Ms. Hattie Abram (1909-2002), Picture courtesy of Angela Moses Many people are often captivated by their admixture results from Ancestry.com, 23andMe, MyHeritage, FTDNA, etc. However, I am most fascinated by those revealing autosomal DNA matches – people who share identical DNA with me and my family. DNA can also be heart-breaking. It can certainly unearth …
Fishing for Roots in a Lake
I'm at Lake Cavalier in Madison County, Mississippi. Nestled in the rural southwest corner of Madison County, Mississippi is a 200-acre lake called Lake Cavalier. Until 29 December 2018, I had not seen it, but I always knew that it was there from county maps. Located a mile from the Hinds-Madison County line, Lake Cavalier …
Newspaper Research Can Be Very Tale-telling
If you are conducting historical or genealogical research, you may be doing yourself a disservice if you aren’t researching old newspapers. In recent years, many old newspapers have been digitized and are accessible online. Check out FamilySearch’s list of online newspaper databases here. Newspapers can enrich your family stories by painting a fascinating or revealing …
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Striking Gold with Freedmen’s Bureau Records
On 3 March 1865, Congress established the Freedmen’s Bureau, formally known as the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, to help millions of freed African Americans and poor whites in the South and the District of Columbia in the aftermath of the Civil War. The Union’s win of the Civil War had emancipated over …
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Using DNA Painter to Verify Igbo Origins
After months of procrastinating, I finally began using DNA Painter last month. I am typically not a major procrastinator, but I was convinced to move forward with it after reading a Facebook comment purporting its usefulness in determining the connection to DNA matches. Indeed, it is. This tool is so cool, that web developer Jonny …
A Google Success Story: Finding Grandpa Jack’s Folks
When I started researching my family history in 1993, I easily traced one of my father’s lines back to my great great grandfather, John “Jack” Bass of Warren County, Mississippi. According to the censuses, he was born around 1845, in North Carolina. Like many, I hit that infamous 1870 Brick Wall after finding him in …
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Our “Kunta Kinte”: The Search for Our African Ancestor’s Origins
In 2011, as my cousin, Dr. Jeffrey Ogbar, and I were discussing our family connection via my maternal grandmother, he told me how his Edwards family knew the name of their "Kunta Kinte." In the 1970s, down in Panola County (Como), Mississippi, his great-uncle, the late Rev. Sidney Edwards, interviewed family elders. They shared with …
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