One of the things I enjoy doing in my spare time is researching my family roots.  I’ve compiled rather lengthy and detailed family trees for my mother’s family and for both of my husband’s parents.  All three of these branches I can trace back to the immigrant ancestor who first arrived in this country.  In several of the lines, I have discovered sketchy data from ancestors as far back as 350 years ago.
    My mother’s family and both of my in-law’s ancestors were sturdy German folks.  Most of them came to America from the area of the Rhine River in central Germany.  Some emigrated during the 18th century; some as much as a century later.  Nearly all of them came to the “New World” seeking one thing: the freedom to worship God as their consciences directed them.  They and their descendants kept good family records and it was not too difficult to gather the information about them.
    Then there is my father’s family, and that is a different story!  His mother’s ancestors were more of those good record keeping Germans.   His paternal grandfather, however, told members of the family three different versions of where he came from and where his parents lived.  Perhaps my father’s ability to “spin a yarn” was inherited from this grandfather! 
    Federal census records seem to indicate that my great-grandfather was born in the United States and that, at the age of 16, he was apprenticed to a butcher in Cincinnati, Ohio.  But even his official death certificate, filled out by his daughter,  indicates that his parents names and birthplaces were “Unknown.” 
    Did he run away from home?  Or did his parents disown him for some reason? Perhaps he was orphaned early in life.  For five years, questions like these have pushed me to search for more information about him.
    His family name (and my maiden name) is very German but not a common name in the U.S.: Helstern. Searches have given me almost no new information about my ancestor.  I’ve discovered that the name occurs in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and in northwestern Illinois, but without any connection to my branch of the family.    
    In one such search, I discovered something I never expected and really didn’t want to know!  A Federal Census of Chambers County, Alabama, indicated that, on December 5th of 1850, “Slanmore Helstern” owned a total of 37 Negro slaves, both males and females, ranging in age from 50 to 1 years.  No names are mentioned; only numbers, gender and ages.  Further down that same page, I discovered that “Lorenza Helstern” owned 36 Negro slaves, male and female, ranging in age from 70 to 2 years of age. 
    An Alabama branch of the Helstern family, whoever they were, were slave owners!  It was like finding a skeleton in the ancestral closet to discover this dark and unknown family secret.  They must have been prosperous to be able to own so much “human property.”  Were the Helsterns kind masters to their slaves, or not?  Did they allow slave families to stay together or divide them when there was money to be made by the sale of one family member?
     Twenty-seven of those slaves listed were children aged ten years or younger.  What duties did they carry out for their master’s family?  Or were they “raised” to be sold for income? 
    The record indicates that, during that year, none of their slaves had escaped and none had been freed.  Less than fifteen years later, they all would be freed by Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.  Where did they go?  How did they survive?  Did they, like so many freed slaves, take their master’s name as their own family name?  If so, where are their descendants today?
    I know that English-speaking immigration officials sometimes misspelled German family names, so I’ve searched at least half a dozen alternate spellings of the name “Helstern.”  Even so, I’ve had little success at finding new leads for tracing my great-grandfather. 
    Since my ancestor was apparently born in Ohio in 1846, I’m reasonably sure that Slanmore and Lorenza Helstern, whose slaves were counted in that 1850 Alabama census, are not part of my branch of the family tree.  Nevertheless, the discovery of that dark chapter of Helstern history has chilled my enthusiasm for genealogical research.  What other deep dark unknown family secrets might I discover in my searching?