ROOTS : THE NEXT GENERATIONS : ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY FILM REVIEW

Over the weekend, determined to continue working on some crochet projects (dog sweaters!) I decided to watch a movie marathon.  I decided to watch ROOTS - THE NEXT GENERATIONS a four disc set (eight programs) which  was made for TV and boasted 53 stars and 235 speaking parts.  This film brought the Roots saga, which inspired so many to record family histories and embark on genealogy quests, from after the Civil War, through World War I and II, to the author, Alex Haley's, own life as the son of a college professor who opted out of college. 

Haley stayed in the U.S. Coast Guard for 20 years and his writing career was often failing until he failed his way to success. His big break came when Readers Digest hired him to interview the controversial Malcolm X.  X's heart softened and his hatred for the White man, which he had preached until he himself went to Mecca, became a friend of Haley's and was assassinated as he had predicted.  Haley went on to write the biography of Malcom X and then to write about his own family, which eventually became the books and films Roots.

Like the book I'm reading on First Lady Michelle Obama's heritage, THE NEXT GENERATIONS reveals the hatreds and the loves despite racism, Jim Crow laws, the KKK, and other challenges to relationships between the races.  The 53 stars included Henry Fonda and Marlon Brando, as well as many Black actors and actresses, some who you've seen before on film, others who may have had their big break working on this one.

I enjoyed it, and I especially enjoyed the last episode when Haley, frustrated by the genealogy blocks decides to ask language experts and professors to help him locate the possible tribe of Africans from which "the Old African - Kinta Kunte - came from.  There, he manages to meet up with an oral story teller who has memorized and can recite the history of the Kinte tribe.

Modern genealogy is dependent on proof from written records but in this case, as in many, the trail goes cold because things were not written down or recorded.  Oral histories are important to record even if they are not backed up by proof (you never know when they might be) and DNA is proving to be an exceptional way of moving towards, if not the persons, then the tribe(s) of people you descend from.

DNA OF VANESSA WILLIAMS SHOWS MULTIETHNICITY

VANESSA WILLIAM MAIL ODER DNA TEST from HUFFINGTON POST  link to full article.

EXCERPT" For Williams, her genome revealed this mixture: 23 percent Ghana; 17 percent British Isles; 15 percent Cameroon/Congo; 13 percent Finnish/Ural/Volga; 11 percent southern European; 7 percent Togo; 6 percent Benin; 5 percent Senegal; 4 percent Spain/Portugal."

This article presents results from three popular DNA testing companies which overall show some difference between overall results of African Americans, but which are more conclusive than not.

AMERICAN TAPESTRY : THE STORY OF THE BLACK WHITE AND MULTIRACIAL ANCESTORS OF MICHELLE OBAMA

By Rachel. L. Swarns.  The book just came out, copyright 2012, and I just got my copy.  I'll let you know more about this book soon. 

The inner pages are lined with our First Lady's Michelle Robinson Obama's family tree: some of the surnames include Cohen, Shields, Easley, Johnson,  Lawson, Jumper, Wade, and Moten...

The author, Rachel L. Swarns is a New York Times reporter who covered the presidential campaigns and is the Johannesburg bureau chief...  I can hardly wait to pick up the crackers and cheese on the way home from the bookstore...  I'll be reading so I won't be cooking!

THE SLAVER L'ANTONIO :

QUESTION : SHOULD I USE A DNA TEST TO PROVE I FOUND MY BIRTH PARENTS?

Question for ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY

After years of genealogy research, and using some public information databases,  I think I've located the couple who could be my birth parents in another city several hundred miles from where I live.  The husband and wife are very old if alive, which I think they are, and it looks like they gave me up and went on to have more children who they kept.  I'm wondering about my genetic heritage.  Maybe I'm the result of an affair?  I want to write them a letter telling them why I think this may be and suggest DNA tests.  Any opinion?   Louise

Answer:

Hi Louise,

I believe that any genealogy research leading to birth parents should be checked with DNA testing.  It's available, accurate, and the prices have come down a lot.  Why not be extra sure? 

One thing I warn against is doing these tests through the mail.  Someone - a lab tech or doctor - should be taking the sample and have good proof of ID.  Though the mail a person can send someone else's swab.

Ideally you should work with one company that can take your test in your city and your possible parents tests in their city, in each case providing an ID. 

I think you should first approach the question of birth parentage through a letter, presenting your genealogy research, and being honest about the public databases you used.  You must be sure that these people do not get the impression you're some nut whose invading their privacy, lying, or trying to ID theft them.  I would also send a recent picture of yourself.

You may find that there is an admission of parentage without the test first but many years have gone by, and these people may have made their peace with themselves about giving a baby up.

