September 9, 2023
This wonderful event is from the Wilson Griot Legacy site:
The Wilson Griot Legacy is a modern enterprise to create new sacred storytelling to unravel information inherent in our genealogical past.
Posted byWILSON GRIOT LEGACYSeptember 9, 2023Posted inUncategorized
I will be joining with the Kinseekers Genealogical Society of Lake County, Florida in conjunction with the Leesburg Public Library in a special event on Saturday, September 23, 2023.
Both in-person and virtual event:
Saturday, 23 September 2023
9:45am – 3:30pm EST
Informal meet ‘n greet at 9:30am EST.
Event is free & open to all!!
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Presented by Kinseekers Genealogical Society and the Leesburg Public Library.
To attend virtually, register here.
To attend in-person, contact the Leesburg Public Library at 352.728.9790
MORNING SESSION (9:45am – 12:15pm EST)
–Welcome & Announcements
– Researching Black Family History, 1900-1950: Essential Foundations: presented by Taneya Koonce
–Context Matters: Researching World War Two Black Ancestors:presented by KB Barcomb
LUNCH BREAK (12:15pm – 1:00pm EST)
AFTERNOON SESSION (1:00pm – 3:00pm)
– Colleges, Clubs, & Cotton Fields: Researching Black Women, 1900-1950:presented by Adrienne G. Whaley
– Open Round Table Discussion
September 4, 2023
Eva Narcissus Boyd was a teenager who was a babysitter to the young child of the Brill Building songwriters Carole King and Gerry Goffin. They heard her sing and also loved her dancing. “Little Eva” was asked by the team to sing a demo of their anticipated song for Dee Dee Sharp.
Eva was so good that King and Goffin decided to release her first song, “The Loco-Motion,” and it became a #1 pop hit and sold a million copies in 1962. She ended her nanny career and became a singer. Sadly, her entertainment career suffered many setbacks after the popular song.
Good Genes Genealogy tip: Ask your relatives whether they know of any ancestors who traded one job or career for another one. Find out why and how they chose to work in certain jobs
September 2, 2023
Every tone {of the songs of the enslaved} was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains.”
Frederick Douglas, abolitionist, activist, and author, from “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845).
September 1, 2023
Often, reviewing the hatred and violence suffered by African American ancestors, are tough matters to endure and often neglected in history books. Yet, the examples of persevering despite the sad circumstances, can spur on genealogy and ancestry researchers to compare and contrast the past with today’s societal practices.
Good Genes Genealogy Tip: Interview your family members about their sports histories. Some may share the good and also the unhappy times that they or their parents may have endured. Learn how they survived the taunts and personal risks to their families and themselves.
He broke the color barrier in United States’ Major League Baseball. Jackie Robinson did it all, including suffering physical and verbal wounds from his colleagues:
Robinson nonetheless became the target of rough physical play by opponents (particularly the Cardinals). At one time, he received a seven-inch gash in his leg from Enos Slaughter.[135] On April 22, 1947, during a game between the Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies, Phillies players and manager Ben Chapman called Robinson a “nigger” from their dugout and yelled that he should “go back to the cotton fields”.[136] Rickey later recalled that Chapman “did more than anybody to unite the Dodgers. When he poured out that string of unconscionable abuse, he solidified and united thirty men.”[137]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Robinson
On her first attempt in the high jump during the International Olympics Games in 1948, Albany, Georgia native Alice Coachman won the gold medal. She became the first African American of any country to win a gold medal. Despite her instant fame and large celebrations back home in the United States, her hometown leaders treated her differently:
Yet these latter celebrations occurred in the segregated South. In the Albany auditorium, where she was honored, whites and African Americans had to sit separately. The white mayor of Albany sat on the stage with Coachman but refused to shake her hand. She had to leave her own celebration by a side door.
