How to search

The Memorializing the Enslaved in Arlington site allows you to explore the lives, places, and events connected to enslavement in Arlington through several complementary search and browsing tools.
Due to the nature of our data model (link to data model page here), every record is connected to other records — people to events, events to locations, people to people, and events to documentary sources.

Browse Pages

The site provides dedicated browse pages for each major entity type:

People

Browse individuals who appear in the historical record — including enslaved people, enslavers, and others connected to events. Here you can filter by Status (enslaved person, enslaver, freed person, etc.) or by name.

Events

Events represent documented moments or activities, such as births, deaths, sales, and emancipations.
Here you can filter by Event type, such as employment, manumission, punishment.

Locations

Browse known locations associated with enslavement in Arlington. Here you can filter by the name of the enslaver or the enslaved person’s names.

Sources

Browse where archival materials can be found including deeds, newspapers, census records, and other documents. Here you can filter by Source type, such as deed, census, or newspaper.

Maps

The interactive map provides a geographic view of locations mentioned in the records. Clicking on map markers will zoom and pan the map to show unique locations with links to Location records in the database. The location marker does not show the full size of a farm or plantation.

Advanced Search

For more targeted research, use the Advanced Search (click on the 'advanced search' link at the top of each page).

The advanced search lets you:

• Filter by Class (e.g., search only within Events or People).
• Combine multiple property filters to refine your results.

Example searches

 

Find all Events where transferred person is ‘Isaac’ (Try it)

 

Find all Persons where status is ‘Enslaver’ and gender starts with ‘f’  (Try it)

Find all Sources where source type is ‘Will and Testament’ (Try it)

When selecting properties, use those that fall under the Memorializing the Enslaved heading. See the following example where ‘Event’ appears twice in the list of Classes.

 

Each search returns a list of matching records. Clicking any result opens the detailed record page.

Finding a known person

To find a known person by name (e.g David), use the Advanced search as above. Add a filter of name (Memorializing the Enslaved in Arlington Ontology), select contains from the dropdown, and enter the name or partial name.Under Search by class select Person (Memorializing the Enslaved in Arlington Ontology). This will return all matching Person records. Select the names of interest and view their details to disambiguate between any duplicates.

Linked Resources

At the bottom of each record page, you’ll find a Linked Resources section.This shows all related records based on the site’s underlying data model.

What you see here depends on the type of record you’re viewing:

• A Person page might list related Events, Locations, and Sources.
   
• An Event page shows the Person records, Locations, and Sources involved in that occurrence.
   
• A Source page links back to the Events documented in that source.
   
• A Location page might list related Events and Person records.

These links let you move easily from one record to another, following the historical relationships encoded in the data.

Tips for Exploring

• Use filters on browse pages to narrow large lists to specific types or time periods.
   
• Use the Advanced Search when you know which property you want to query.
   
• Use Linked Resources to trace connections — for example, from an enslaver’s page to the people and events they were involved with.
   

The map view is the best way to explore geography and spatial relationships.