Overview: The Turner-Hines-Franklin Dataverse
Beginning in 2026, The Turner-Hines-Franklin Institute will serve as the steward of three major databases related to American slavery: Oceans of Kinfolk, Freedom on the Move, and Louisiana Kindred.
Oceans of Kinfolk is a database of the antebellum coastwise traffic of enslaved persons. Oceans of Kinfolk currently includes the names of more than 63,000 enslaved men, women and children trafficked to New Orleans from domestic ports between 1818 and 1860. It is based upon thousands of ship manifests. Oceans of Kinfolk is currently the largest single database containing the names of African American ancestors in the world.
Louisiana Kindred is a database of enslaved people who were sold in antebellum New Orleans, the nation’s largest market for buying and selling human beings. It is based upon thousands of notarized bills of sale. Louisiana Kindred currently includes information about the sale of more than 1,400 individuals. When completed, it will likely contain information about the sales of approximately 100,000 enslaved ancestors.
Freedom on the Move is the largest online repository of digitized newspaper advertisements for fugitives from slavery. At current count, the site contains information about more than 30,000 freedom-seekers.