Where to begin
Featured journey · Person Journey
Laura: A Life Recovered
From Slavery to Freedom, Family, and the Search for What the Records Cannot Tell Us
Public Beta · Research in progress
The family history before the world knew Emmett Till.
Follow the Smith–Tolliver family through surviving records, family memory, migration, enslavement, freedom, and generations of descendants.
The identified generations
Named absences
Inside the research
Case 001 · Laura Tolliver Smith
What the family remembers, what the records say, where they conflict.
Read the caseCase 002 · Hilliard Taliaferro / Tolliver
From an estate inventory to freedom-era records: one life reconstructed across slavery and emancipation.
Read the caseStandard of proof
0 evidence-bearing statements currently held under the standard. No statement has yet reached Documented.
Retrieval only
A research assistant that answers only from cited holdings — and says so plainly when the archive is silent.
Ask a question of the record…The model, in one line
Family
Explore the Living Lineage — the identified generations, with every descent link rated.
Open the lineage →
Evidence
Open the records behind each conclusion: the source, the observation, the reasoning.
Open the evidence →
Questions
See what remains unresolved, and what record would settle it.
See the open questions →
Where the research is deepest
Derived likeness · labelled
Laura Tolliver Smith
Documented as an enslaved child by 1865, Laura’s surviving records trace a life through freedom, family, and questions the archive has yet to answer.
Documented life · tradition under investigation
Explore case →No verified portrait
Hilliard Taliaferro / Tolliver
Appraised in an estate inventory, sold, separated, and later named in his own right.
Documented transactions · corroborated freedom-era records
Explore case →No verified portrait
Bettie Alexander Tolliver
Unnamed in the slave schedules; named at last in the record of 1870.
Documented from 1870 · silent years before
Explore case →
Derived likeness · labelled
John Smith
Household head across four censuses, with a marriage date the record contradicts.
Corroborated household · date under investigation
Explore case →Two branches, one household
Follow Emmett Till and Amberly R. Carter-Mills backward through two descendant branches until the family lines meet. The relationship is computed from the published parent–child links — and reported as provisional wherever a link is still under investigation.
See the connectionMove through the evidence
BetaChoose a year and see what surviving records reveal — and what they leave unanswered.
Enter the Time MachineCemetery locations · source evidence · ongoing research
Explore a family burial atlas with cemetery locations, source evidence, and ongoing research across generations.
Explore the Burial Atlas — opens in a new tab
Geography under study
No place has been published to the archive yet.
From the holdings
Participation
This record is not finished. Leads, family papers, and corrections enter a reviewed queue — they never silently change a conclusion.
See the story. See the proof.
Direct documentary evidence supports the claim.
Multiple independent pieces of evidence support the conclusion.
The story has been preserved through family memory, oral history, or later family accounts but has not yet been independently established.
Evidence is incomplete, conflicting, or actively being researched.
Earlier family or public accounts conflict with stronger evidence and have been revised.
Original photograph · supplied by the founder
Founder & Descendant Archivist
BEFORE TILL was conceived, researched, and structured by Amberly R. Carter-Mills. Her authorship is permanent and non-transferable: every claim, correction, and research note in this archive carries her attribution.
Read the methodology