Finding the Names — Part One (Rolls 1–8, Installments 1–71) — FREE

One free download with the first completed part of Finding the Names: the New Orleans inward slave manifests, Rolls 1–8 (Installments 1–71), transcribed name by name from the National Archives' own scans (Microfilm Publication M1895, Records of the U.S. Customs Service, Record Group 36).

What's inside:

• The companion guide — Finding the Names: A Free Guide to the Public Records of America's Slave Trade (48 pages).

• Every installment of Rolls 1–8 as its own PDF — 71 books, exactly as published.

• One searchable name list (CSV) with every entry in this part: 46,513 entries, 45,792 of them named.

This part runs from the earliest manifests in the series through the brig Creole's famous 1841 voyage — Madison Washington stands at entry 25 of her Richmond filing. It is complete as it stands: Rolls 1–8 will not change.

Every name is transcribed by hand from the original public records — no index, database, or published book is copied — so descendants can find their people. Where a manifest and its certificate disagree, both readings are printed in the books, disagreements and all.

The work continues: the remaining inward rolls, the outward rolls, and the other ports are being transcribed now, and the Complete Set in this store is updated free at the same link with every new installment.

FREE, now and always. Please share it.

— Okey and Susan Barker, Trails End