Collected below, I’ve listed some of the key sources I’ve used (repeatedly) for my research into the Ganges’ story, links to videos of public presentations I’ve made on the subject and a list of other projects or resources that share the same spirit and openness I’ve tries to incorporate here. MK
About the Ganges
Key References
Pennsylvania Abolition Society papers
https://www2.hsp.org/collections/manuscripts/p/PAS0490.html
Philadelphia Alms House Records
City Archives
The updated (around 2021) finding aid for the Philadelphia City Archives leaves much to be desired when looking for specific topics or record groups. Fortunately, over the years, the Internet Archive has made multiple copies of the previous site (named PHILS) that breaks down the collection in considerably more useful detail. Since the collection organization is likely to remain fairly static over the years, these aids are still quite useful, Bear in mind, though, that NEW additions or collections added after 2020 will not be catalogued here.
FamilySearch
FamilySearch has published online digital copies of a significant subset of Philadelphia Almshouse records. Access may be limited to family history centers or affiliates. HSP is an ideal location for this in the Philadelphia area, as many Family History Centers have uneven hours.
https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/catalog/results?q.keywords=philadelphia%20almshouse
Philadelphia City Directories
Several commercial web sites provide access to Philadelphia City Directories (ancestry.com and fold3.com). However, the Philadelphia GeoHistory Web site provides high quality digital scans 1785-1867 for free.
https://www.philageohistory.org/rdic-images/index2.cfm#9:::::
Philadelphia Prison Records
As with the almshouse records, both the Philadelphia City Archives and FamilySearch provide access to Philadelphia prison records.
Philadelphia City Archives
https://www.phila.gov/phils/Docs/Inventor/graphics/agencies/A038.htm
FamilySearch
https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/catalog/results?count=20&q.authorId=35940401
Forging Freedom
Nash, Gary B. 1988. Forging Freedom : The Formation of Philadelphia’s Black Community, 1720-1840. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Freedom by Degrees
Nash, Gary B., and Jean R. Soderlund. 1991. Freedom by Degrees : Emancipation in Pennsylvania and Its Aftermath. New York: Oxford University Press. http://site.ebrary.com/id/10278393.
The Final Victims
McMillin, James A. 2004. The Final Victims : Foreign Slave Trade to North America, 1783-1810. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.
Citizens of the World
Hancock, David. 1995. Citizens of the World : London Merchants and the Integration of the British Atlantic Community, 1735-1785. 1st pbk. ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
The Notorious Triangle
Coughtry, Jay. 1981. The Notorious Triangle : Rhode Island and the African Slave Trade, 1700-1807. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Presentations
Shamele Jorddan’s Genealogy Quickstart
Half hour section of the video discusses the project and the life of Levi/Lahy Ganges: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rB1L6zkb1o&t=1790s
Finding the Ganges (Dozens of Needles in Millions of Haystacks)
Handout for a presentation delivered at “Using | Doing | Teaching Black History” workshop, April 26, 2025:
Related Projects
1838 Black Metropolis
Project centered on the 1838 black census of Philadelphia and the development of Philadelphia’s free black community in the early 19th century.
https://www.1838blackmetropolis.com/
Mother Bethel Burying Ground
Her Luxuriant Soil
A project to transform a section of Weccacoe Playground, Queen Village, into a memorial ground coincident with the location of Mother Bethel Burying Ground.
Bethel Burying Ground Project
Terry Buckalew’s terrific web site providing profiles of many of the Black Philadelphians buried here, including Levi Ganges.
https://bethelburyinggroundproject.com/
Slave Voyages
“The SlaveVoyages website is a collaborative digital initiative that compiles and makes publicly accessible records of the largest slave trades in history. Search these records to learn about the broad origins and forced relocations of more than 12 million African people who were sent across the Atlantic in slave ships, and hundreds of thousands more who were trafficked within the Americas”
The Trans-Atlantic Voyages database, which is the go-to site for information relating to slaving voyages, includes those of the Prudent and the Phoebe.
339 Manumissions and Beyond Project
“The 339 Manumission and Beyond Project is a reparative, spirit-led, genealogical search to uncover the lives and family trees of the 339 Africans who were granted their freedom by members of the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Quakers, once it was decided that Quakers could not be enslavers.”
10 Million Names
“10 Million Names is a collaborative project dedicated to recovering the names of the estimated 10 million men, women, and children of African descent who were enslaved in pre- and post-colonial America (specifically, the territory that would become the United States) between the 1500s and 1865.
The project seeks to amplify the voices of people who have been telling their family stories for centuries, connect researchers and data partners with people seeking answers to family history questions, and expand access to data, resources, and information about enslaved African Americans.”
Enslaved: Peoples of the Historical Slave Trade
“Search over numerous datasets and reconstruct the lives of people involved in the historical slave trade. Browse interconnected data, generate visualizations, and explore short biographies of enslaved and freed peoples.”
This is where I located Samuel (aka Mundo) Ganges who fled Philadelphia and ended up i New Orleans.
GU272 Memory Project
“In 1838, the Maryland Jesuits sold more than 300 enslaved people to sugar plantations in southern Louisiana, in order to rescue Georgetown University from bankruptcy. In all, the Jesuits sold 314 men, women and children over a 5-year period stretching from 1838 to 1843. Today, these enslaved people are known collectively as the “GU272 Ancestors.””
https://gu272.americanancestors.org/
Clotilda Descendants Association
The account of slave ship Clotilda is one of those mysterious chronicles that can’t be written in a hurry. As a matter of fact, it’s taken 159 years to be told and is still not finished.
It started with simple people living simple lives in their ‘own’ African country, before being captured by a rival tribe, sold to a wealthy slave owner from America and forced to live in squalor on a two-month voyage across an unforgiving Atlantic Ocean…
Even more reprehensible is that the entire saga was merely to settle a bet by ship owner Timothy Meaher that federal authorities could indeed be outsmarted.”
The Ganges Families History Project 