Genealogy requires diligence, patience, persistence, strategy, and above all, hope. For many family lines, answers do not appear quickly or easily. They rarely come from a few computer clicks, and they certainly don’t leap off a screen. Instead, the truth reveals itself over time, often after we return to the same puzzles again and again with fresh eyes. Today, we also have the advantage of DNA to help guide our steps in the right direction.

I began researching in 1993. Now, in 2026, over 30 years later, I can look back and see how many breakthroughs emerged only because I refused to give up. Over the past decade in particular, countless mysteries have finally been solved through persistent research and the power of DNA. Here are a few of them:

For decades, the identity of the father of my paternal great-grandfather, Albert Kennedy, and his sisters, Martha, Leona, and Adaline of Leake County, Mississippi, remained a mystery, with many speculating that he was white. I eventually discovered that their father was Melford Atkins, who had been enslaved by Manson Atkinson, a neighbor to the enslaver of their mother, Lucy Kennedy. Born in Virginia to an enslaved mother impregnated by a white man, Melford was taken away from Mississippi in November 1860. Manson moved his family and enslaved people to Sugartown, Louisiana when his children were small. Their memories of him faded, but persistent research, Y-DNA, and autosomal DNA brought his story back to light. I turned this discovery into a teachable webinar on Legacy Webinars.

My father’s great-great-grandmother, Caroline Morris, born in Virginia around 1820, lived on Colonel John Hebron’s plantation in Warren County, Mississippi shortly after emancipation. I discovered she had been enslaved by the Bridgforth family of Yazoo County, Mississippi, who had acquired her from the estate of Charles Ogburn in Mecklenburg County, Virginia before migrating west around 1845. Through genealogy and autosomal DNA, I identified her parents, Ned and Violet, who remained in Virginia.

Although DNA pointed to a family connection, I recently confirmed that my coworker’s great-grandmother was a maternal half-sister of my father’s grandfather, Peter Belton Jr. of Warren County (Vicksburg), Mississippi. Newly digitized newspaper obituaries, paired with DNA, finally solved this mystery—so profoundly that I included it in the Epilogue of my book, From Fragments to Foundation.

I confirmed the father of my mother’s paternal grandmother, Sarah Partee Reed, and her brothers of Tate and Panola County, Mississippi. Their father, Prince Edwards, had a brother named Peter Edwards, whose children migrated to Oklahoma by 1910 and have held reunions since the 1980s. I’ve had the fortune to attend several of them. Persistent research, autosomal DNA, Y-DNA, and oral history unearthed the stories of Prince and Peter.

Until 2019, I did not know that my mother’s paternal grandfather, Bill Reed of Tate County, Mississippi, had left behind a sister in Abbeville County, South Carolina, his birthplace, when he and his sister Mary migrated to Panola County, Mississippi after emancipation. That sister, Louvenia, remained in South Carolina with her husband, Robert Thompson. Although Bill often expressed a desire to return home, elders never knew he longed to see his sister again. She died by 1920, but she left descendants. Autosomal DNA and genealogy led me to Aunt Louvenia, and I eventually met her last surviving granddaughter.

For years, all I knew about my mother’s great-great-grandmother, Margaret “Peggy” Milam of Tate County, Mississippi, was that she was born in Tennessee around 1830. Persistent research and autosomal DNA uncovered an entire family network: her brother Henderson Herron of Tallahatchie County, their previous enslaver, their parents Adam and Sarah, and another brother and two sisters who were taken to Magnolia, Arkansas by 1850.

These are just six of many mysteries solved over the years. Had I given up, none of these discoveries would exist. Had I given up, my new book, From Fragments to Foundation, would not have been written. Genealogical puzzles can be difficult, even frustrating, but don’t abandon them. Set them aside but return to them with patience and determination. With persistence, many family mysteries are solvable. Never give up.