As a young boy of 6 or 7, Ade and his older brother normally visited with their grandmother Alice after school until their parents returned from work. On one...
Read moreHow the African-American Syphax Family Traces Its Lineage to Martha Washington
When Stephen Hammond was growing up, he scoffed when relatives told him he was related to the family of the nation’s first president, George Washington. It turns out...
Read moreTracing Your Roots: My Adopted Black Daughter Wants to Know Her Origins
I have worked very hard to trace back the ancestry of my adopted daughter Rasa Braswell, who is African American. (I am Caucasian.) However, I hit a snag once I got...
Read moreWhy DNA Ancestry Tests Are Struggling to Avoid White Bias
DNA ancestry tests, which help people find long-lost relatives and build family trees, have risen dramatically in popularity within the last several years. With...
Read moreThe Strange Evolution of Henry Louis Gates’s Estimate of Alex Haley and “Roots”
In 1998, Dr. Henry Louis (Skip) Gates, Jr., a University Professor and Director of Harvard’s Center for African and African American Research, explained in the...
Read moreDNA Testing Forced Me To Rethink My Entire Racial Identity
DNA testing sites make discovering your family history seem like one big genealogical adventure. But what about those ancestry stories that don’t have a happily ever...
Read moreSouth Carolina museum fills plot holes in African American genealogy
Strands of grey twist through her blonde dreadlocks, adorning her with a crown of distinguished wisdom. Her poised stride is seasoned by an abundance of life...
Read moreHarriet Tubman: Teaming Up to Acquire a Rare Photograph
This post draws on the article “Pulling Together for Tubman,” published in the January–February issue of LCM, the Library of Congress Magazine. The...
Read moreNew Online: Rare Photo of Harriet Tubman Preserved for Future Generations
This post draws on the article “Building Black History: A New View of Tubman,” published in the January–February issue of LCM, the Library of...
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