This is an article I never expected to write. My interest in Scott Joplin was originally centered on his music; examination of his life came later, and I was pleased to discover how details of his life added to the understanding of his music. Thoughts of his parents rarely surfaced. I accepted the little that was written about them and didn’t bother to examine the stories carefully. My thoughts changed a year ago when my daughter Stephanie Caputo, an amateur – though expert – genealogist, showed me what she had discovered about the parents. This was new and intriguing information. I agreed that we should follow her line of investigation and see where it leads.
Previous Writings about Scott Joplin’s Parents
Examination of Scott Joplin or his family inevitably begins with Rudi Blesh and Harriet Janis. Their book They All Played Ragtime (1950; 3rd ed. 1971) was the pioneering work on ragtime and Scott Joplin. But they had little to say about Joplin’s parents. They have Giles (also spelled Jiles) Joplin born into slavery in North Carolina and Florence being free-born in Kentucky. Except for the assertion of Florence being free-born, this information is readily available on Scott Joplin’s census listings beginning in 1870 and other places. An article that Blesh wrote for the New York Public Library edition of The Complete Works of Scott Joplin (1971; 2nd ed. 1981) gives us an
