Chinn slave owners

Jan Chinn ,

We suggest that you review the National Archives document  Federal Records that Help Identify Former Slaves and Slave Owners and also search the Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers for possible information, as during the slavery period owners often advertised in newspapers about their runaway and fugitive slaves in hopes that citizens, or bounty hunters would would find and return their "property" usually for a reward.

You may also want to search the National Archives Catalog for Census Records from the relevant time periods such as the  Population Schedules for the 1850 Census (including slave schedules) and the Population Schedules for the 1860 Census (including slave schedules) in the Records of the Bureau of the Census (Record Group 29) that may contain information about the slave holding status of your ancestors.  These are not fully digitized but for access to the non-digitized schedules, please contact the National Archives at Washington, DC - Textual Reference (RDT1) via email at archives1reference@nara.gov.   However you may wish to search Ancestry.com or FamilySearch.org for the digitized versions of the U.S. Census. There may be a fee for using Ancestry. Instead, please check for access at your local library as many library systems subscribe to these sites, making them free for their patrons.

As records of enslaved people were often listed as property or estate transactions, we suggest that you request a search from the Library of Virginia for tax lists, probate and deed records for your ancestors.  In addition, the NARA document Federal Records that Help Identify Former Slaves and Slave Owners and the FamilySearch Research wikis for Virginia Land and Property Virginia Probate Records, and Kentucky Land and Property may be useful.

We hope this is helpful.