black genealogy
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Tracing Your Roots: The Black Side of My Family Is a Mystery!
A biracial woman yearns to know more about her African-American ancestors, about whom she has little information. It’s a good thing we found a lot of it. Dear Professor Gates: I am a 39-year-old biracial woman who was born in North Carolina. My father, George Newton Watson (Newton Watson Jr. on his birth certificate), was…
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Tracing Your Roots: Is Gunfighter Doc Holliday My Ancestor?
Legend has it that the Old West gambler learned his card skills from an uncle’s black servant girl, intriguing a reader whose ancestor shared Doc’s name. Dear Professor Gates: I’m writing you in reference to John Henry Holliday, better known as “Doc Holliday,” one of the gunfighters who survived the shootout at the O.K. Corral…
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Tracing Your Roots: Our Family Matriarch Was a White Indentured Servant
Untangling the origins of Virginian ancestors whose lives crossed boundaries of race, freedom and the law. Dear Professor Gates: I am a descendant of Catherine Donathan, who was a white servant to Robert Bristow of Virginia. She had a relationship with a black slave from another plantation. She had a child, William. She has been…
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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)…
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Tracing Your Roots: Is My Spouse Kin to a Man Who Freed 81 Slaves?
Sleuthing the tale of a “bachelor” slave owner who freed those enslaved at Virginia’s Tynes Plantation in his will. Dear Professor Gates: I have been trying to research the connection between the family of my father-in-law, Timothy George Tynes (April 13, 1927-November 1983), of Cambridge, Mass., and a slave listed in an 1802 will. The…
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Tracing Your Roots: The Story of My Ancestor’s Origins Keeps Changing
A great-granddad appears to have been the marrying kind, which may explain why records vary on when and where he was born. Dear Professor Gates: I’m curious about the origins of an elusive family member, my great-grandfather Schofield Love. There were rumors of Native American and Jewish ancestry, but an Ancestry.com DNA test of his…
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Tracing Your Roots: Is My Ancestor’s Surname From Slavery or Marriage?
The origins of the surname of a great-great-grandmother who was born into slavery are shrouded in mystery and require creative sleuthing. Dear Professor Gates: I am trying to map out my father’s side of the family tree. He passed away a few years ago and I never met his side of the family. I’ve been…
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Tracing Your Roots: I Am Black but Discovered I Have Jewish DNA
Test results show unexpected Ashkenazi heritage and raise the possibility that a family legend is true. Editor’s note: This article was originally published Jan. 22, 2016. Dear Professor Gates: I’m African American, but about a year ago I received the results of genetic testing, which indicated that I’m 5 percent Ashkenazi Jew. My European genetic…
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Tracing Your Roots: Was My Civil War Vet Ancestor an Overseer’s Son?
Family lore and death records contain conflicting information about the parentage of a forebear who served in the colored troops during the Civil War. Dear Professor Gates: I’m writing for help in tracing the parents of my third great-grandfather, William Owen Van Vaxen Goodlow. He lived in Missouri and Iowa, was married to Mary Nickelson…
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Tracing Your Roots: Help Me Separate Fact From Family Fiction!
An upcoming family reunion motivates a young woman to prepare an accurate presentation about the storied family matriarch. Dear Professor Gates: Since the late 1970s, my family has come together every two years for a reunion. For the upcoming one in 2018, I would like to present my family with information on the origins of…