tracing your roots
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Tracing Your Roots: Untangling the Origins of My Dad’s Blended Family
A reader seeks details on grandparents who left behind a family tree with many branches. Dear Professor Gates: Can you please help me get some clear history on my grandfather and grandmother? My father, George W. Murphy, was born March 25, 1919, in Little Rock, Ark., one of many siblings. My grandmother Ada Wiley Murphy…
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Tracing Your Roots: What Is the Secret of My Grandma’s Past?
A record search uncovers clues to why a Georgia family fractured eight decades ago, leaving painful memories. Dear Professor Gates: My grandmother Frances Walker of Edison, Calhoun, Ga., was born on Dec. 22, 1938, and died Dec. 2, 2002. Her mother was Ella M. King, who was born in 1913 and died in 1981 under…
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Tracing Your Roots: Was My Ancestor Kidnapped From Freedom to Slavery?
A book claims that a man’s great-grandfather was abducted as a boy and sold into bondage. Official records back up at least part of the heartbreaking story. Dear Professor Gates: I am trying to find the names of the parents of my great-grandfather Lucius Kidd. All I have to go on is a book written…
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Tracing Your Roots: Were My Married Slave Ancestors Forced to Live Apart?
A historical document that appears to legalize a marriage formed under bondage in 1858 suggests a heartbreaking scenario for one woman’s ancestors. Professor Gates and his team of genealogy researchers address the answers she seeks. Dear Professor Gates: I am trying to learn more about my enslaved ancestors Sandy Butner and Mary Jane Powe in…
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Tracing Your Roots: Finding Emancipated Black Ancestors Just Got Easier
If you’ve heard anything about the new Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, it’s probably that the museum is the hottest ticket in Washington, D.C., resulting in long lines and the need to purchase passes three months in advance. Genealogy buffs ought to know that the museum has a hot ticket, of…
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Tracing Your Roots: Was My Black Kin’s Land a Gift from a White Man?
Dear Professor Gates: My paternal great-grandfather, Joe P. Daniels, and his mother, my great-great-grandmother Matilda Jackson, settled in a small community called New Hope in Kilgore, Texas, by way of North Carolina. The story goes that one of the main contributors of this community was an Army officer named John Holt. He fell for Matilda…
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Why Were My Freedmen Ancestors Split Between Tribes?
Dear Professor Gates: My ancestor Billy Postoak (aka Taylor and possibly Perryman) was born about 1820 in Alabama and was a slave of Taylor Postoak (Creek Indian). He married a Lizzie Smith and they had a son named Isaac Nivens (born about 1840-1842) in Alabama. A slave schedule shows Isaac was a slave of Cherokee…
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What’s the Story of a Portrait of My Slave Ancestor?
I am seeking help to learn more about my third great-grandmother Elizabeth Bettie Lane Dickey. She was raised on Orchard Pond Plantation in Tallahassee, Fla. Her husband’s name was Hanover Dickey, and her mother’s name was Maria Lane. Richard Keith Call (who served twice as governor of Florida) was the plantation owner of Orchard Pond…
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How Far Back Can You Trace My Black Family?
I have a lot of questions regarding my family’s history. With my grandfather’s recent passing, I was compelled to finally write in. My maternal grandparents, Woodrow Kimble Jr. and Martha Belle Kimble, were born and raised in Shreveport, La. My grandfather was born on Dec. 30, 1943, and died on Nov. 7 of this year.…
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Do Freedmen’s Bureau Records Show the Marriage of My Kin?
Many years ago, I located my maternal great-great-grandparents, Lucy Hoffman and Ben Hoffman, in census records for Mount Sterling, Ky. They are both listed in the 1870 census, with Lucy listed as being born circa 1803 in Georgia and Ben being born circa 1815 in Virginia. In the 1880 Mount Sterling census, only my great-great-grandmother…