Dr. Williams is the author of the Oceans of Kinfolk database, which includes the names of more than 63,000 enslaved men, women and children trafficked to New Orleans from domestic ports between 1818 and 1860. The first edition of Oceans of Kinfolk was published at SlaveVoyages.org in December of 2021. Dr. Williams is currently revising that edition: a process involving careful, manual review of every single record for transcription accuracy. Once each record is reviewed, she adds it to the Second Edition of Oceans of Kinfolk @ Kinfolkology. Throughout this process, the unrevised 2021 version of the database will still be available here.

Hundreds of thousands of enslaved men, women and children were bought and sold in Louisiana before the Civil War. Their names have largely remained secreted away in notarial archives ever since. Dr. Williams is the Lead Author and Editor in Chief of Louisiana Kindred, a developing database of enslaved individuals sold in antebellum New Orleans.