In 1845, Robert F. Bridgforth of Mecklenburg County, Virginia sold his land, purchased 2,800 acres of land in Yazoo County, Mississippi, and moved his family and over 40 enslaved people to the Vaughan area. One of them was a young man named Jacob. I have concluded with great certainty that Jacob was my father’s maternal …
Continue reading Climbing Jacob’s Ladder with Genealogy and Genetics
I have a big regret. I didn’t drive down to Warrenton, North Carolina to meet the late Joel Foster Miller. He had taken the AncestryDNA test, and he shares a significant amount of DNA with me, my mother, and her siblings. When I say “significant,” I don’t mean that he was probably their unknown half-brother. …
Continue reading A Tuskegee Airman and His Civil War Soldier Grandfather
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 …
Continue reading Striking Gold with Freedmen’s Bureau Records
Earlier this year, as my father, oldest sister, nephew, and I toured the new Mississippi Civil Rights Museum in Jackson, we conversed about the participation of my father’s great-grandfather, John “Jack” Bass of Warren County (Vicksburg), Mississippi, in the Civil War. I had recently confirmed that he served with the 49th Regiment, formerly the 11th Louisiana Infantry, …
Continue reading Honoring the Slain Black Milliken’s Bend Soldiers Who Made A Huge Difference
When I first posted this picture of my great-uncles, John Wesley Davis and Jessie Franklin Davis of Panola County, Mississippi, a number of people, including family members, remarked that I bear a strong resemblance to Uncle John Wesley. I see some resemblance, but I wasn’t surprised by their observation. I am known to bear a …
Continue reading Veterans Day Tribute: Honoring My Look-Alike and Others’ Service in World War I
Roots Revealed 