history
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Who Were My Enslaved Ancestor’s Parents?
How do I go about finding the parents of my maternal second great-grandfather Spencer Mott, born about 1820 in Georgia? He was listed in the 1880 census as mulatto, living in Brandywine Claiborne, Miss. I’m guessing he was probably a slave. —Tammy Robinson Tracking enslaved people before the end of the Civil War is tricky…
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Am I Related to President Andrew Jackson?
I just discovered an interview with my ancestor in the Aug. 10, 1935, edition of the Chicago Defender, which states my ancestor Burrell Jackson was the grandson of President Andrew Jackson. It described him as an anti-lynching activist who barely escaped lynching himself. According to history, Andrew Jackson did not have children, but this interview…
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Was My Black Ancestor Named After a Confederate General?
I visited Charleston, S.C., last week and walked past a statue of Wade Hampton III and stopped dead in my tracks. You see, my great-grandfather’s name was Wade Hampton Shields. Wade Hampton III was a Confederate general, U.S. senator and governor of South Carolina. He was one of the largest enslavers of people in the South…
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Was My Ancestor a Free Afro-Hispanic of Color?
I am wondering if you can give me any advice on how to research one of my family lines: the Driggerses. I have learned that the Driggers family was one of a few free African-American families in the South during slavery. I didn’t know that was even “a thing” until I read about it. My…
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Tracing Your Roots: I Want to Find a Slave’s Descendants and Apologize
I’m Australian, and hoping to trace living relatives of a slave owned by a relative of my uncle in Trinidad. I want to apologize for my ancestor’s actions. What I know is as follows: William Preston Galloway (born May 30, 1798, in Edinburgh, Scotland) landed in Trinidad in 1821 and by 1825 was the owner…
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Is My Family’s ‘Slave Name’ the Wrong One?
I have been working on my family tree for years and cannot find anyone on my father’s side earlier than my great-grandparents Texas Williams, 1871-1951, and his wife, Nettie Howard Williams, 1875-1912. My father said that Texas always said that they were really “Dunns”—that the Dunn family sold them to the Williams family and they…
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My Family Is West Indian. How Did I Get Melanesian DNA?
I have been watching your show and cannot remember anyone having Melanesian in their DNA ethnicity results. I did the Ancestry.com DNA test and it showed 1 percent Pacific Islander-Trace Region: Melanesia. I just wondered how often this comes up in people from the West Indies. My mother is Trinidadian and my father is Jamaican. I will send you…
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Did My Black Ancestors Enter the US via Ellis Island?
My maternal grandparents immigrated from St. Kitts between 1899 and 1901. They are Albena Denham (Daveron), born on Oct. 17, 1872, and Alexander Taylor, born on March 7, 1879. Both were born in St. Kitts. I wonder how they entered the United States. They may have traveled on the S.S. Parima or S.S. Korona; however,…
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How Do I Save a Family Bible That Is Falling Apart?
I am reaching out to you on behalf of a neighbor. She has a family Bible that takes her family history back to their time in slavery. Unfortunately, it was in a house fire and the pages are so brittle, they fall apart when the book is opened. So all she has is an oral…
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Tony Dungy, 1st African-American Head Coach to Win a Super Bowl, Pays Homage to Those Before Him
On Saturday night, Tony Dungy, the first African-American head coach to win an NFL championship, gave a rousing Pro Football Hall of Fame induction speech, acknowledging that he didn’t get there on his own, and paying homage to 10 other coaches who came before him and made his path possible, ESPN reports. “Willie Brown, Buck Buchanan, Earnel Durden, Bob…