Say Their Name

Recently it was leaked that Ben Affleck asked Henry Louis Gates to conceal the fact on "Finding Your Roots" that Afflect had slave holding ancestors in his family tree. Affleck said he was "embarrassed" by this. Some people have criticized him for this. Others have commiserated with him. The thing is, if your American fore-bearers go back to the 18th and even 19th century, chances are some of them were slave holders.

I understand that this may be embarrassing for some. In the course of researching my ancestors, I have run across many embarrassing skeletons in my own  genealogical closet. Life is messy. It is impossible for anyone to have a squeaky clean legacy no matter how much we wish.

My main issue with Affleck's concealment is that by keeping that ancestor's name hidden, he is also keeping the names of the slaves held by his ancestors hidden. Their history is being kept from descendants who may be looking for them.

When "Who Do You Think You Are" aired that Reba McIntire had slave holders in her ancestry, it gave me clues to one of my illusive ancestors. I would never had known this if McIntire had got the producers to keep this embarrassing fact hidden. I haven't had a chance to follow through on that clue yet but because of that broadcast, I now know where to look.

During my years in researching my family, I have been helped personally by descendants of relatives of people who held my ancestors in slavery. I have also been helped by pertinent information posted online by people I will never meet. I wish more people would disclose details about their ancestors, shameful or not.The sins of the father is just that, the sins of the father. That is, unless the son and/or daughter chooses to commit the same sin.

My great grandparents were slaves. I am also the descendant of slave holders. That is my history and I can live with that.

Tell the Story

Over ten years ago I published (self-published) my findings into a book for my family. I felt so proud of what I had done. Holding that book gave me such joy. It was a lot of hard work. Besides years of research,  I wrote, printed, bound, designed the cover--all on my own. But as anyone interested in genealogy knows, this work is never finished. It is always getting updated. So I have been laboring for the past year at putting out a new, updated yet incomplete book.

My goal is to finish by April this year. That is an arbitrary and necessary date. Otherwise, I would never stop writing and researching. Whatever I find after this book is published will have to go into another, updated yet incomplete book.

I have researched different print on demand companies but I haven't decided which one I will use. I may even try to self-publish again. I do like the control. Besides, my purpose for publishing my book is to relay and preserve history for my relatives. Money is not a goal or an issue. 

I firmly believe that every family historian should write the stories down. Oral traditions were great back in the day but we have advanced past then. It isn't important to be a great prize-winning author. It is more vital that what we have learned gets passed down to our descendants.

Migrating

I've been blogging off and on here for several years. I wasn't even aware that today is the anniversary of my first blog. There are times I want to stop. Writing has always been very personal for me. It isn't about making money. It's about sharing my experiences and feelings and knowledge and possibly helping others who happen to read my stuff. So I will probably keep writing sporadically because sometimes I feel like it and sometimes I don't.


After many years, I have migrated my blog to another location. If you are interested in keeping tabs on my research, you can find me at Say My Name.


I have a lot of goals for this year. I'm updating my family history which I hope to publish in one form or another. My research will take me to Mississippi again, D.C. again, possibly to Fort Wayne and Virginia. If I am able, I may even go to Tennessee. I'm been blessed with time and lots of helpful relatives. They helped me last year. I hope it continues.


Last year was very fruitful but it was also crowded with so many events, I didn't have time to reflect. I hope to be able to do that this year but some times the doing gets in the way of the reflecting. God willing, it should be another productive year. Happy New Year and happy sleuthing!

Same Old, same old

I know I have complained before. It  is not an attractive trait to whine. However. I get so frustrated while researching when I come across information that I know can't be true or has not been verified.

It reminds me of this quote from a new cable docu-comedy, "Family Tree." It's about a man (played by one of my favorite actors, Chris O'Dowd)  who has become obsessed with tracing his family roots. His father doesn't share his interest. He blames the new passion of his son on a romantic break-up. Besides, he says, aside to the camera, "genealogy is like any other 'ology. Best left to the scientists."

