Resources for Researching African-American Genealogy

One of my favorite go to places for genealogy research is Family Search (https://familysearch.org/). This site provides a plethora of free information for those looking to research more about their family. They also have some great collections specifically for researching African-American Genealogy. Check out the link below!

https://familysearch.org/african-american-genealogy

Happy searching! :-)

Guess Who's Coming to the Family Reunion?!

Family reunions are an exciting time! It’s a time when immediate families and their extended families can get together to catch up and reminisce. I love my family and I love attending the family reunions! In all the years I've been attending the reunions, I think I've only missed two – not willfully of course. I’ll do everything in my power to get to the reunion, because I don’t want to miss anything or miss an opportunity to reunite with my family once more – life’s too short to put off something so important.

A few years ago, we had plans to attend the family reunion that year. Some of my family had already left for the reunion days prior, but I wasn't able to leave when they did. Due to a scheduling conflict, it was starting to look like I wasn't going to be able to make the reunion that year. I was determined to get there! I finally decided that I was going, even if that meant driving through the night to be there for one day and turning right around to come back home.

One of my sisters decided to go with me. We had a smooth ride, and showed up at the picnic just in time. We were so excited to see everybody. I’m glad we decided to go because we soon made an interesting discovery.

I scanned the park looking around at all of my relatives in the same place. I then noticed a woman sitting at a table with one of my cousins. I didn't know the lady personally but I knew I had seen her before. I quickly remembered where I knew her from, and I wondered what she was doing at my family reunion. I turned to my sister and asked in surprise “Hey, isn't that the lady from your job?”  My sister looked and said “Yeah, that is her! What is she doing here?” she asked me. “I don’t know. I've never seen her at the reunions. She’s got to know someone or she wouldn't be here. Let’s go find out!” I said as we walked toward the table.

As we approached the table, my sister called out to her. The lady greeted her and asked “What are you doing here?” My sister replied “This is my family reunion. What are you doing here?” The lady replied “This is my aunt” as she pointed to my cousin. I said “That’s our cousin.” We stood there for a moment trying to figure it out and my cousin said to us “Yes, this is my niece – my husband’s niece, and these are my cousins.” The three of us let out a simultaneous “Ohhh…” and we had a good laugh about running into each other there.

While the lady is no relation to me, it’s such a small world that my sister’s co-worker would be related to one of our cousins – even if it is by marriage. Make it a priority to attend family reunions and get to know people. You never know who will be there and you never know who knows who!   

How are you related to me?

I often get questions from people asking me to help them understand their relation to certain individuals in their family. Most people seem to get confused on anybody past their first cousins...lol. Trying to determine who's who can be a little tricky sometimes. Well, I've got some great news for you! My new friend Mark with Crestleaf, has sent me some great information - a family relationship chart, that helps make it much easier to identify who's who in your family tree at a glance! Check out this helpful link below for a FREE printable copy of the chart!

http://crestleaf.com/blog/relative-family-relationship-chart/

I've been around the world!!!

I’m excited to tell you that I've been around the world! Well, my DNA has anyway :-D

A few months ago, I had the opportunity to take another step in my genealogy research – I had my DNA tested to determine my ethnic origins. What I found out was quite interesting. There were numerous factors that led me to get this done:  

People often ask me “Where are you from?”  When I reply with my state of birth they look a little puzzled and ask “Really? But what country are you from originally?” I reply “The United States” and you should see some of the shocked looks I receive. They began to tell me that I look like I’m from some place of Caribbean decent. I don’t think I look Caribbean at all and I’m not quite sure what features those people saw in me to make that assessment.

Then there was the time I was on vacation, visiting a quaint little island. I was in line to pay for a horse carriage tour of the island. When I approached the window the clerk asked for my ID (even though she had not previously asked anyone else for their ID). All in all, it turned out to be some kind of checks and balances process to confirm that I wasn't a worker trying to leave the island. Someone told me the island contracts migrant workers to work on the island for a specified period of time – somewhere from the Caribbean, they didn't know exactly where. If the workers are caught leaving prior to the end of their contract, they face some severe penalties.

This really got my wheels turning. My mother (who is now deceased) never knew her father – only his name. Of course that left me without knowing anything about him or his side of the family. I began to wonder “Could I have descended from the Caribbean through him?”

Let’s not forget the countless family stories about having Native American ancestry through my paternal bloodline. Stories are exactly what there were to me unless someone could actually provide me with proof. I always asked questions about this: What was the name of the tribe? What was the name of the reservation? What happened to those people? No could ever answer those questions for me. It was always this person or that person told them about it, but there was never any supporting evidence.

With all this uncertainty and speculation, I decided to take the plunge and have my DNA tested through AncestryDNA to find out what I'm made up of. The test studies your DNA for your paternal and maternal lines – the only thing is that the results do not tell you which ethnicities you inherited from each parent.

I discovered that I have zero Native American in my bloodline. That means that neither my mother nor father has it in their genetic makeup…so I can finally put those tales to rest. My ethnic origin is predominately African, then there's some Irish and Great Britain ancestry, and also ancestry from some other regions that left me scratching my head (I'm still trying to figure out how to account for those regions...lol).  

I urge you to also take this test and discover your true ethnic origins! Ancestry offers a test that is very simple (www.dna.ancestry.com) and costs only $99. Consider it an investment in your legacy (and no I was not paid or coerced to say that…lol)! You will need to create a free account with Ancestry to begin the process. It takes about 6-8 weeks for the results to come back through your online account but I received my results within 4 weeks.  You can probably find a coupon code somewhere online to get free shipping for the kit.

Happy searching! :-) 

Getting Started: Part 2.1

Hey everybody! This is a follow up to the blog post "Getting Started: Part 1". I just wanted to give you a brief overview on how resources in your home can be helpful to you in your research! I've decided to break up Part 2 into two sections - 2.1. and 2.2. Check out the video below "Getting Started: Part 2.1 as we briefly cover photographs, programs, birth & death records, cemetery & burial records, and obituaries. Part 2.2 will be coming soon!