I’ve been mapping my family tree for many years. My original quest was to find my closest ancestors born in other countries. I gave that up because I’m a 7th, 8th, even 9th generation American – knowing what regions I’m “from” is an impossible fact to determine for most of my family.
But I’m continuing to do research on my family tree. These are my new geneology quests:
- To figure out who the parents were of my third great-grandfather, Ambrose Beasley, and those of his wife, Missouri Cauthen.
- To figure out who the parents were of my third great-grandfather, William Smith or Schmidt and those of his wife, Polly Wells.
- To figure out who the parents were of my third great-grandfather, John Figgins (I know the ancestry of his wife, my third great-grandmother, Ruth Butts).
- To figure out who the parents were of my third great-grandmother, Martha Bradshaw or Bratcher (I know the ancestry of her husband, my third great-grandfather, William Perrin).
- To figure out who the father of Ada Jane Mansfield was (she’s my great-great-grandmother) and his ancestry (I’m using DNA matches with no common ancestors in the trees and hoping I’ll figure it out).
- find out every family member that fought in the Civil War, on either side.
- figure out who my ancestors were that enslaved people.
- figure out who fathered the patriarch of a particular black family from Alabama.
This blog is about that last bullet point.
A few years ago, after meticulously color-coding every one of my DNA matches on Ancestry.com based on which branch of the family we were related, I noticed that many of my closest DNA relatives on a certain great-grandmother’s family tree were black – including my closest relative on that branch. One of those DNA relatives that also had a family tree up on Ancestry.com had her grandfather listed as having an unknown father, and her grandfather was in the trees of most of those other black cousins of mine that had trees up (not everyone puts up trees).
I’m going to call this man, her grandfather, Mr. Smith, but that’s not his name.
Through a lot of DNA comparisons and cross-referencing, and date and place comparisons and whatnot, I figured out who our common ancestors are for my black cousins: my fourth great-grandfather and his wife, who lived in Hale County, Alabama (and had a farm and ranch that sprawled into Perry County).
Now I’m trying to figure out if the direct paternal link to my family – to our family – is through one of my fourth great-grandfather’s sons or grandsons. For sure, it’s one or the other. That’s beyond debate.
Mr. Smith was born in 1919 in Alabama – after the Civil War but at a time, in the Southern states, when black Americans remained oppressed and terrorized. Perhaps Mr. Smith’s mother would say she wasn’t pressured into whatever this “relationship” might have been – but at the very least, the power dynamic of this biological mother and father was extraordinarily and uncomfortably unbalanced, so it makes me uncomfortable for her.
Was the mother of Mr. Smith a servant in the white family’s house? Was she the daughter of a servant or the daughter of a worker on the farm? How did she and the descendent of my ancestor know each other?
Per info on ancestry.com, I know her name, that she was 25 when her son was born in Uniontown, Alabama, and that she was 26 when, in 1920, she married the man who fathered her other, later children.
I know Mr. Smith died in 2008 in Bessemer, Jefferson County, Alabama, USA. I know the names of his children. I even know the names of some of his grandchildren.
But I don’t know enough yet to figure out exactly who Mr. Smith’s biological father was.
I reached out to the DNA match who had her grandfather, Mr. Smith, as having an unknown father. I wrote, in part:
Hello. My name is… You can google my full name and know more about me, if you wish. I apologize if I’m intruding, and if you don’t feel like you want to respond, I won’t at all be offended if you don’t. We are DNA matches and I may know how, in general. My great-grandmother’s family is from Alabama. I actually knew my great-grandmother – she lived to be almost 100. She was very tight-lipped about her childhood, and as I untangle her family tree via Ancestry, I understand why, more and more…
I have so rarely written anyone on ancestry, but when I started to see this thread among DNA matches, and you had written that [Mr. Smith], who our common relatives all have in their tree, as having an unknown father…. well, I thought, I’ll write her and see if she has some info…
And, of course, what is discovered, if we ever do discover anything, could be potentially painful – I’m not interested in being exploitative or salacious or traumatizing for anyone, and I wouldn’t hurt anyone for the world – I’m just curious, it’s interesting to investigate, etc. But I know this can be very personal for folks… I try to be sensitive and not flippant about what I find out…
I wrote a lot more, explaining the connection (incorrectly at the time – I’ve since corrected it). She responded graciously and curiously, and we’ve been in touch now for more than a year. She told me that her grandfather, Mr. Smith, was sent off to live with the family of his aunt elsewhere in Alabama for most of his childhood. She confirmed that the person who is my closest DNA match on my great-grandmother’s side is her first cousin, a grandson of her grandfather. And she told me it was always known that Mr. Smith had a white father, and there is even a photo of a white man, which she shared with me, among his belongings – but no one in the family had any idea of who it was. When Mr. Smith died, his dementia prevented him from providing more information.
I’m not in touch with my closest DNA relative on my great-grandmother’s side – his adoptive father, who is white, has his adopted son’s tree up and shared his DNA results. I reached out, but got a tepid response.
I also have access to my maternal aunt’s DNA results. Whereas this closest DNA relative on my great-grandmother’s side is noted as a 4th to 6th Cousin to me, per 45 cM shared, that relative is my aunt’s 2nd to 3rd Cousin with 107 cM shared.
My mother and aunts weren’t aware of any of this. Their mother, my grandmother, an only child, died in 2017, before I knew any of this, and I don’t think she knew any of this. Her mother, my great-grandmother, the only child of her mother, died in 1993, and she may have known (given how tight-lipped she was about her family, perhaps she knew and didn’t want us to know she had black cousins), but if she did know, she took it with her to the grave.
But why does it matter? Why do I want to know? Mr. Smith isn’t my ancestor. Solving this mystery will do nothing to help me know names of more of my own ancestors.
Part of it is that I like the idea of solving a mystery for someone else’s family, a mystery that they never could have solved without me. Part of me feels like if someone wants to know their parentage, they have a right to know, and given how many of Mr. Smith’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren are on Ancestry.com, there is a lot of them that want to know, and if I can be of help, I want to be. And part of me wants to acknowledge my own family’s history, whether they did right or wrong, whether it’s something to be proud of or something to be sad or angry about. I don’t believe in blaming children for the wrongs of their ancestors, but I do believe that historical truths should be acknowledged, no matter how painful.
This experience has been interesting not only in the facts I’ve discovered for a branch of my family I didn’t know existed, but also in seeing yet again how our country has not valued the history and experiences (and LIVES) of black Americans: before the 1950s (and probably after), they are left out of Census data, their marriages are often not officially recorded, they don’t have obituaries in newspapers, and Newspapers.com doesn’t always have what used to be called “Negro” newspapers scanned in its archives – because neither do many libraries. It’s both sad and anger-inducing. It’s deeply unfair and unjust.
So, now what? I’m not sure. As I said, over the years, I have meticulously color-coded my DNA matches, and I look at every new, relatively close DNA match, so I will know almost immediately if a new person takes the DNA test and is a match on any particular family line, including the one I’m talking about in this blog. I hope that someday soon I open up Ancestry to look at new DNA matches and see that a new match is a descendant of the man I suspect sired Mr. Smith and, therefore, might have the answer I’m looking for.
Otherwise, what records could I ask the libraries, historical societies or county clerks of Perry and Hale counties to look up for me that would help me? If you have ideas, DM me or say so in the comments, because I have no idea.
Also see:
Rethinking “indigenous” & DNA results
Ethnic, cultural, gender identity – good luck with your definitions
Leave a Reply