I have a fellow genealogist friend who specializes in finding birth parents and he tells me that in one case in maybe 50, the DNA did not check out with his research.  He said that people who deny parenthood seem to remember things differently once the DNA tests have been done.  He's had more luck with siblings than the parents themselves becoming open and talking about what happened way back when.

In one situation I was presented with, a child called a birth father on the phone with her birth mother on another line and said this man was her father.  He had not heard from these people in over 20 years and could have been located.  He had no idea he was a father.  When DNA testing was suggested, at my urging, they backed off and were never heard from again.  He was ready to embrace a child even in his old age but was miffed and hurt.  So I suggest that when you introduce the idea of a DNA test you present it as just wanting to be sure.

Another thing I'm warning about, because it's been in the news lately that DNA databases are being used for wrong reasons.  BE SURE THAT THE SERVICE YOU USE IS NOT GOING TO POST THE RESULTS ON ANY DATABASE.  You are paying them to test for a private reason.  This is not the same as testing to be connected to possible living DNA matches for family history/genealogy reasons.  Sadly it's been in the news that trusting people who allowed this matching service now have their personal DNA being used by unauthorized people for other reasons.

VINTAGE VALENTINE SPINNER : WILL YOU MARRY A BEGGER MAN OR A THIEF?

A blogger named Knitting Iris posted some Vintage Valentines and encouraged people to share them, and I really loved this one.  You could print it and then come up with a spinner to place in the center - I think you can make one from one of those metal paper fasteners - so that you and your friends, or maybe the kids, can find out if their Valentine will be a Doctor, Lawyer, Merchant, chief (i.e Indian Chief),  Richman, Poor Man, or Begger or Thief!  (Needless to say this is so Vintage political correctness doesn't come into it! There are no female images though some of the males look to be rather femme.)

Or you could make an update as a fun Valentine's game!

Happy Happy! 

SCRAPBOOKING YOUR CHILDREN'S VALENTINES

One of the nicest things you can do for your child is what my mother did for me... fill scrapbooks with the cards they receive for Valentines, birthdays, and all the special events of their lives.

Your child may not remember all the classmates that gave them cards, or all their childhood friends who came to their parties, but as the years go by the VINTAGE quality of the books is interesting - historical - in itself!

RICHARD THE THIRD : DNA AND THE IDENTIFICATION OF AN ANCESTOR

Of course, this story has made International News!  Richard the Third has been identified both archaeologically, but also with DNA from present day descendants.  Richard died in 1485 and was burried after a battlefield death without ceremony.

This New York Times Article mentions that there is a Richard the Third Society.

..."The team’s leading geneticist, Turi King, said at a news conference that DNA samples from two modern-day descendants of Richard III’s family had provided a match with samples taken from the skeleton found in the priory ruins. Kevin Schurer, a historian and demographer, tracked down two living descendants of Anne of York, Richard III’s sister, one of them a London-based, Canadian-born furniture maker, Michael Ibsen, 55, and the other a second cousin of Mr. Ibsen’s who has requested anonymity.


Dr. King said tests conducted at three laboratories in England and France had found that the descendants’ mitochondrial DNA, a genetic element inherited through the maternal line of descent, matched that extracted from the parking lot skeleton. She said all three samples belonged to a type" of mitochondrial DNA that is carried by only 1 to 2 percent of the English population, a rare enough group to satisfy the project team, pending more work on the samples, that a match had been found."...

NEW YORK TIMES : Bones Under Parking Lot Belonged to Richard III by John F. Burns

PRINCE AMONG SLAVES : ABDUL RAHMAN IBRAHIMA SORI : PBS VIDEO

Class in America is always an interesting subject, especially because while most of us know it's a myth that this is a classless society, there is certainly more opportunity for movement between classes here than in many countries. 

In this film the issue of class in America involves a man who was a Prince among his people in Gambia, Africa but who was still captured and brought as a slave to America in 1788.

This Public Broadcasting Station (PBS) DVD is the true story of Abdul Rahman Ibrahima Sori, who, 40 years after enslavement, returned to Gambia, with his wife.

Abdul's owner allowed him to marry and become the boss of the other slaves he acquired, maybe because he wanted to acknowledge the man's superiority, and because he and his wife had 9 children, many of the slaves on that plantation in Mississippi were his relations.

Eventually he was freed and he and his wife traveled north to ask for donations to buy their children out of slavery. After many months the couple were only able to buy two sons and their families as well as the ship travel monies to come join them Africa.

Ancestors of both the African and American family have been reunited due to one of the African ancestors. There was plenty of documentation to base this film on.