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This isn’t the only way that @Ancestry whitewashes slavery. In the past year they also changed their search engine. It used to be if your ancestor owned slaves it would pop up when you searched their name. That’s no longer true. The slave censuses are no longer name searchable.
This change means you won’t ever know your ancestor was a slave owner unless you specifically go looking and do a keyword search specifically on the slave census. Even then it’s harder to find them as it doesn’t look for common misspellings or initials anymore.
I don’t know if it’s purposeful but @Ancestry knows about the issue & haven’t fixed it yet. They claimed the old way caused issues for family trees when records were saved but they could find a way around that issue if they wanted. They don’t seem to want to spend the resources.
It also makes it harder for me and my students to research if someone owned slaves. Thanks to @CristaCowan who figured out the cause of the issues. Hopefully @Ancestry fixes it soon. This is a chance for them to show they listen to historians about how to not whitewash the past.
Hopefully #Twitterstorians weigh in and help get them to change their ways.
I imagine this impacts a lot of people’s research including @sams_reckoning @KeriLeighMerrit @slavedwelling @slaveryuva @ProfMSinha @jwbernier @rothmanistan
If everyone who likes/retweets this would email/call Ancestry customer support I bet it would get fixed faster. 1-800-615-6560 ancestry.com/cs/suggestions
