Fantastic Find: NYPL Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture's "In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience"

One of Randy Seaver's Best of the Genea-Blogs (10 to 16 January 2016) included Robyn N. Smith's informative post "How Were Slaves Sold?" at her Reclaiming Kin blog (Robyn reviewed the site in 2013 in her post "The Schomburg and Black Migrations").  Robyn used a source I had not seen before, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (a research unit of the New York Public Library), and their incredibly rich 2005 website "In Motion: The African-American Migration Experience."

In particular, she used this map:

From the NYPL Schomburg Center "In Motion" website.

I have a question about my 3rd great grandfather Jesse T S "JTS" Warren (1825-1894), who moved from Macon County, Alabama to Cass County, Texas in 1852.

Notice  the demographic makeup of the nameless enslaved people in the 1850 Federal Slave Schedule from Macon County looked like at least one or more family units (men, women, and children):

1850 U.S. census, Macon County, Alabama, slave schedule, District 21, p. 183 (penned), Jesse Warren, owner; NARA microfilm publication M432; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 21 Jan 2016).

Notice the strangely consistent ages of the men and women in the 1860 Federal Slave Schedule in Cass County, Texas:

1860 U.S. census, Cass County, Texas, slave schedule, Beat No. 4, p. 33 (penned), J.T.S. Warren, owner; NARA microfilm publication M653; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 21 Jan 2016).

Was the census taker in 1860 just winging it, or were the slaves actually those ages, and therefore where had JTS bought them?  Maybe the Schomburg map could hold clues?






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