AFRICAN AMERICAN FAMILY RECORD CIRCA 1880 SHOWING PROGRESS IN FREEDOM

I love the Before and After the Civil War of the African American farm family illustrated in this chart, which is held by the Library of Congress Collection.  It was produced by Krebs Lithographing Company, Cincinnati, Ohio.  It's a chromolithograph and is circa about 1880, about fifteen years after the slaves were freed.

TRAVELS WITH GEORGE : PRESIDENT WASHINGTON'S BARGE - THE GREETING IN NEW YORK : ABOUT THE STATUE OF LIBERTY

Excerpt and Notes: Page 43-34  (Washington goes by barge to New York from New Jersey and his presidential barge is  greeted by a flotilla....

"... This forty-five foot open boat featured an awing and cushions and was towed by thirteen oarsmen dressed in white.  Washington was accompanied in the barge by a group of dignitaries...  But the New Yorkers were just getting started....

(There was singing - groups of singers - greatly effecting the President.)

Suddenly the waters surrounding the barge erupted into foam.  "At this moment a number of porpoises came playing amongst us, as if they had risen up to know what was the cause of all this joy." But the most impressive sight was still to come as the barge continued its advance toward the New York City waterfront.  "We now discovered the shores crowded with thousands of people.  Men, women, children.  Nay I may venture to say tens of thousands; from the fort to the place of landing although near a half a mile, you could see little else along the shores in the streets and on board every vessel but heads standing as thick as ears of corn before the harvest."  (quoting Boudinot)

(Still, this display just made Washington more anxious about his new role and how he might please the people.)

Excerpt: (Author Nathaniel Philbrick and his wife go to Battery Park - where the Statue of Liberty is.)

... "And yet we did see quite enough: The Statue of Liberty looming above the water, her oxidized copper skin darkened with verdigris  I had always thought the statue depicted the goddess of liberty standing proudly with her gilded torch held high --a welcoming beacon of hope for the millions of immigrants bound for nearby Ellis Island throughout much of the twentieth century.  But once our boat, appropriately named Liberty, had taken us to the landing spot on the south side of the island. I could see that, no, the goddess was not standing still;she was striding forward, the broken shackles of a chain at her feet.

The Statue of Liberty, I soon learned, had been inspired by the abolition of slavery during the Civil War.  A gift from France, it had been left to the Americans to raise the money for the statue's 150 fott-high- pedestal.  Fund raising had lagged until the newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer appealed to the readers of the New York World and raised a significant portion of the required fields.  The Statue of Liberty was finally dedicated in 1886."

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TRAVELS WITH GEORGE : NEW JERSEY WAS DIFFERENT : THE RIGHT OF WOMEN and AFRICAN AMERICANS TO VOTE : SUFFERAGE

 Excerpt: Page 32 

"In terms of suffrage and political access, New Jersey was different than from any other state in the Union. Since 1776, the state's constitution had given voting rights to any adult - male, female, white, or African-American - who had lived in New Jersey for a year and was worth at least fifty pounds. (This would remain the case until 1807, when the Anti-Federalist state legislature restricted the right to vote to white males in an effort to prevent women, who tended to vote Federalist, from participating in the 1808 presidential election, ultimately won by the Anti-Federalist Thomas Jefferson's heir-apparent, James Madison.) Whether or not New Jersey's liberal  voting laws in 1789 had anything to do with it, the women of Trenton took the leading role in celebrating Washington's return. Under their direction, a twenty-foot arch supporting thirteen pillars was constructed over the bridge across the Assunpink. Just as had been done in Philadelphia, the arch was entwined with branches of evergreen, laurel, and flowers.  Emblazoned across the arch's top in large gold letters was the phrase, "The Defender of Mothers Will Be the Protector of the Daughters. Above the inscription was a cupola of flowers encircling the dates of Washington's twin victories.  December 26, 1776, and January 3, 1777, topped by a large sunflower.

When given the choice, Washington seems to have preferred the company of women over men.  He loved to dance, and after a dinner party he could be found in conversation with Martha and her lady friends rather than his male peers.  He particularly enjoyed speaking with sharp-witted, articulate women..."

