Solving The Mystery of Jane Small

Nansemond County Virgina (now Suffolk, Virginia) had a considerable number of FPOC's (free people of color) prior to Emancipation.  Most African Americans who are able to trace their lineage to Nansemond County will more than likely find ancestors and relatives who were born free or were freed through manumission.  Such is the case with some of my paternal ancestors.

In an earlier blog post, I talked about untangling a mysterious web of information that involved my 3rd great grandmother Jane Small.  Click here to read the post.  
She died at a relatively young age and as a result her death left a portion of the family tree fractured.  This made research interesting, yet difficult.  Jane was a FPOC from Gates County, North Carolina.  It wasn't until the release of the Wills & Probate collection on Ancestry.com that I was able to solve the mystery of Jane Small.

I'll have to back up or fast forward actually to my paternal grandfather Dennie and his mother Emily.  My grandfather had a fair complexion and is mother was nearly white.  I've often wondered who attributed to this whiteness and later found out that it was the Howell side of the family.  My paternal aunt mentioned that the Howell's were very fair skin people that were more than likely biracial.  But just how far back would I have to look?  Maybe not as far as I once thought.

Once I was able to establish that Jane lived in Gates County and established a name for her mother, which was recorded on a death register, I thought the information would come pouring in.  It didn't happen for almost 2 years.  I expanded my search to included surrounding northeast North Carolina counties and I finally found what I needed.  I found an older African American woman by the name of Celia "Celie" Small (née Howell) living in Pasquotank and Perquimans counties in North Carolina. Celia had a will that was executed in 1873 and this allowed me to expand my research and my tree.  An even bigger find was the Freedmen's Bank Record that contained information on Celia and her family.

Registers of Signatures of Depositors in Branches of the Freedman's Savings and Trust Company, 1865-1874. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration. Micropublication M816, 27 rolls.

As I carefully read the details of the record, I saw the names of Celia's parents as well as her place of birth.  Go figure!  She was born in Nansemond County.  I now had the names for my 5th great grandparents.  Their names were Isaac and Rebecca.  Just like in the Book of Genesis!  It felt like divine intervention as if the names had a glowing halo.  Then I noticed a notation to the right of Rebecca's name.  The notation simply states "a white person."  I was blown away!  Then I glanced back up to the line labeled "Complexion" and saw that her complexion was notated as "light bright." Nonetheless, it's a curious description of my 4th great grandmother, but the information that explained my 2nd, 3rd and 4th great grandmothers' freedom was there in black and white.  My 5th great grandmother was a White woman named Rebecca Small.  She was the key that unlocked the mystery of Jane Howell (née Small).

I have a pretty good idea of  what may have been Rebecca's existence in life.  I'm not certain of it, but I think she is a classic case of a White female servant who couldn't marry because she was a servant.  If circumstances permitted for marriage and if she was allowed to marry, she couldn't marry up nor marry a man with a higher social status.  That just didn't happen back then.  Her options were probably limited in finding a suitable partner.  Like a lot of White female servants in the late 1700's and early 1800's, she had a sexual relationship with an African/African American male.  White women such as Rebecca contributed  to the large FPOC populations in the South.  My next challenge is to find additional information on Rebecca and to either prove or disprove my theory regarding who she is and figure out if she's connected to my other Howell line, as I have double Howell lineage from the same county and from Jane's husband, William Howell.  It'll be interesting to say the least.  Stay tuned...