Where would i need to look for "bill of sale" records for ancestors of

Question:

Where would i need to look for "bill of sale" records for ancestors of mine that were slaves?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I found tons of sites by search engine for slave registry.
Slave insurance registry, also.

Congress has a bill before it, last I checked anyway,
for tri-billion dollars to make the NARA ARC records
available on-line. (You can check Thomas on-line
for the bill enactment date).
So try NARA ARC.

This following site is about inheriting property (including human beings back then, such as indentured servants)
dinsdoc.com/goodell-1-1-4.htm

Also, I read some about the lot sales, and I think it was in an old kind of newspaper called a Gazetteer, but now I just find links mostly about geography. Which reminds me about advertisements placed in early county newspapers (real eye openers causing one to pause).

First I'd use usgenweb national for clusters of names
(that is, if your earliest census records don't give state of birth), then the states for your surname clusters, then
add the type of record name (slave? servant?) to the surname with aNd, then after locating clusters of counties...begin to look for wills/probates, tax lists, and newspaper stories.

In the north, again, I think you'd be looking for indentured servants in will records and freed papers.

Lists of Freedmans would be a good link (use of word before the internet).

Remember to keep descriptions intact with your records,
as descriptive characteristics were used to distinguish between people with the same first names.

Have heart. You'll get through the 1800 "gasp" easier than those ancestors that knew that record-keeping was about the exchange of money and went way out of the way to avoid being recorded "anywhere." At least your family roots are among the wealthy (record keeping) people. Mine kept looking for the "land of opportunity" all the way across the US from way upper NE to the middle road to middle CA to the upper NW.

Someone once wrote on AOL, "Would my dead ancestors please e-mail me." To that someone updated it recently with, "And, please file attach your genealogy records in PDF format!"