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ACPL GENEALOGY LIBRARY - FORT WAYNE INDIANA

ACPL Genealogy Library   African-American and Native American Gateways...  Lots of Indiana resources.

***

It's always a good idea to find out what libraries, archives, and historical societies are in the area your ancestor lived and give them a call or visit.  Many smaller towns and cities hold information on their residents that have not made it into the big databases.  Consider the"City Books" that are local histories and sometimes include photos of the residents.

THE GHOST INSIDE MY CHILD : ANCESTRY WORSHIP - GENEALOGY BLOGSPOT FILM REVIEW

THE GHOST INSIDE MY CHILD : ANCESTRY WORSHIP - GENEALOGY BLOGSPOT FILM REVIEW

The title is bad.  Wrong. These are not ghost stories.  These are stories of children who have had spontaneous past life recall.  The editing is overly sensational.  I hate the close ups that reveal every pore.  I hate the glowing red eyeballs.  Really, the editing and production that was inclinded to raise the hair on our heads cheapened this series.  I wasn't scared.  Nor should you be.

Ignore all that.  Reincarnation is natural.  It's human nature.

And it's a message all of us who fear death need to hear.

This series features one interesting story after another, most of which include the parents or some other person doing research to verify that such a person existed.  And no, for you skeptics, the girls don't all remember being Cleopatra and the boys don't all remember being Harry Houdini.  Hey, some of these children are a different race, ethnicity, or gender this time around.

Remembrances in Season One and Two include, the memory of being a fighter pilot shot down during World War II, the memory of being a girl whose family was killed by Indians - later she was traded to a more peaceable tribe, the memory of a girl who died in Hollywood during the Silent Film era at age 14, an actress who probably died after an abortion - so many others!

In many cases, the children go to the place they remember living or dying, or at least a museum - which often helps them let go and get on with this life.

So, despite my recommendation - should anyone producing this series be reading - that you cut the silly boo-hooey - I suggest that watching this is worth your time and if you aren't familiar with reincarnation will be a wonderful introduction. 

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OFF AND RUNNING : ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY FILM REVIEW

OFF AND RUNNING : ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY FILM REVIEW
A Jewish Lesbian couple adopted three children.  Two of them, teenagers, a son and a daughter appear to be African American or Black.  The son has no interest in connecting with birth parents.  The daughter, Avery, who is the focus of this film, does.  Encouraged by her two mothers and of her own desire, she first contacts the agency that did the adoption.  She learns that her birth mother has never contacted them.  She persists and writes her birth mother a letter - and waits - and then another.  It seems the woman doesn't want to tell her too much about how she cameo be.  The delays, hesitations, and minor details she is willing to provide, mess up Avery.

She is the daughter of privilege as is, but, a track star with hopes of a college scholarship, she quits high school and thinks about a GED instead.  She's on the pill but she gets pregnant, and sure that she would never want any of her children adopted, she has an abortion.  She moves in with friends and out of the house, because she feels the tension over the birth mother and adoption issue is too much.

The whole time I was watching this film, I was thinking about adoption issues  Is it nurture or nature that makes us? 

Reaching into the experience of someone I'm related to my marriage, I think of a situation in which a child was adopted at about the age of 4 years old by two educated and working parents who were childless.  This child was treated well, not abused, and this child wanted for nothing but wasn't spoiled.  Still, as he neared teenage years he became a rebellious, violent, and hateful child, capable of saying horrible things to his parents, even striking his mother.  When he was 18 he was encouraged to find his siblings, who he had vague memories of, with the hopes that with some answers he would better find his place in the world.  Well, he did, and it turned out both parents were drug addicts who had overdosed or suicide, not all the children had been adopted, two of the siblings had quit high school and had babies without fathers, and one of his siblings was in prison. He had it better than any of them.  For whatever reason this knowledge made him worse.

