Unveiling Roots Tracing African American Ancestry And Slave Records

Discover Your African American Ancestry! "Tracing Roots: Uncovering African American Ancestry through Slave Records" by Penelope Green is your indispensable guide to unveiling the rich tapestry of your heritage. This book empowers you to embark on a transformative journey through history, resilience, and identity. With Green's guidance, explore the unique challenges and rewards of tracing African American ancestry, from gathering cherished family stories to navigating the intricacies of historical slave records. Delve into the profound significance of these records, unlocking the stories of strength, courage, and survival that are etched within their pages. Discover the narratives concealed in plantation journals, letters, and diaries, providing profound insights into the lives and experiences of enslaved individuals. Navigate the complexities of genealogical research, including the power of census data and lineage, and honor the enduring spirit of families separated by the bonds of slavery. "Tracing Roots" extends beyond research, equipping you with the tools to preserve your findings and share your discoveries. Document your ancestral journey, craft a compelling family history, and contribute to the broader narrative of African American genealogy. As you close the final chapter, Penelope Green emphasizes the significance of embracing your heritage and encourages you to continue your journey, celebrating the stories of resilience and belonging that define your family's narrative. Uncover the hidden stories of your African American ancestry and embark on a transformative journey today with "Tracing Roots."

Explains how to trace the past through public records and discusses the importance of oral history in the African American tradition.

Unlike most white Americans who, if they are so inclined, can search their ancestral records, identifying who among their forebears was the first to set foot on this country’s shores, most African Americans, in tracing their family’s past, encounter a series of daunting obstacles. Slavery was a brutally efficient nullifier of identity, willfully denying black men and women even their names. Yet, from that legacy of slavery, there have sprung generations who’ve struggled, thrived, and lived extraordinary lives. For too long, African Americans’ family trees have been barren of branches, but, very recently, advanced genetic testing techniques, combined with archival research, have begun to fill in the gaps. Here, scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., backed by an elite team of geneticists and researchers, takes nineteen extraordinary African Americans on a once unimaginable journey, tracing family sagas through U.S. history and back to Africa. Those whose recovered pasts collectively form an African American “people’s history” of the United States include celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey, Whoopi Goldberg, Chris Rock, Don Cheadle, Chris Tucker, Morgan Freeman, Tina Turner, and Quincy Jones; writers such as Maya Angelou and Bliss Broyard; leading thinkers such as Harvard divinity professor Peter Gomes, the Reverend T. D. Jakes, neurosurgeon Ben Carson, and sociologist Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot; and famous achievers such as astronaut Mae Jemison, media personality Tom Joyner, decathlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee, and Ebony and Jet publisher Linda Johnson Rice. More than a work of history, In Search of Our Roots is a book of revelatory importance that, for the first time, brings to light the lives of ordinary men and women who, by courageous example, blazed a path for their famous descendants. For a reader, there is the stirring pleasure of witnessing long-forgotten struggles and triumphs–but there’s an enduring reward as well. In accompanying the nineteen contemporary achievers on their journey into the past and meeting their remarkable forebears, we come to know ourselves.

One way to fully understand the effect that slavery and its legacy has had, and continues to have, is to look at how it began--similar to when a person trying to understand their ancestry must go back and trace the roots of where their family began. 1619 - Twenty Africans will attempt to do both, tracing the beginning of slavery in America and having a discussion about tracing our ancestry, in the context of author Stephen Hanks' DNA test results. Hanks started out tracing two family names--and ended up examining the lineages of four genetic DNA cousins related to him. What he discovered would completely shake his whole understanding about how slavery in America was created, ultimately taking the author on a journey leading him to the events that started in the year 1619 on the shores of Virginia. Today's DNA testing is revealing that Americans have far more in common with each other than they ever could have imagined.

The distinguished scholar examines the origins and history of African-American ancestry as he profiles nineteen noted African Americans and illuminates their individual family sagas throughout U.S. history.

Traces the author's thirty-year research into his slave ancestry, describing the history of the massive tobacco plantation where his ancestors worked and his family's extensive genealogical legacy, in an account complemented by dozens of rare photographs. 50,000 first printing.

The unexpected story of how genetic testing is affecting race in America We know DNA is a master key that unlocks medical and forensic secrets, but its genealogical life is both revelatory and endlessly fascinating. Tracing genealogy is now the second-most popular hobby amongst Americans, as well as the second-most visited online category. This billion-dollar industry has spawned popular television shows, websites, and Internet communities, and a booming heritage tourism circuit. The tsunami of interest in genetic ancestry tracing from the African American community has been especially overwhelming. In The Social Life of DNA, Alondra Nelson takes us on an unprecedented journey into how the double helix has wound its way into the heart of the most urgent contemporary social issues around race. For over a decade, Nelson has deeply studied this phenomenon. Artfully weaving together keenly observed interactions with root-seekers alongside illuminating historical details and revealing personal narrative, she shows that genetic genealogy is a new tool for addressing old and enduring issues. In The Social Life of DNA, she explains how these cutting-edge DNA-based techniques are being used in myriad ways, including grappling with the unfinished business of slavery: to foster reconciliation, to establish ties with African ancestral homelands, to rethink and sometimes alter citizenship, and to make legal claims for slavery reparations specifically based on ancestry. Nelson incisively shows that DNA is a portal to the past that yields insight for the present and future, shining a light on social traumas and historical injustices that still resonate today. Science can be a crucial ally to activism to spur social change and transform twenty-first-century racial politics. But Nelson warns her readers to be discerning: for the social repair we seek can’t be found in even the most sophisticated science. Engrossing and highly original, The Social Life of DNA is a must-read for anyone interested in race, science, history and how our reckoning with the past may help us to chart a more just course for tomorrow.

The contents of this work have been mostly freestyle to preserve authenticity. The following work is the result of the desire of Baba Meddahoccis to reach a larger audience, and to spread the worship of Aseese throughout the world. His prolific and dedicated work stands as an inspiration to all who pursue this philosophy of life. Meddahocci, as well as many of his contemporaries offered many suggestions as to pursuing this way of life in the new world. The first of which is to change your name. The second suggestion is to change your mode of dress. The third suggestion was that Ifa is to be practiced in community. This work is presented here to preserve this intellectual property.