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ATLANTA — Georgia State University Professor of English Elizabeth J. West wanted to know more about her family’s history. Initially focusing on Noah Cistrunk, her paternal great-grandfather born in 1882, West discovered an unexpected name during her research: Francis Sistrunk, her great-great-great-grandmother.
“This name, which I had not heard previously uttered among family members, became quickly emblazoned into my mind,” West writes in her book, “Finding Francis: One Family’s Journey From Slavery to Freedom.”
“I had to know more about her, this matriarch who had held her family together in pre- and post-emancipation Mississippi.”
West traced Francis’ path, as an enslaved woman, across the South to Harris County, Ga. She utilized census records, tax records, DNA evidence and personal accounts of Francis’ enslavers to piece together the story.
“Following Francis’ footsteps was like assembling a complex puzzle where every piece held profound significance,” said West, who is also the John B. and Elena Diaz-Verson Amos Distinguished Chair in English Letters and director of academics for Georgia State’s Center for Studies on Africa and Its Diaspora (CSAD).
As her research progressed, it laid the foundation for a larger initiative.
“Combing through the records, I learned that even just a handful of them often brought to life the experiences of people we have been told for so long are unknowable or undiscoverable,” West said. “My graduate research assistant and I began discussing ways to streamline this type of research through concerted mining and transcription of key records.”
West, her former graduate research assistant Joshua Jackson (Ph.D. ’22) and former student John Washington (B.A. ’22) were central to creating the Data Mining and Mapping Antebellum Georgia (DMMAG) project. The project aims to build a comprehensive, searchable database of named enslaved people in 19th-century Georgia. By combining U.S. Census records, state deed and mortgage records, and estate records, the project seeks to identify the names and likely locations of thousands of enslaved individuals. Harris County serves as the launchpad for this ambitious project.
“We had a familiarity with records and maps, and we also established contacts with local people in Harris County who helped us on the ground,” West said.
The DMMAG project aims to link 120 sampled enslavers with 5,000 named enslaved people. West and her collaborators used the online database SlaveVoyages.org, a joint digital initiative among nine universities and the National Museum of African American History and Culture, to aid their research.
“The DMMAG is possible through the work and knowledge of a team of researchers and contributors both in and outside academia,” West said.
GSU students used deeds and archival maps to pinpoint exact locations where Black American families lived and built societies in Harris County. This process, known as georectifying, involves using a geographic information system (GIS) to align historical maps and aerial photographs with modern maps, allowing them to be overlaid and analyzed together.
“The exciting part of this work is its usefulness and access to the public,” West said. “The DMMAG project shows how data can be efficiently collected and presented for researchers. It helps both public and private researchers quickly combine and connect different types of information to answer various questions, whether small or large.”
The DMMAG pilot project is expected to be released to the public by the end of the spring 2025 semester. West and her team are also in discussions with their partners at Troy University about the project’s future.
“Our initial plan was to focus on collecting more data immediately, but now we are looking at how to expand and make the database flexible enough to become the interactive tool we envision,” West said.
— By André Walker