Then there is the question of placement with a family. Avery appears to be African American or Black.  Very few African American or Black people in the United States are Jewish.  Usually they are Christians and Protestants.  Then there is the question of gay people, be they single or married, having children by adoption, surrogates, or sperm donations.  Frankly there are so very many children out there who need to be adopted, and in some places it's difficult to adopt unless you own a home, for instance.  Some children go through hell in foster care, though there are loving foster care homes.  To me anyone who is a decent human being who can be a responsible parent and wants to be should be allowed to.  But it can be complicated.

One thing that I felt was odd was how the discussions within the family seem to have a lot of analysis like you'd get in therapy.  (When I was growing up NOBODY talked therapeutic terms and if someone was in therapy it was considered their business.)  Avery states her needs in a sophisticated way, but she's still a child, and clearly what she wanted out of her birth mother was more acceptance.

A thought provoking film, the good news is that this young woman gets her life on track and decides to put off the birth mother until she's graduated from college.

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WHITE HERITAGE IN THE AMERICAN SOUTH? DNA MAY PROVE YOU'RE MORE BLACK THAN YOU KNOW!

THE GRIO : SOUTHERN WHITES and BLACK DNA   by Blue Telmusa  full article and map

EXCERPT: The findings published this month in the American Journal of Human Genetics found that whites in the South were far more likely to have black ancestry than any other part of the country.

Researchers examined 145,000 DNA samples provided to genetic testing company 23andme for ancestry analysis. They have now determined that at least six million Americans who called themselves white had at least 1 percent African ancestry.

South Carolina and Louisiana ranked highest on the list. Researchers found that one in 20 people who called themselves white in those states had at least 2 percent African ancestry. And in a lot of the South, about 10 percent of people who identified as white turned out to have African DNA as well.

SOUL BY SOUL by WALTER JOHNSON : ANCESTRY WORSHIP BOOK REVIEW

 

Book is published by Harvard University Press -  1999

C Presidents and Fellows of Harvard

 

Anyone doing AMERICAN genealogy research is bound to go back far enough to find that someone was a slave, slave owner, or living during slave times.  This book is the first and only I have ever encountered which brings the reality of the situations forth in great detail of the human considerations of both slave and slave trader, Masters and Mistresses, people born free, people who bought their own freedom, people who were returned to slavery.  It's about the socio-cultural aspects of life in slave territory and how it differed from state to state.

 

Did you know slaves sometimes attempted to sell themselves and their loved ones when a plantation or estate was liquidating, so that they could be with each other or local to each other and have some influence on who they would work for?

 

Did you know that some sellers attempted to and succeeded in hiding the fact that a slave was being sold because he or she was terminally ill or unable to work?  Sometimes they would blacken graying hair, fill in chests shrunken by TB with straw, or put all their slaves in new matching suits or calico dresses to erase some of the differences between them.

 

Estate liquidation was one of the main reasons that slaves who had been with one Master for a long time might get sold or split up.  If there was debt he or she might have no say in the matter as it would have been a seizure of property.  Many slavers were single men who traveled a lot for business and worked only until they could secure land and marry.  They slept out in the rough with the slaves they were trading.  Some met boats and moved slaves to holding pens in other states where they might be for months between seasons.

 

As in any other business there were levels of purchase, such as brokers who acted for others, commissions to other traders, and many employees who did had no personal interest in buying or selling themselves but acted  as sales people or fed the slaves.  Conflicts between traders sometimes meant bad blood and law suits.

 

The role of women as traders is also explored more thoroughly then I have ever encountered in a book before.  A slave woman might be bought because she could reproduce and thus add wealth and value to a owner's estate.  Only men went to market to buy slaves for their wife and children's needs.  In Louisiana a married woman had no right to buy or sell slaves (real estate) unless he had her husband's permission, declared herself separate in property from her husband and could thus trade in her own name; this meant she legally was not responsible for his debts either.  But even if she had the legal right, she did not go to market but sent her husband or another man.  How people managed to get around all sorts of existing laws and prevailing attitudes is in play here.