In episode 2, the Chris O'Dowd character mistakenly believes his heritage must be Chinese because he is given a photo of his great grandfather that looks to him that he is Chinese. He finds out first that the picture does depicts  a Japanese person, not a  Chinese person. Next he learns that the photo is of his great-grandfather acting in the theater production of The Mikado as Nanki-poo. Even though that information was on the back of the photo, even though his grandfather is clearly Caucasian, O'Dowd still leaped to that erroneous conclusion.

That's the kind of assumptions I keep finding all the time online. And to be honest, I may have made a few of them myself in the beginning. And I may make a few more in the future. I remember speaking to a cousin who tried to tell me that her great grandfather was a Dunnegan and not our shared ancestor, a Warren. I looked at the same census she used as her source and I realized that the census was in error. Her great grandmother, who had divorced our great grandfather, had left her children with her parents. On the census those children were listed as sons and daughters, not grandchildren of Dunnegan. It was an obvious deduction but when looking at the ages and other evidence, it was apparent to me that the census was wrong.

I'm working hard to get my family history updated in time for the family reunion this September and I keep getting sidetracked by contradicting information. Familysearch.org's new Family tree addition to the site is the newest culprit in spreading wrong info. Just like ancestry.com, anyone can add information without sources to back up their data. And many times if they have a source it is from another source that was not verified.

Argghhh!!!

That was my primal scream. I had to vent. Now back to the drawing board.

I Seek Dead People

The Warrens circa 1965

(Introduction - Tapestry of Tangled Ties)

It has been over 15 years since I began researching my family roots. I’ve hit my head on the brick wall many times, stopped, stuttered, and began again. Sometimes I wonder what keeps me going when the information has seemed to dry up or when others question my tenacity. It is a combination of many things.

I am just plain nosy as my family will attest. I am passionately curious about my own history. Why I am that way is partly why I continue to research—it’s in my genes. But where I got it from, I’m still not sure. So I keep searching.

And because it’s in my genes, there are others out there who share my curiosity gene and I do this for them. Inquiring minds want to know, as my uncle Johnny used to say, so I want to help them.

When I learn something new it is such a rush. It’s my geeky Achilles heel. I absolutely love it. It is the avocation that fills my time and mind and crowds out all mundane and/or troubling thoughts. 

So I continue. I originally planned on just updating my first book, “Say My Name,” but I kept finding new data and vital statistics kept changing. Therefore, I am writing this new version of my family history with some information from the aforementioned book but also with all the new stuff I’ve learned. I do this knowing that things will still need to be updated. A genealogist’s work is never done. Researching a family tree is the work of many lifetimes.

 

 The Cottens circa 1986

Silence must not fall

It is my endeavor to write an updated version of my family history in 2012. To help get started,  I have decided to interview to my mom and her brothers as well as my aunt Hortense and get some of their experiences down in print.

So this morning I started with my mom. I think I may have to polish my interviewing skills some more. My mom was extremely defensive. I tried to explain that if she didn't know the answer it was okay but she seemed to feel I was judging her lack of knowledge. It made the interview very long on excuses and explanations and very short on interesting tidbits. Or is that a tidbit in itself?

My mother doesn't share my curiosity about our ancestors. It may be a generational thing. She was taught not to question her elders and that may also be why she is uncomfortable with me questioning her about our past. That is unfortunate, genealogically speaking. She knows very little about her father's people. She wasn't told much and she didn't ask. That definitely does not describe me. I will keep on digging and asking until I am satisfied no matter how long that takes.

Lost

I'm back from my short journey to Tennessee. It was an eye opening experience but not in the way I had hoped. Several things hit me and I'm still processing them.

