Included Locations
People Not Property currently contains slave deeds from a number of counties in north Carolina, as well as Washington, DC.
North Carolina
Not all counties currently featured on the People Not Property project web site are fully completed, and we've started work in several counties not yet imported into the project database. Below you will find a list of all counties currently included in the database, as well as our progress in completing work in each. This page will be updated as additions continue.
- Alexander County
- Completed.
- There are 2 books A, named A and A2
- Beaufort County
- Books 1-17 & 19-22 are completed.
- Bertie County
- Completed.
- Brunswick County
- Completed.
- Starting on page 157 through the end of Book B, two numbers exist per page. The actual page number was added later in parentheses, in pencil, under the incorrect, original page number to mirror the book's pagination.
- Buncombe County
- Completed.
- Burke County
- Completed.
- Burke County experienced a fire in 1865 in which many of the court and land records were destroyed.
- Caldwell County
- Completed.
- Cherokee County
- Completed.
- Craven County
- Books 1-36 are completed.
- Books 37-68 remain to be done.
- Duplin County
- Books 1A, 3A, 4A, 5A, 7A, 8A, E, L, M, N, O, P, Q, Z are completed.
- Books that are relevant to the project but have not been completed: 2, 3B, 4B, 6, 7B, 8B, 9, 11, 12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24.
- Guilford County
- Completed.
- Full-text transcripts available for most documents.
- Halifax County
- Books 1-17 and 22-35 are completed.
- Books 18-21 remain to be done.
- Iredell County
- Completed.
- Martin County
- Completed.
- Onslow County
- Completed.
- Page 499 of Book A is labeled "End of Book C; A continuation of Book E." Page 551 of Book A is labelled "A continuation of Book D. Page 176." This implies that a number of the subsequent pages in Book A are from Book C, D and E.
- There are 2 books labeled B
- Book C are all copied in 1912 from earlier volumes
- There is no Book D. But see above note about Book A.
- Orange County
- Books 2-21 have been completed.
- Books 22-37 remain to be done.
- Perquimans County
- Begins with Book M. Books M-Y have been completed.
- Books Z and AA-GG remain to be done.
- Rockingham County
- Completed.
- Stanly County
- Completed.
- Surry County
- Completed.
- Wake County
- Completed.
- Wilkes County
- Completed.
- There is no Book H; Book T has two different page 456
- Book Q is misnumbered: skips from page 249 to page 349/350
- Yadkin County
- Completed.
Unavailable counties
In statewide survey of Registers of Deeds in which 52 of 100 responded, the below counties reported that they had no available records:
- Avery County
- Formed February 23 1911.
- Clay County
- A fire before 1870 destroyed original records from county formation in 1861.
- Dare County
- Formed February 3 1870. See Currituck, Tyrrell, and Hyde counties for relevant records
- Durham County
- Formed on April 17 1881. See Orange and Wake counties for relevant records.
- Graham County
- Formed on January 30 1872. See Cherokee County for relevant records.
- Harnett County
- Established in 1855 from Cumberland County. Courthouse fires of 1892 and 1894 destroyed court records and many of the land records.
- Hertford County
- A fire destroyed records before 1864.
- Hoke County
- Formed on February 17 1911. See Cumberland and Robeson counties for relevant records.
- Lee County
- Formed on March 6 1907. See Chatham, Harnett, and Moore counties for relevant records.
- Lenoir County
- Fires in 1865 and 1880 destroyed their early records.
- Pamlico County
- Formed on April 8 1872. See Beaufort and Craven counties for relevant records.
- Pender County
- Formed on February 16 1875. See New Hanover County for relevant records.
- Scotland County
- Founded in 1899. See Richmond County for relevant records.
- Swain County
- Formed on February 24 1870. See Jackson and Macon counties for relevant records.
- Vance County
- Formed in 1881. See Franklin, Granville, and Warren counties for relevant records.
- Watauga County
- A courthouse fire in 1873 destroyed previous records.
Tennessee
- Overton County
- Completed.
- All data available online. Images aren't available yet.
Washington DC
People Not Property includes over 1500 freedom and slavery documents in the District of Columbia, including Bills of Sale, Certificates of Freedom, Certificates of Slavery, Emancipations, and Manumissions from 1792-1822. This information was originally compiled by Helen Hoban Rogers, and kindly donated to the Digital Library on American Slavery. Unfortunately, we do not have access to any images of the documents at this time.
