Family Secrets

My grandmother Posie told my aunt Carolyn that there were some things she was taking with her to the grave. And there goes a treasure full of information or does it?

One of my arguments about full disclosure is that while the interested parties may be sheltered from the truth, uninterested parties are walking around talking about other people's business. So the family is actually being an ostrich with its head in the sand while everybody else sees the butt.

This became my argument because of another family scandal I became privy to. This scandal happened decades and decades ago and the people are only names to me. It was a matter of incest (most secrets seem to be of a sexual nature since criminal acts are usually in the public domain). I was told about it over 10 years ago by a distant cousin. The thing is, she was told by an elderly lady in a nursing home. This elderly lady relished reporting the juicy details to her. So how many times had the lady told this story? How many others knew?

I still don't know if I will tell my relatives about the current piece of information. I mentioned it casually in very general terms to my sister whose interest in genealogy is casual at best. She wonderered what was so important about telling the story.

That struck me. That is the question at the root of every genealogical pursuit. And I heard the answer today on television when George Stephanopoulos was discussing how many Haitians would just disappear into history as if they never existed because of this tragic earthquake. Bodies would be shoveled into empty graves with no markers like the participants in a horrid magic trick. This is what happened to my black ancestors hundreds of years ago. I can't allow this to happen to my people if I can help it. I must mark their existence and record that they mattered to someone once upon a time.

It's Complicated

Several months ago I tweeted and commented about whether embarassing information should be disclosed in the name of genealogy.There had been a discussion about this during one of my genealogy group's meetings. I was on the side of disclosure. Others disagreed. They believed the information should be tabled until the parties were dead.

Now I have been presented with an actual dilemma. I was told that one of my relatives assaulted someone 50 years ago and fathered a child. This is something that I don't think the family knows about. The relative is dead and now the child is dead. The person that told me is an outside observer. The mother is still alive and there are grandchildren.

Now do I put my money where my mouth was? This relative has children still living and I have no idea how I would tell them about their unknown sibling. There is also a side of me that wants to embrace the grandchildren. They are innocent and they are blood. Things are so much more complicated when it isn't theoretical any more.

New Year, New Decade

New beginnings mean new starts. So of course, I resolve to do better than before. My resolutions include:

* First of all, posting more.

* Solving at least one mystery of my family's ancestors.

* I intend to visit Featherstone Castle in Northumberland County, England. This castle may have some connection to my Warren/Featherston roots. It will be mostly a trip of curiosity. I do not expect to have some profound epiphany while there.

* I hope to go to Mississippi once again but this time I will venture into the county courts. The trip to the state archive was monumentally disappointing.

* I will make at least one pilgrimage to one of the genealogy libraries, probably Fort Wayne, although I would love to get back to the Tennessee state archives and the national archives in D.C.

I realize resolutions are often broken so I'm trying not to reach too far beyond my grasp.

My first award! Thank you, Mavis

Well, this is a very nice surprise. Most of the time I feel like I'm having a conversation with myself when I blog. Mavis, who blogs Conversation with My Ancestors and Georgia Black Crackers, has presented me with my very first Kreative Blogger award. I am honored.

According to the rules in accepting this award, I must now tell seven things about myself before passing it on to seven bloggers. Although I love writing about my family, I rarely write about myself but here goes.

1. I am the oldest of four girls. Actually, I am the oldest child of my mother who is the oldest child of her mother who was the oldest child in her family. My grandmother started that link and I continued by having my daughter Arianne first.

2. I was born, raised and live in Gary, Indiana. In fact, I live within walking distance to Michael Jackson's home since his home is in the shadows of my alma mater, Roosevelt High School.

3. Although I was the oldest in the family ( and the oldest grandchild in my mother's family), I was the last of my sisters to get married.

4.One of my fondest memories is of my father walking me to the library to get my first library card. I had to be five years old. My father and his father were also bookworms.

5. I am an anglophile and addicted to British TV. I watch Eastenders on the computer every week among other shows.

6. I wrote my first play at 9. I'm still waiting to be discovered.

7. Even though some may say that at my age I'm over the hill, I believe I'm still standing at the top. One of my heart's desire is to fall in love again.

I pass this award on to
Taneya
A. Spence

Low Country Africana
George Geder

Amanda's A Tale of Two Ancestors
Claudia's genealogy blog
and Bill West West in New England

Six degrees of separation

Another day of trolling the internet for data and I'm coming up with more and more coincidences. Coincidences -- "the occurrence of events that happen at the same time by accident but seem to have some connection." These following things do have a connection but are they pertinent?

Oscar Dears, Winnie Anderson and family are living a couple of lines down from Lucretia Dears on the 1870 Amite County, MS census. Lucretia Dears was married to William Carraway before marrying William Dears. William Carraway's brother was Bruce A. Carraway who was married to Lucretia (may be Letitia) Cotten. Lucretia was sister to Joseph R. Cotten. When the Carraways died young, Thomas L. Cotten was appointed guardian to their children for a short time. One of those children, Bruce M. Carraway, married Huldah Cain. The only surname I'm missing is Anderson. Could that be why my ancestors changed their name from Anderson?

It feels like I'm playing six degrees of separation here. Time and research will tell if it is only a game of coincidences or if it is a realconnection.

On the trail again

It has been two weeks since the International Black Genealogy Summit ended. I came back with renewed fervor. Then I went back to my job. But I am endeavoring not to let all that good information and zeal go to waste.

Working on a tip written in my previous blog, I looked up H.S. Anderson on the 1850 slave census for Franklin County in Mississippi. The "H" stands for Henry. I was pleasantly pleased to find that Henry was living next to Joseph R. Cotten in 1850. This is the same Cotten that I once thought was Winney's slave owner. There is a female slave and male slave listed under both Joseph's and Henry's name that correspond with the ages of Winney and her oldest son Hiram.

I googled Henry's name and found some minutes for Mt. Zion Baptist Church, Franklin County, Mississippi. Henry, Joseph and a few Cain's were members of the church in 1852. Now I'm getting excited.

Could this be the smoking gun for my ancestors? Of course, I don't know the answer to that yet. I have looked up several Andersons that I thought may be the slave owners. However, the coincidence of Joseph and Henry being neighbors is making me think this may be the right trail to follow.

From the Internation Black Genealogy Summit

These are photos of our small genealogy group at the summit. It also shows how many people were at the conference luncheon held on Saturday, October 31st. The keynote speaker was Hanna Stith, the driving force behind the creation of the African American Museum in Fort Wayne.