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Tracing Your Roots: Why Did My Family Bury the Past?
Silence shrouded information about a family’s past, and those who could provide answers are deceased. Fortunately, there’s a paper trail. Dear Professor Gates: No one in my family would talk about our past, so it basically died with my great-great-aunts. Our family is from Robeson County, N.C.—mainly St. Pauls, in the Kintuck area—and my ancestors…
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Tracing Your Roots: My Ancestor Was in Her Half Sister’s Dowry
Families intertwine and seemingly pass back and forth over the color line, complicating efforts to trace their origins. Dear Professor Gates: I would like to know more about my great-great-great-grandmother Melinda Day (1824-1890), who was born into slavery and became part of the dowry of her half sister Susannah Whittington from Georgia. One of Melinda’s…
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Tracing Your Roots: Who Were Our Kin Before Tragedy Struck the Family?
Needing answers after a family was torn asunder by fatal acts of domestic violence. Dear Professor Gates: My sister Yahnique Sparks and I are having trouble finding information on our parents, Joseph Shirley Sparks and Ruby Lee Sparks (maiden name Johnson). They both died in 1981 when I was a child. Our mother perished at…
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Tracing Your Roots: My Adopted Black Daughter Wants to Know Her Origins
A white mother and black daughter encounter the genealogical “brick wall” so many people face while researching African-American families during slavery. Dear Professor Gates: I have worked very hard to trace back the ancestry of my adopted daughter Rasa Braswell, who is African American. (I am Caucasian.) However, I hit a snag once I got…
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Tracing Your Roots: Did Racism Force My Ancestors to Hide Their Love?
Family lore about a great-grandparent’s interracial relationship lines up with clues in census records. Dear Professor Gates: My paternal grandmother, Caroline “Carrie” Fogg Farrar, was from Raleigh, N.C. She was a product of a relationship between her mother, Mary Elizabeth Fogg (who we had been told was 100 percent Cherokee), and a white landowner named…
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Tracing Your Roots: When Was My ‘Freedman’ Ancestor Freed?
A message board posting listing “freedmen” kin raises questions. Dear Professor Gates: My parents are no longer around to provide answers that will help me to trace my roots, so I hope you can help me. I have traced my father all the way back to my great-great-grandfather and great-great-grandmother, Hilliard (Hill) and Angaline (Angeline)…
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Tracing Your Roots: Why Free Virginia Blacks Looked Over Their Shoulders
Finding Virginia forebears who lived uncertain lives in the shadow of the Nat Turner rebellion. Dear Professor Gates: I believe I have just about every record and newspaper clipping on my fourth great-grandmother Rebecca Howlett of Chesterfield County, Va. However, I haven’t been able to find out who her parents were. She was born in…
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Tracing Your Roots: My Ancestor’s Census Record Is Confusing!
Here’s how to approach an unrecognized or illegible notation, as well as missing information, in a record. Dear Professor Gates: I have come across the abbreviation “WS” in the column for “Place of birth” in the 1910 census for Monroe County, Miss. It occurs several times, in both the mother’s and father’s “Place of birth”…
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Tracing Your Roots: Who Were My Kin Born During Slavery?
Differing surnames and living arrangements complicate the search for the parents of an ancestor born during Reconstruction in North Carolina. Dear Professor Gates: I am curious to know who the parents were of my paternal great-grandfather Turner Bond (1868-1925). He was a self-employed blacksmith in Windsor, Bertie County, N.C., who could read and write. He…
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Tracing Your Roots: Did Grandma Have Creek Indian Roots?
An ancestor identified as black reportedly spoke a language of the Creek people. The family’s paper trail reflects the complicated history of the American West. Dear Professor Gates: I am seeking more information about my paternal grandmother Matilda Jane Tillman and her origins. Matilda Jane (or Tilly) was born on Dec. 26, 1895, in Marlton…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
