While browsing Ancestry.com I ran across this Death Index for New Orleans (1804-1949) and not having any particular name to search I just entered a "c" in the keyword block and got 'thousands' of hits for people of color. Information given was name, age at death, color. page & volume number.

Also while 'surfing' Heritage Quest I put in a just a surname and searched Census records for that name in ALL Census years for ALL States. Very interesting, I was able to note and follow what seemed to be a migration pattern for that surname by year, state & county. This search even reflected FPOC's who were unkown to me in my particular areas of research in KY & OH. To my surprise and that of a friend I'm doing some research for an ancestor of her's popped up in Brown County, Ohio living within a few doors of John Parker of UGRR fame in the 1860 Census.

So, when you hit a brick wall just play around with some of those on-line databases and you may uncover information that may be helpful at
a later date.