Put a Pin in It
Lost Friends: Ten Family Searches
After emancipation, Black Americans placed newspaper notices searching for the mothers, fathers, children, sisters, brothers, and friends slavery had taken from them. Choose one story. Put it on the map.
What to do
- Scroll and pick one story that catches your attention.
- Read the original advertisement and the summary.
- Find one place named in the story.
- Add that place to our community map as your Lost Friends pin.
- In your post, name one detail that stood out and why it matters.
Spellings and punctuation below are kept as they were printed. Some names are misspelled in the original newspaper — that is part of the historical record, and part of what makes these searches hard.
1. Mrs. Sislie Hackett looks for Nancy
A mother in Texas, a daughter last seen in Virginia
MR. EDITOR—I desire to seek my daughter who was separated from me in slave times. Her name was Nancy Temelton. John Tempelton sold her to a Negro trader. Her name was Randale Cannon. her mother, when she was sold, was Sislie Alexander. My husband, when Nancy was sold, was Thornton Alexander, now Thornton Hackett. I had five children: Nancy, the oldest, John, Betsy, Jane and Alex. Jane was the baby. The last I heard of her was that the trader had carried her to Richmond, Va., about the year 1840 or 1850. We were living one mile from Fairfield, Va., but since then have moved to Texas. Address at Brenham, Texas, in care of my son, Alex Hackett or Rev. W. Hartley Jackson. MRS. SISLIE HACKETT.
Sislie Hackett is searching for her oldest child. She gives the searchers everything she has: the name of the man who sold Nancy, the name of the trader, the town they were living near, the rough year, the names of all five of her children, and both of her own surnames — because she knows a name can change and a family can still be found. Her family's own movement, from Virginia to Texas, is the reason she is writing to a New Orleans paper at all.
2. Nelson Collins inquires for his people
A family split at a New Orleans sale
MR. EDITOR—I wish to inquire for my people, who lived in Virginia about 30 years ago. We were separated from each other in New Orleans, and sold by the trader George Davis. My mother, sister and eldest brother were left in Virginia, and I have not heard from them since. We belonged to Ned Hicks. My mother's name was Mary Collins, sitsers names were Edith and Diana Collins. My brothers were Arthur, Benjamin, Jack, Greene, Philas, Dick and Caesar Collins. Address Nelson Collins, 209 Jeanette street, New Orleans, La.
Nelson Collins names eleven relatives in a notice only a few lines long. His family was carried from Virginia to New Orleans in the domestic slave trade and broken apart at the point of sale — a route traveled by roughly a million people. Thirty years later he is still living in the city where the separation happened, and he is using the address of that same city to try to reach back to Virginia.
3. Mrs. Ann Lee looks for her kin people
A mother wants her boys found
MR. EDITOR—I wish to find the whereabouts of my kin people, two brothers and one sister. Brothers are named Horace and Robin Haril, and sister was Rosetta Haril. Brother Horace married Sarah Ann Garrett. Robin's wife was named Virta Cartwright; sister's husband was named Alex Haril. I left them all in 1867, 2 1/2 miles from San Augustine, Texas, on Mr. Bill Garrett's plantation. In slave time we all belonged to the widow Sallie Harril. Our father's name was Adam Haril; he died when we were quite small. Our mother was named Eliza; she is living with me, and desires to find her boys that they may care for her in old age. It was about two years after emancipation when I left them. I have heard from them several times. I ask Rev. Robert Williams, the pastor at San Augustine, to please take this letter and seek for my relatives. Address me, in care of Rev. Willis H. Jackson, Brenham, Texas. MRS. ANN LEE.
This separation happened after freedom, not during slavery — Ann Lee left her siblings in 1867, two years after emancipation, when Black families were moving in search of land, work, and safety. She locates her people with startling precision: two and a half miles from town, on a named plantation. And she does not rely on the newspaper alone. She names two ministers and asks one of them to go looking in person.
4. Mary Jane Hunt, once called Susan
Three states, four names, one family
Our family belonged to Doctor Blair, of Arkansas. Mother's name was Caroline; I had a half-brother named Albert, and another named James; I was then called Susan. I was brought to this State by Dr. Blair, the others were sold, and I afterward heard that they were in Alabama. Address Mary Jane Hunt, care of David Hunt, Brentwood, Williamson county, Tennessee.
