Reading record language, not identity

Two kinds of wording in this case are easy to misuse. The first is the 1840 inventory's classification of Hilliard as property, in the racialized wording of the period. The archive preserves that wording only as verbatim record language, because it is evidence of the system that produced the document. It is never used as a descriptive label for Hilliard.

The second is the complexion term "yellow" recorded for Hilliard in the 1865 Freedmen's Bureau register, and recorded elsewhere for Laura and Bettie. A recorded complexion term is an enumerator's or clerk's observation within a particular racial classification system. It does not establish biracial identity, a white parent, an ancestry proportion, or the identity of any biological parent. Where the archive uses it at all, it is used as evidence of how a record described someone, not as evidence of who that person descended from.