 

Perhaps most interesting to me is what happened when a slave appeared white or almost white, and became a "fancy" woman, which meant that she might be sold for much more than someone in a first rate category.  This means that she was usually bought to be a sex slave or mistress, by someone who had a fantasy and who might or might not fulfill that fantasy..  Some sold for over $5000 at a time when the average was under $1000.  (Please don't make the error of assuming that is in today's dollars.)  "Fancy" women were sold at auction rather than at set price or negotiated price.  Men might compete to get the most beautiful slave women and show off that they could afford to.  In the paperwork they would describe these women as cooks or domestics or seamstresses, so if you encounter a very high price for a slave in your research, think again.

 

Buyers sometimes came up with a physical type they were looking for, for their own reasons.  They might decide they needed men with longer arms, for instance.

 

This book is one for your reference collection, a keeper.

THE TRANS-ATLANTIC SLAVE VOYAGES SITE REVISITED - SLAVE NARRATIVES

SLAVE VOYAGES ORG - Trans-Atlantic Voyages   link

I met someone recently who corrected me for calling someone "African American."  She said I should be using the term BLACK.  I suppose BLACK works if a person appears to be "Black" and you don't really know that their origins are from Africa.  I think the whole subject is controversial and confusing.  After all, some very Black looking people, with DNA analysis, prove to be mostly European and visa versa.

Anyway, I thought I'd revisit a link I've had posted a long time and explore further.  SEARCHING THE VOYAGES, you will find THE NAME OF A SHIP, the name of the captain, the places where they picked up slaves (and no, it wasn't all from AFRICA, and where the ship is LANDING which could be Bahia or Brazil.)

What you will not find is the names of the enslaved.

YOU CAN FIND THE NAMES OF THE ONCE ENSLAVED IN TWO DATABASES.

I've found the FREEDMAN BANK RECORDS and SLAVE NARRATIVES, two different database / sites, to be more informative about individuals.  I'm able to access both at my library without fees.

INFORMAL and LEGAL NAME CHANGES

I once had a potential client that I decided not to work with because of her rigidity! 

Seriously, this woman was a highly educated and successful social worker of Jewish background with a very unusual surname.  My preliminary research based on the town that she said her family was from, but a town she was distanced from by three generations, revealed a cluster of this unusual name - with spelling variations.  SHE REFUSED TO BELIEVE THAT THESE PEOPLE COULD BE RELATED based on the idea that surname spellings never changed.  She was arguementative and I could tell that she would never be able to take the small leap of faith required and that I'd be fighting to prove things to her all the way.

The fact is that surnames have been very changeable through history.

African American slaves who were freed got to choose their own names.  Sometimes siblings all chose different surnames.  Did they do this formally and legally?  NO.  Assuming a name for some time is all it took - to be KNOWN by a name.  Some tried out a name, didn't like it, and went with another.

This is just one example of the flexibility or a surname.

Another ; I've heard the "They Changed Our Name At Ellis ISland"  so many times.  I don't argue it but this is 99% of the time pure bunk. They did process people quickly and we always have the problem of bad handwriting or misinterpretations of a name, but a mispelling or misunderstanding at Ellis DID NOT CHANGE AN IMMIGRANT'S NAME LEGALLY.  They did not have to go with a mispelling.  In the five minutes or so that they were processed, clerks were not changing the family name.  End of that old story.

Many people did decide to AMERICANIZE their surname, sometimes by spelling it different or spelling it more according to how it would be written in English.  Few went with legal proceedings, which cost money, to take off an ending, or ad or subtract a letter.  As a result, I have found so very many documented families with a wide variety of spellings.  In one family the name was slightly different on Ellis, on naturalization, or WWI draft registrations, and on census.  They were the same family though.

As I mentioned on a recent post, there is also the SPANISHIFICATION of certain surnames due to immigration. So, it's not always about ANGLICIZING!

AMERICAN TAPESTRY by RACHEL L. SWARNS ON AMERICAN SLAVES PETITIONING COURTS TO BE FREE

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

EXCERPT: pages 251-251  in chapter 25 "Born Free" about the JUMPER FAMILY originating with Hagar Jumper on Dinwiddie County, Virginia.

Background : Hagar triumphed in court when she won her freedom - and that of her children and grandchildren - and soon appeared on lists of free blacks in the county. She had filed a lawsuit against her owner based on Indian (Native American) heritage.]