In fewer than sixty words, this notice holds a whole life. The searcher tells readers that she used to be called Susan — because if her mother is reading, or if someone reads this aloud in her mother's church, "Susan" is the name Caroline would recognize. Her family was scattered across at least three states: Arkansas, Alabama, and Tennessee.
5. Mrs. Philice Henderson looks for Emma
A separation measured in city blocks
MR. EDITOR—My daughter Emma was sold from a man by the name of Lehman, corner Eughien and Greatman streets, New Orleans, La. Her mother, Mrs. Philice Henderson, 508 Constance street, New Orleans, La.
This is the shortest notice on the page, and one of the most exact. Philice Henderson does not name a state or a region. She names a street corner. She was still living in the same city as the place where her daughter was sold away, and she prints her own home address so Emma can find her. Not every separation crossed a thousand miles — some happened a few streets from home and were just as total.
6. Caroline Wilburn looks for her father
The very first Lost Friends advertisement
NOTE.—We receive many letters asking for information about lost friends. All such letters will be published in this column. We make no charge for publishing these letters from subscribers to the SOUTHWESTERN. All others will please enclose fifty cents to pay for publishing the notices. Pastors will please read the requests published below from their pulpits, and report any case where friends are brought together by means of letters in the SOUTHWESTERN.
DEAR EDITOR—I desire to know the whereabouts of my father, Orange Hudson, who left Simmons' Plantation, near Benton, Miss., in 1873. The last letter from him informed me that he was at Market Garden, near Stone River, Tenn. Any information relative to him will be gladly received. Address me at Benton, Misss. CAROLINE WILBURN.
This is where the whole column begins. On November 13, 1879, the Southwestern Christian Advocate printed its rules for the Lost Friends column — free for subscribers, fifty cents for everyone else, and pastors asked to read the notices aloud — and then printed its first request. Caroline Wilburn's father did not disappear in a slave sale. He left a plantation in 1873, eight years after emancipation, and wrote home from Tennessee before the letters stopped. Read the note and the ad together and you can see the machinery of the search being built at the same moment the first search is made.
Source: Lost Friends database, The Historic New Orleans Collection — searcher Caroline Wilburn, November 13, 1879. Search her name at lost-friends.hnoc.org to see the original newspaper scan.
7. Caroline Mason looks for her sister Sallie
A woman sold away from her own three children
MR. EDITOR—I have a sister, Sallie Sommars, that was sold out of the Mason family. She was sold from three children, two girls and one boy. I last heard of her from Atlanta, Ga., after being sold out of Virginia. She was bought by one Dr. Williamson Goden, who lived at Atlanta, Ga. The names of her children were Mary Jane, the eldest, Arthur and Caroline. She was owned by Betsy Mason and was sold by her at Alexandria, Va. Any information of her will be thankfully received. Address me at Waco, Texas. CAROLINE MASON.
One sale here breaks two generations at once. Sallie Sommars was taken from her sister and from her three small children in the same transaction, at Alexandria, Virginia — one of the busiest slave-trading ports in the country. Caroline Mason, writing from Texas on Christmas Day, gives the searchers a chain she can prove: who owned Sallie, who sold her, who bought her, and where that buyer lived. She also lists the three children by name and birth order, because they are lost too, and because a child who was too young to remember Virginia might still remember being called Mary Jane.
Source: Lost Friends database, The Historic New Orleans Collection — searcher Caroline Mason, December 25, 1879. Search her name at lost-friends.hnoc.org to see the original newspaper scan.
8. Sophia Whitfield inquires for her sisters and aunts
Four women, five sales, one county in Virginia
MR. EDITOR—I wish to inquire for some of my people—two sisters and two aunts. They and myself belonged to Jack Wade, after which we were sold as follows: My oldest sister, Eliza Wade, was sold to Jas. Cannada, from Franklin county, Va., to a place near Floyd Courthouse, Va. She was the mother of 5 children. My youngest sister, Marietta Wade, I left at home on a place near what is called Pig River, with Jack Wade's widow, quite young at that time. My aunt, Sintia Wade, was sold to Griffin, on Black Water Creek, in Franklin county, Va., mother of several children. My aunt, Sallie Wade, lived near Maysville, Va., sold to Smith Dunwoody; carried from Franklin county, Va., near Maysville, Va. I was sold at Floyd Courthouse to Pleas Howard, and came to Richmond, and was sold by Pleas Howard to Charles Oliver, 27 miles from Lynchburg, Va. I am known by quite a number of people at Franklin Courthouse, Va. I lived with Henry Dorsey during my stay at Franklin Courthouse. Address me at Askew, Ark. SOPHIA WHITFIELD.
