The purpose of the Austin Slaves Data Project is to provide a database for family historians to examine the documented information about slaves held within Austin family households. As these slaves most likely have modern day descendants, there is as much interest for research into their lives as there is for the lives of those who owned them. The life of the slave and his master were inextricably intertwined and neither can be fully appreciated without research into the other's life.

In most instances, slaves were forbidden by law from learning to read or write. Slaves could not generally own property and many had no information as to their exact age. This would preclude them from recording information about themselves or being in many other types of written documentation. While it did not prevent them from providing their known information to their descendants in the form of oral history, researchers attempting to develop family histories have no available database to review those few clues they have been provided. The only known documentation for many formerly enslaved persons exists within the family deeds, wills, and extant records of the persons that owned them. There is a tremendous wealth of untapped research information, which lies hidden within these documents. The names, ages, descriptions, and family structures of the slaves are just a few examples of the valuable information that could be obtained.

To this end, the Austin Slaves Data Project is a visionary undertaking, as the Austins of America Genealogical Society would be one of the first, if not the first organization of its type to create such a database. The Society (which will become the Austin Families Genealogical Society in February 2005) was founded in 1979 to serve present and future genealogists in researching Austin family lines, and to provide a place for publishing and preserving Austin family research. Without such a database, the life stories of many families will never be written because they remain obscured from their view.