https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/alice-coachman
Willie Eldon O’Ree was a youth when he met Jackie Robinson. It helped to inspire O’Ree to pursue his sports passion and became the first African American to join the National Hockey League in 1958. He continues to speak positively about his experiences as a hockey player. Yet, O’Ree suffered many indignities by his fellow league members and fans before retiring in the late 1970s:
O’Ree faced racial taunts throughout his hockey career, including in the NHL, especially in the United States. [11] He noted that racist remarks were much worse in the U.S. cities than in Toronto and Montreal, the two Canadian cities hosting NHL teams at the time, and that “Fans would yell, ‘Go back to the South‘ and ‘How come you’re not picking cotton?’ Things like that. It didn’t bother me. I just wanted to be a hockey player, and if they couldn’t accept that fact, that was their problem, not mine.”[12]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_O%27Ree
August 19, 2023
For many years, the Good Genes Genealogy team — Mark and Ann Lineve — did not know much about the man pictured above, our maternal Grandfather Eugene Gibson Owen, Jr. The short story is that Grandpa Owen moved away from the Midwest city and state, Omaha, Nebraska, when our mothers — Lyla and Angeline — were small children in the 1940s. The stories that were whispered around the family was that Grandpa Owen followed his desire to be discovered by Hollywood executives and become a music and movie star.
In 1982, Ann traveled to Los Angeles, California to locate her Grandpa Owen. She did. He was living in a nursing home as a double amputee. For three days, Ann and her husband learned all about the once mystery man in the Owen and Wead families. A few years after that visit, Grandpa Owen died. The deep wounds from his absence in the lives of our relatives were still there. Yet, it was made a bit easier to forgive because our ancestor’s explanations for following his passion, was remembered. Therein, lies the glimpses of healing.
There are mental health benefits in learning more about one’s family. The ancestry and genealogy researchers who are our clients and participated in our workshops, have had similar feelings of joy when learning more about their long-lost ancestors.
Here are a few examples from individuals’ recent finds in their family trees:
In an ancestry and genealogy workshop conducted in 2022 and this year by the Good Genes Genealogy team, we reminded participants to find mental health benefits from their discoveries. We advise that the deep dives into family heritage is:
August 12, 2023
By now, many of us who are searching for answers to the mysteries of our African Diasporan ancestors have found that the routes to getting research are often nontraditional. Consider another avenue to hopefully find your ancestors.
Tap into your imagination, natural instincts and recall the stories you’ve heard to search for clues about your ancestors’ journeys. Hopefully, you will find a new detail to help break through those brick walls.
If your ancestors worked at the Ford Motor Co. in the 1960s in Queens, New York, they may have known or been on the team with McKinley Thompson, Jr. an African American who designed cars during his 28-year career with the automaker. He was part of the concept team for the first-generation Mustang and GT40.
Thompson came up with the open-air, 4 x 4 turbine boxy car that changed the automotive industry. It was a sports utility vehicle known as the Ford Bronco. Look at Thompson’s life and the places he lived, worked, was educated and served. You may find your ancestors in his art classes, in the military unit he served in, other jobs that he held or even in his retirement community.
It is well-known in ancestry and genealogy research African American slavery matter prohibits current-day research efforts about family histories. The blockages that create the brick walls often referred to in African American ancestry research is due largely to enslavers not listing the full names, ages and other identifies for African Americans on the official documents, and the U.S. Census Bureau not including the names, addresses and full demographic information about African Americans until the 1870 records. There were sporadic accounts of slaves’ names and other information by the owners, and the government documents published some information that was linked to African Americans in bondage.
Occasionally, there are uncovered lives of African Americans such as James Forten, considered one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He was born a free American in Philadelphia, PA in 1766. At age 14, he joined the Continental Army and was a “power boy.” A powder boy carried gun powder from the ship’s magazine to the ship’s cannon. Following in the footsteps of his father, he became a sailmaker. He became his family chief sailmaker in 1798 after the death of his father.
To return to the original concept of this blog, look for any opportunities of your ancestors to be located in the areas that Forten lived and visited. It is likely that your ancestors may have been in the similar line of work or even worked with Forten, or volunteered with his wife and daughters in their abolitionist activism.