First, the area where my maternal ancestors lived is still very rural and sparsely populated. For example, my grand aunt Inez lived a few feet from the church where she was eulogized (and a few blocks from Alex Haley's birthplace). However, we traveled 45 minutes and through two counties to get to the cemetery where she was buried. My sister, who was driving, was concerned about running out of gas. She was advised to get gas when she went through downtown Maury City. Unfortunately, we didn't recognized downtown when we went through it. It was one short block of family businesses.

My aunt lived in this area all 102 years of her life. That had to shape her vision of the world. I see that same vision in my mother even though she has lived in an urban area most of her life. The viewpoint is narrow, comfortable and void of inquisitiveness.
That speaks to the other thing that struck me. All the knowledge my aunt had of my side of the family has now gone to the grave. I had accepted that my aunt did not want to talk about her family because that's what my mother and my aunt Adrene told me. Then at the funeral, a woman, a niece of Inez's husband, talked about how she asked questions about the family and how Inez gladly recited family stories to her. It makes me so mad and sad at the same time. I asked my mother if she ever asked my aunt anything to which she said never. My mother is now one of the oldest living Koonce so I will have to unearth whatever I can through circumstantial evidence not oral stories.

I can't imagine not wanting to know everything about my family history. My mother is interested and satisfied with her minute knowledge. She doesn't understand my thirst and my endless questions. I don't understand her nonchalance and acceptance. The worst part and the best part is that I seem to be "that one" in the family that pursues the answers. It's a lonely job but, I believe, somebody's gotta do it.

This summer, I will go back to Tennessee and delve into court documents and look up books in the local libraries and talk to people who may know about my family history. Too bad I wasn't able to do it before my aunt passed away.

History!

My great aunt turned 102 years old November 4th. She lived to see what many of her generation thought impossible. That implausibility was that America could elect someone president based on his ideals and his message and not the color of his skin. It gives me hope.

Last week I talked with my younger co-workers about the election. They found it exciting because they felt a part of history. It made me think back about how many historical moments I have witnessed in my life. Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog," the invasion of the Beatles, Hippies, Martin Luther King's march on Washington, the civil rights struggle, the assassinations, the wars, 911. And now this.

I have no illusions about Obama's presidency. He has a very harsh world of problems to face. But I do feel as many that this is a transformational moment. Change is not just a noun or verb. It is a movement. And I am alive to experience. Hope and awe.

Square Pegs in the Family

It's been a while. The weather is warm so I have no excuse except for lack of funds and an abundance of laziness. However, next month I plan to make my pilgrimage to archives and courts and distant relatives.

During my hiatus, I almost lost my focus. Often genealogy is a lonely quest. My nest just became completely empty, so I was wallowing in my aloneness. I assailed myself with how I don't seem to fit in with my family or even my community.

During my wallowing, I remembered something. Many, many years ago I visited my late aunt Pauline Cotten and was surprised to find out that she collected dolls and Lladros figurines. I collected dolls and love Lladros, too. When my cousin Kenny Williams passed away four years ago, I found out she had an extensive collection of dolls. That affinity for collecting dolls and figurines must run in the family.

That is one of the incentives for me to research my family-- to discover how I do fit in. I am not the square peg. Or if I am, I believe there are few of us in this family and we do fit. So this is me, snapping out of it and getting back to work.

In the Beginning

This is the first of many blogs (I hope) about my journey to discover ancestors. I have been on this journey for over ten years. I have travelled all over the country, visiting archives, relatives, libraries, in an effort to learn as much as I can.

I'm just plain nosy. That's what my family think. However, I argue that inquisitiveness is a by-product of critical thinking. I want to know the good, the bad, the ugly, the beautiful, the mundane, the extraordinary of all my people. Besides, I truly believe that everybody has a story. To tell the story is to breath life into a memory. It is archaeology on a small but no less important scale.

I have already written my family history but a family history is always a work in progress. There is so much more I want to learn and transcribe.

So what?

The answer to that is perhaps as I learn and write about my family, it may help others who are interested in doing the same. It may shed a tiny glimmer on the human condition because a major portion of my ancestors were slaves and those who slept with slaves.