Somerset County Certificates of Births of Black Children and Slaves, 1805-1817
- Research Tips
-
You can browse this collection by series and item number or review the Somerset County research guide for more information about these records.
- Identifier
- NJS-SRC-02144
- Source Type
- Civil Document
- Author
- Somerset County Clerk
- Location Created
- Somerset County
- Date
- 1805 – 1817
- Description
-
The Certificates of Births of Black Children and Slaves, 1805-1817, is the first part of a collection of loose birth certificates maintained by the Somerset County Clerk's Office. (For the second half of this collection, see the related item called Certificates of Births of Black Children and Slaves, 1818-1840.)
The items in this collection are individual slips of paper submitted by enslavers to the County Clerk. Beginning on July 4, 1804, enslavers had to report to the County Clerk when an enslaved mother in their household gave birth to a child. These county records were necessary to prove the child's age and eligibility for emancipation at age 21 (for female children) or age 25 (for male children) under the provisions of the 1804 Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery.
The records are arranged in 4 series by date: Series 1 is 1805-1808, Series 2 is 1809-1811, Series 3 is 1812-1814, and Series 4 is 1815-1817. Within each series, the slips of paper are numbered sequentially, with the sequence number written at the bottom of the slip in pencil. It appears that the sequence numbers were written by the County Clerk's Office sometime in the 20th century. Note, however, that the documents within each series were not placed in chronological order before sequence numbers were added by the clerk. For the purpose of archival preservation, in 2006 the individual slips of paper were taken out of boxes, placed inside mylar sleeves (2 or 3 slips to a sleeve), and compiled in an archival binder with the label "Certificates of Births of Black Children and Slaves, 1805-1817" on the spine.
The certificates from this collection were scanned by the New Jersey Slavery Records team working on-site at the Somerset County Clerk's Office in the fall of 2024. Our team is now in the process of indexing these records. Most names and events contained in these records have not been added to our database yet. The scans from the collection have been published and can be viewed on our website. - Language
- English
- Format
- Loose slips of paper compiled in a binder
- Archive
- Somerset County Clerk's Office
- Archival Collection
- Certificates of Births of Black Children and Slaves, 1805-1817
- Browse Records
- Browse: Somerset County Birth Certificates, 1805-1817
- Record Contributor
- Jesse Bayker