As an abolitionist who walked his talk, Forten chose to not work with any slave trade-connected companies and individuals. Forten was brave to adopt this business practice. However, as a man who was aboard a ship that was once captured by the British and he risked being sold into slavery, Forten withstood adversities and became a wealthy man who was also an active abolitionist. He designed and sold innovative sails that allowed ships to gain higher speeds, among other attributes. He was considered the prime sailmaker in Philadelphia and he employed African Americans and whites. He funded popular abolitionist publications and also endorsed his daughters developing the first interracial women’s abolitionist organization, Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society.
So popular was Forten in the abolition movement and as a top employer that upon his death at age 75, his funeral was attended by thousands. Were your ancestors among the mourners?
August 5, 2023
The last place many African Diaspora ancestors want to research is through the study of slave sales. The writing and imagery are sadly powerful in the historical accounts of financial transactions and public spectacles involving slaves.
Yet, the mostly oddly written newspaper advertisements and posters, often offer great clues to African American, Caribbean American, Native American and European Blacks’ genealogy and ancestry links.
The best clues to tear down the “brick wall” research are found in the names on the ads by the slave owners. Their imprints are often with first and surnames and identities of their family members who would benefit from the sale. The ad below that was posted in the Savannah, Georgia newspaper in 1859, brought more than $300,000 in revenue for Joseph Bryan, whose name appears in the ad. That’s equal to more than $9 million in today’s dollars.
Also, the location of the sale helps to confirm the researchers are on the right track in identifying African Diaspora family members.
The advertisements also include information that is helpful when comparing tax and estate records of enslavers and their sales agents. The ad below also includes a signature that is also important when ensuring the slave owners’ records including African Americans in bondage are accurately connected to genealogy documents.
The ad was published in 1851. In today’s economic terms, the $1,200 to $1,250 is equivalent to approximately $50,000 in today’s monetary terms.
In some instances — albeit rare — slave owners listed the first names and primary trade or unpaid work purposes of the African Americans they owned. This helps African American genealogy, history and ancestral researchers identify legacy relatives. In our genealogy research, typically the slaves’ surnames were those of their owners.
This sale also indicates that the slaves would be sold in families. Sadly and happily, this was considered a huge benefit to the African American enslaved population.
August 4, 2023
There is an active U.S. discussion about whether African Americans benefited from the horrific ills of bondage and slavery. A Florida governor who is a candidate for the Republican Party’s 2024 nomination for U.S. president is proudly touting such in his state education’s rewriting of history. His appointees are doubling down on the claim that there were productive, career benefits from the skills utilized by African Americans who were enslaved.
This newspaper clipping from a century+ ago is among the documents that mirror today’s comments from proponents of the rewritten history that slavery benefited African Americans.
To all ancestry researchers, search the newspapers for articles in the states where your ancestors resided. It is great insight in what policies and practices they endured while being subjected to the cruelties of forced, unpaid servitude.
July 8, 2023
The tall dude to the right of the protest sign is Sampson Luster Wead, the paternal grandfather of Ann Lineve Wead Kimbrough of Good Genes Genealogy Service. It is from Ann Lineve’s perspective that this blog is written about a man born on July 2, 1904 in Helena, Arkansas.
This picture appeared in the Omaha World-Herald newspaper on July 31, 1953. It included other photos including the one below that accompanied an article about the successful boycotting of a popular ice cream shop due to its blatant discriminatory hiring practices. I found the picture (above) of my grandfather a few years ago. What I learned today is that there were several articles and likely broadcast reports about this important protest and boycott.
In researching African Diaspora ancestry and genealogy, it is widely known that there are likely several brick walls that will be encountered. It is notable that in researching the facts around the Reed’s Ice Cream Shop protest, I learned three new and compelling things about my grandfather’s character and beliefs:
I learned about the DePorres Club’s purpose from the article found below from the Omaha Star newspaper. Just below the “congratulations grads” ad, is the article about the civil rights organization of the 1940s – today.
Encouragement for the ancestry and genealogy researchers
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