what others said about the family history. After researching, I came across the list of some of the slaves' names and the Blakey slave owners' names.

The article mention the year 1843 and a place. I can trace back to the year 1843 through information that I came across. But the article raises some questions about when the family came to New Orleans.
This article states that the mother and her children can on a ship from some where to New Orleans. That somewhere was perhaps Africa or from another State in America?  

Question: Did the mother and 5 children remain in New Orleans for a while before they were moved to MS? (There were some things in these two sentences that didn't match up with the other records that I have come across.)

By this article, the reader can assume that the mother and her children weren't born in America. Over the years, I wondered. Could there have been another generation that came from Africa? After researching, I did discovered that the mother of Isaac (and the other children) was born in VA. One of the mother's or father's children was born in VA. The mother's other children were born in MO.

I'm not trying to disprove any thing stated in the article: Slavery Descendants to Have First Reunion. I see some things in the article that brings questions. The reporter could have wrote down  incorrect information. Still there was a lot of information in this article. (That was what inspired me to began to search out what I could find.)

Blog Continues:

The Julia White Connections: John White

What can I write about John White who was born into slavery? Over the years, I didn't realize that there was a John White, the slave on the Blakey / White Family Tree. I mean, I always thought that there was a John Blakey who was a slave. But through research that John Blakey was John White.



In the mid 1970's I came across an article about  Slaveryt Descendants To Have First  Reunion in 1970 in Iowa. In that article, John Blakey was mention. I thought that that John Blakey was the father of my Grandpa John.

The story goes, the Slave Family were to be sold. John, the slave born and his older brother, Isaac Blakey were sold to a man with the Blakey surname. They were sent to Forest Green, Missouri.

As I did some search through the years, I did not found a John Blakey who was a slave. As I keep searching, there were things that didn't match up. I though, Who was John Blakey?

I came to this conclusion. John took the White surname. As for the Blakey surname, Isaac was the only one in his slave family that carried the Blakey surname. Besides, it dawned on me. That's why I couldn't find anything on John.

I began searching for John White and came up with some things. I have located his death record in Missouri. John was born about June of 1858 in Missouri. I've come across two other birth years. They were 1854 and 1866. I believe that the year about 1858 was the year. John passed away on September 10, 1918 in Salisbury, Missouri. He was buried in Forest Green, Missouri.

John's parents were Andrew White and Julia White. John's death record is the only one that mentions both Andrew White and Julia White as his parents. On John's brother, Isaac Blakey's death record only mentions Andrew White as father. His mother was unknown.

John was married to Katherine / Katie Estell. (1863 - 1923) John and Katie had about 9 children.On the 1920 MO Census, Katie had a granddaughter, Louise White and grandson Leo Kayson (White) listed with her

Here's a list of the children, I've come across.

Earnest White born about 1881
Leburter White born about 1884
Irina / Arena / Irene White born about 1892
Alice White born about 1883
Erma/ Ermma White born about 1898.
There were 4 Unknown Children that died before 1900

I haven't come across any of John's descendants. I believe that there were offspring. I hope that some one on this lineage will began the search for John White and Katie Estell.

Thanks for reading!
The Julia White Connections: John White
May others see a connection with this lineage.
Staying On The Journey,
Peace,
Susan