history
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Tracing Your Roots: Who Was My Black Colonial Ancestor?
A white woman discovers that she has African ancestry and wants help identifying her black New England forebear. Dear Professor Gates: I took a DNA test through 23andMe and it confirmed what I already knew: that I have black ancestry through my mother’s side, approximately 5.2 percent. There was talk during my childhood that my…
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Tracing Your Roots: Why Did My DNA-Test Results Change?
A few reasons that the percentages in your ethnic-ancestry breakdown may change over time. Dear Professor Gates: I did DNA testing through the site African DNA. Initially it showed I had 82 percent West African ancestry, 10 percent European and the rest “Middle Eastern.” However, I recently received updated results from Family Tree DNA (which…
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Tracing Your Roots: Untangle My Redbone Heritage
A mystery illustrates how an 18th-century family became caught up in Virginia’s laws around race, sex and freedom. Dear Professor Gates: My book about the triracial “redbones” of the 18th century, My Bones Are Red, came out in 2005 from Mercer University Press. I’d like to pick up where I left off in my research…
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Tracing Your Roots: Who Were My Granddad’s Enslaved Parents?
A reader encounters the proverbial brick wall that African Americans encounter in antebellum genealogy research. Dear Professor Gates: Please help me find the parents of my grandfather Frank Lockhart (born July 28, 1878; died March 15, 1968). At some point he married Amanda Standback, but I have not been able to confirm any records for…
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Tracing Your Roots: Did a White Lawyer Adopt My Granddad?
A family legend points to a turn-of-the-20th-century transracial adoption. Could that have actually happened? Dear Professor Gates: My mother and I have been tracing the family tree on the side of my father, Samuel Gibbs, for a while now. We have not been successful in finding out who the mystery white attorney is on my…
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Dear NBC: A Slave Cannot Be a ‘Mistress’
There are times when black America’s feathers are ruffled, and our reaction does not come from anger or aggravation but from wonder. Even though many of our bruises have calloused over, every now and then someone will stick us in the exact right spot, and when we feel the pinprick, instead of getting mad, we…
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Tracing Your Roots: Was My Ancestor Deported to Ghana?
A series of run-ins with law enforcement in the United Kingdom splits a family apart. Now the family is seeking answers. Dear Professor Gates: I’m trying to trace my great-grandfather, whose name was either David Sebe Agyemah Darku or David Sebe Agyeman Darku. He was sent to jail in England for a high-profile crime involving…
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Va. Student Becomes 1st African-American Boy to Earn Valedictorian in School’s History
Jahlil Nickens, 18, who earned the honor of becoming his class valedictorian this spring, also made history as the first African-American boy to earn that honor in Lancaster High School’s history “From the time that Jahlil was little, we could tell that he was special. He has always excelled in his studies,” his mother, Tekecia…
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Tracing Your Roots: How Did My Ancestor Escape Slavery?
In revisiting the story of black refugees to Trinidad, we came across the tale of a foiled slave rebellion in Maryland. Dear Professor Gates: I am a Trinidadian who has been searching for information on my ancestor Henry Ransom, a black Colonial Marine who joined with the British in 1814 and was resettled in 5th…
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Tracing Your Roots: Is My Family’s Big Secret Presidential?
A reader wonders if she could be related to Andrew Jackson through one of his slaves. Dear Professor Gates: The story goes that my great-grandmother Laura Emily Jackson shouted to her only daughter, “I found my family. I found my family!” That night my grandmother went downstairs and found her mother burning all the family…