Freedom Document in Local Records
Jennings County Deed Book A, Page 210 - Jennings County Recorders Office.
Transcription of text in document by Sheila Kell.
Georgia, Green County} I Ebenezer Torrence clerk of the Inferior Court of said county Do hereby certify that Shadreck Kersy a free man of Color thirty one years of age born in Wilkes County residing in Greene County at
William Cone's and within this State thirty one years who is a Farmer by profession he enters his name in a Book of Registry kept by me for that purpose & that no person has appeared to Object against a certificate given
by me to him as a free man of Color.Given Under My hand at my office this 26th day of August 1819.
Ebenezer Torrence Clk
State of Indiana, Jennings County}
I James Stott Clerk of the Jennings Circuit Court do hereby Certify that the above Certificate was produced in My Office and Recorded this 28th day of Aug. 1823
John Stott Clk.
This document may be small but it has much to tell us. If you are in an area such as those in Indiana which were not far to the north of the Ohio River, things like this "Freedom Paper" and Manumission (The act of a slave owner setting his slave free) Papers may show up in with Deed Records. If someone freed a slave or they came to Indiana as Freemen they could bring their paperwork in and record it. This document was recorded in Jennings County in 1823 only six years after it became a county and seven years after Indiana became a state. I did two things research wise after I found this. First I checked other Jennings County Records for a person named Shadreck (or a variation of that spelling) Kersey. Kersey is also commonly spelled various ways the most common being Carsey. The document tells he was 31 years old in 1819, which would make him about 35 when the document was recorded here in 1823.
I found two marriage records for a Shadrick Kersey one on January 27,1825 where he married a Betsy Williams, the person marrying them was Alanson Andrews and one for Shadreck Kersey on March 15,1838 where he married a Nancy Bennett that marriage was performed by Dennis Kersey.
Both of the pictures below are from Marriage Book 1, at the Jennings County Courthouse - this book is difficult to read and gives very little detail. It is a relatively small book and combines both the
earliest marriage records and the earliest probate records are in one book.
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