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Tracing Your Roots: My Confederate Ancestor Is on Monuments; Who Did He Own?
The debate over Confederate monuments inspires one woman to find the descendants of people her memorialized ancestor enslaved. Dear Professor Gates: I just read your previous column regarding the Confederate general Wade Hampton III, of whom I am a direct descendant. In it, you addressed whether there was a connection between Gen. Hampton and a…
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Tracing Your Roots: Is Charleston, SC’s Famed Jack Primas My Ancestor?
A woman notices that her ancestors shared a surname with an 18th-century free black landowner after whom a road and historically black district were named. Dear Professor Gates: I recently came across an article that discusses the history of the Jack Primas neighborhood of Charleston, S.C. According to the article, John Primus (aka Jack Primas)…