history

I am trying to learn more about my family’s history. My mother, Ora Lean Johnson, is from Alexandria or Shreveport, La. However, she is ill and unable to provide me with any information. My father is Emanuel Christopher Bass Sr. of West Virginia, and as far as I know, he is still living. He was…

My great-grandfather Abe Davis was born in Texas (well, actually, Mexico) in September 1835. As of 1870, he was living in Nacogdoches County, but he may have been born in a different county. His brother Wash Davis was also born in Mexico in 1823.  They are alternately described as black and mulatto, so I’m guessing they were mestizo.  My…

Sixty years ago, Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Ala., sparked a yearlong boycott that resulted in an end to Jim Crow practices on the city’s buses. The Montgomery Bus Boycott is a pivotal event in the history of the postwar black freedom movement. It propelled the…

I have done a lot of research into my family’s Madagascar ancestry, but I want help understanding how my mother’s family got to America. I understand that there were only five ships that legally came from Madagascar to the Colonies and that the slaves from there were obtained by a member of the House of…

I’m trying to find out if my grandfather and great-uncles fought in World War I and if they were assigned to the French army. My grandfather was Webb A. Owens, born in 1899 in McComb, Miss.; his brother Wallace Owens was born in 1896 in McComb, Miss.; his brother Philip Demoulin was born in New…

Editor’s note: This column has been updated to reflect additional information received after it was published via a reader of Tracing Your Roots. We love the fact that the column inspires readers to continue the research on their own! Orlando Henderson Sr. and Sterling Nelson were, in fact, married in Lawrence County, Ohio, in 1947.…

I have always been told by my grandfather Ruben Lavelle Ingram Jr. that his grandmother, Zula Bell Harry, was Native American. However, no one has provided any Dawes Roll registration for her, or even a tribe. I suspect she may actually be African American, but I would like to learn more about her, including whether…

There are relatively few detailed, firsthand accounts of the 12 million Africans captured and forcibly transported to the Americas in the 400 years of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Of the 10 million survivors of that journey, only a very small number, like Olaudah Equiano and Venture Smith lived long enough—or had the time or opportunity—to…

I read your column “Do Most Whites Have Traces of African DNA, as I Do?” with interest. The questioner in that column was wondering whether the traces of African ancestry in her DNA test entered her family tree recently (perhaps during slavery) or in ancient times (remnants from all of humankind’s origins in Africa). You…

I have been working on my family tree for the past two years and have become stuck. My great-great-grandfather William Prue was born in 1840 in Virginia and married Anne Upshur Prue, who was born there in 1845. Their children included my great-grandfather James Prue, who was born in 1885 and married Lucy Fractious Prue (1884-1980). The Prues have been in…