Researching Your Lynched Female Ancestors

Cattle Kate, WY, 1936

Did You Know Women (White and Black) Were Lynched? 

Juanita, 1903, CA

While lynching primarily targeted black men, both black and white women were also victims—often for speaking out, defending loved ones, or simply being accused without evidence. Approximately 200 women were lynched in the United States between the late 19th and mid-20th centuries. The vast majority were Black women, though White, Latina, and Indigenous women were also lynched.

Lynching wasn’t just racial terror—it was also used to silence women.

While most lynching victims were men, women faced this brutal form of violence for various reasons, including:

Just to name a few of the women: 

• Mary Turner (1918, GA) – A black woman, 8 months pregnant, lynched for protesting her husband’s murder and speaking out against racial violence
• Laura Nelson (1911, OK) – A black woman and her teenage son lynched without trial or evidence
• Juanita (1903, CA), - A Mexican woman 
• Kate Townsend (1883, LA) – A white brothel owner, possibly lynched in a business dispute.
• Helen Stark (1893, CO) – A white woman accused of robbery, lynched alongside three men.
• Josefa Segovia (1851 CA) A Mexican Woman, same town as Juanita in 1903, Downieville, California,

History of US Lynchings
There are not clear statistics of the US lynchings prior to 1882. However, during the Civil War, the Reconstruction Era, and up to the depression era at least 4743 people were lynched according to newspaper accounts, court records and church records. Perhaps the tension of the Civil War brought this activity into popularity, or the fear of losing power, or the anger toward sympathetics and abolitionists, but US lynchings affected every southern state. The open lands of the new frontier, even California, was not spared. Matter of fact, all but Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont recorded lynches.

America's Lynching Practices

Although over 90% of the victims were African American, there were also white victims, mostly transplants from the northern states. The majority of the victims in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi were carried out by lynch mobs. Of course, Florida, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Kentucky also had notable numbers. Lynching victims were not limited to men. A woman in California was lynched as early as 1851.

White lynching victims were often targeted for opposing mob violence, being accused of crimes, or being immigrants, particularly Italian, Irish, or Jewish people.

Seven Resources for Finding Lynched Female Ancestors

Letter from Colored Federated Clubs of Augusta to President Woodrow Wilson, 1918

1. Name Search

A comprehensive listing of lynched victims is not available. However, the following will get you started: The Finding Josephine blog post "Was My Ancestor Lynched?" lists several places to look for names.

2. Historical American Lynching: One of the better search sites for names, states and reason for being lynched is the  American Lynching  Data . This information is based on the NAACP Lynching Records that can be located at Tuskegee University.

3. Collections: Check with a local college/university collection. Be sure to ask the check the catalog of dissertations and search under the popular keywords. These dissertations may not be in the normal library catalog. A doctoral thesis, of let’s say within sociology, may take a more personal social approach analyzing activities using names and citing court records. In 2008 the University of Washington named 3000 known US lynch victims collected as a research project. This list of names is available.

Maria Delongoria wrote a dissertation, Stranger Fruit: The Lynching of Black Women, where she lists names of “Black Female Lynching Victims” between 1886-1957 on pages 160-164.

4. The Laws: Check to see if any anti-lynching laws were put into place, or special sentences. By reviewing these hearings, you may find the reason why a new law was implemented, and you may even find your ancestor’s name attached to it. I usually start with a database like Lexis Nexis for these types of legal searches.You may find the names of those incited lynch mobs, as well as victims.

5. Local Newspapers: Local black newspapers kept relatively good records of lynching activities in their area. Rural black news may be reported by the largest town’s paper, but this news was often carried by word of mouth, so I suggest double checking the accuracy. Church news, like the Star Zion of the AME Zion church, also reported these activities.

6. Lynch Mobs: If your lynched ancestor was a white sympathetic, or part of a lynch mob, be sure to check the Democratic paper. Remember the Democratic party was labeled rebels and Republican were considered progressive.  Most southern towns had competing Democratic and Republican newspapers; Those involved in lynch mobs were often hailed as heroes in the Democratic reporting. See Imagery of Lynching: Black Men, White Women, and the Mob

7. List of Lynching victims in the United States has 537cited sources.  

Remember in 2022, (yes, 3 years ago), the United States Congress passed the Emmett Till Anti-lynching Act, making lynching a federal hate crime

Kathleen Brandt

a3Genealogy@gmail.com
Accurate, accessible answers