This is the most methodical notice on the page. Sophia Whitfield does not simply list the missing — she reconstructs the entire breakup of her family as a sequence of transactions: "we were sold as follows," and then, one by one, who was sold, to whom, and to what place. She names four women, five buyers, and seven Virginia locations, and then does the same thing for herself, tracing her own passage through three owners from Floyd Courthouse to Richmond to a farm outside Lynchburg. She closes with something no document could supply: she is known at Franklin Courthouse, and she names the man she lived with there, so that anyone who remembers her can confirm she is who she says she is. She is writing from Arkansas about a county in Virginia she has not seen in decades.
Source: Lost Friends database, The Historic New Orleans Collection — searcher Sophia Whitfield, April 3, 1884. Search her name at lost-friends.hnoc.org to see the original newspaper scan.
9. Si Johnson remembers a birthday
Forty-seven years, and one sentence he never lost
I desire to find my parents. My mother said, the morning she was going to leave, "My son you must be a good child." I was standing in my father's house by a little table near the door, he said to me, "My son you are five years old to-day." It was in 1834. Miss Lureasy Cuff was standing in the house and talking to my mother, and saying, "I think pa should give Si to me, because I raised him to what he is." Uncle Thomas drove the wagon when mother left.
Si Johnson was five years old on the day his family was divided in the settlement of an estate. Forty-seven years later he still had the whole scene: the table by the door, his father telling him his age, the woman who claimed him as property while his mother stood there, the uncle who drove the wagon away. He does not name a town. He offers memory itself as evidence — and memory precise enough that anyone who was there would know him.
Source: The Historic New Orleans Collection, "Lost Friends Ads Reveal the Heartbreak of Family Separation"
10. Alcy Boone found her mother
"The lost can be found."
MR. EDITOR—I have found my mother through the dear SOUTH WESTERN. God bless you and your paper; it resurrects the forgotten, the lost can be found. I love it better than ever. ALCY BOONE. Caney, Te[x]as.
Most Lost Friends notices end without an answer. This one is a reunion. Alcy Boone wrote back to the newspaper to say the search had worked: her mother, Manervia Watson, had been found. The Advocate reached roughly five hundred preachers, eight hundred post offices, and more than four thousand subscribers, and ministers read the notices aloud from the pulpit — so a single ad could travel far past the people who could afford a subscription. Save this card for the end. It is the reason the others were written.
Reading a Lost Friends ad
| Clue | What to look for | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Name | First names, surnames, former names, nicknames, variant spellings | Surnames changed at emancipation; a former name may be the only recognizable one |
| Relationship | Mother, father, child, sibling, spouse, "my people," "my kin people" | Rebuilds the shape of a family the records tried to erase |
| Place | Town, county, state, plantation, street corner, church, post office | Anchors the search in real geography and points to local archives |
| Time | Ages, year of sale, "about 30 years ago," publication date | Builds a timeline and narrows which records to search |
| Enslaver or trader | Owner, estate, slave trader, attorney | Leads to deeds, probate files, bills of sale, and plantation papers |
| Memory detail | Food, clothing, a spoken line, an occupation, an event | Preserves identity and can confirm a match no document could |
| Network | Named ministers, churches, newspapers, "please read this from the pulpit" | Shows how Black communities built their own search infrastructure |
Explore the full collection
The Lost Friends database at The Historic New Orleans Collection holds more than 2,500 advertisements published in the Southwestern Christian Advocate between November 1879 and December 1900, searchable by name, place, and date. The national Last Seen: Finding Family After Slavery project gathers thousands more information-wanted notices from newspapers across the country, from the 1830s into the twentieth century.
These families were never anonymous — they had names, and they kept looking.