Emancipation Index - Greene, Logan, Miami, and Montgomery County

Special Collections & Archives holds original and microfilm copies of manumission registers for Greene, Logan, Miami, and Montgomery (partial) Counties. From 1804 to 1857, freed blacks in Ohio had to register their freedom with the clerk of court in the county where they desired residency or employment. The registers contains a wealth of historical and genealogical information the emancipation index contains over 800 names.

In an effort to make the registers more accessible to researchers, Stephen Haller of the Ohio Historical Society (now the Ohio History Connection) and Robert H. Smith, Jr. (Wright State University) published an index in 1977 entitled Registers of Blacks in the Miami Valley: A Name Abstract, 1804-1857. The index is reproduced here. The following information was taken from each register: name and certificate number (if listed) of freed slaves, name of owner or guardian (if listed), date and county/state of officially recorded freedom, date and county of officially recorded presence in Ohio, additional information (age and family relationships), and the page number of the register in which the information is recorded. The owner's last name is used in parentheses where no other last name appeared in the register.