"Hagar was joining the nation's first communities of free blacks, which emerged after the American Revolution when some slaveholders embraced Democratic ideas.  One Maryland woman said she freed her slaves because holding black people in bondage contradicted "the inalienable Rights of Mankind."  That egalitarian spirit also inspired slaves, like Hagar, to take matters into their own hands and to fight for their liberty in the courts.  "Whole families," recalled one abolitionist, "were often liberated by a single verdict, the fate of one relative deciding the fate of many."  It is possible that Peter was descended from this line.  He and Dolly may have also been the children of slaves who were freed by their masters, or the progeny of white indentured servants or poor white women who had relationships and children with African slaves.  It was not uncommon for free blacks in Pittsylvania and Henry Counties, where the Jumpers lived, to report to the local courts that their mothers were white.  The petitions - filed by men and women hoping to gain their freedom through the courts - suggested that these mothers were close to their children and willing to testify on their behalf.

However they won their freedom, Dolly and Peter (Jumper) clearly joined the free black community at a time when It was growing at an unprecedented clip.  Between 1790 and 1810, the number of free blacks in the Unites States rose from 59, 466 - about 8 percent of all blacks - to 186,446 - about 13.5 percent of all blacks.  In Virginia, where the Jumpers lived, the free black population more than doubled during that time  By 1810, some 30, 570 African Americans - or 7.2 percent of the populations - were living free."

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ROOTS : THE NEXT GENERATIONS : ANCESTRY WORSHIP GENEALOGY FILM REVIEW

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.

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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!

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BABY NAME BOOKS : GET A CLUE!

I just love baby name books, because of the meanings attributed to the names, and all the different spellings offered.  I wonder, "What would someone named Ursula be like?" (Having never met an Ursula in real life!)

Though there are many baby name books out there, as well as many baby name sites on the web, there simply cannot be a totally comprehensive index of names. 

One of the pleasures of genealogy is coming across names you've never heard of before, names from history, names that have gone out of fashion, names waiting to be resurrected by the naming of a new baby, or perhaps the renaming a poet does for themselves!

Genealogy research - doing those charts - sometimes makes us aware of how a name has been used and repeated in a family for generations. 

One research quest I worked on featured the name Dicey for women.  I don't think I ever made it to the Original Dicey, but I did get back to the family just arrived from Scotland in the 1700's.

Watching the feminine forms of masculine names such as Julianna, the great grandmother of Julius, may or may not give us a clue about the relationship.  In this case, no one in America had ever heard of the great grandmother in Hungary, but I was able to confirm that in childhood it was this woman, not Julius' mother, who provided him care as an infant.  The family must have known it was going to be that way before he was born.

These days there are many creative names.  I find this particularly true in the Black community.  Using baby books and other references I found that one of the most popular Black names in America, Lakeisha, is a made up name.  In other words, not one book I looked at said that it's a name that came from Africa, or some other ethnic group and one book said it was an invention.  (I even have a friend who named her dog Lakeisha!)

Next month, February, I'll be looking into African American research and history once again remembering how interesting using the Freedman Bank Records database is, and the mystery of African-American / Black given and surnames can be.

THE SEVEN DAUGHTERS OF EVE : BRYAN SYKES : DNA USA : ANCESTRY WORSHIP BOOK REVIEW

THE SEVEN DAUGHTERS OF EVE by BRYAN SYKES 

I recently attended a short but intense lecture on the state of the art in DNA genealogy. One of the books mentioned was Bryan Sykes "The Seven Daughters of Eve."

The lecturer said that all women in Europe (actually about 98%) can be traced to one of seven great mothers who have given them a distinctive DNA identity. I was fascinated, so I read the book ASAP. The book was first published in 2001, and the author has another book coming out called "DNA USA."

First "The Seven Daughters of Eve" is exciting enough and novelesque enough to be a page turner. Without getting heavily into technology Sykes takes you where he went, to getting ancient DNA out of the skeletons of Cheddar Man and other archaeological discoveries and then to the discoveries that he is genetically related to the Russian Tsar's family that was assassinated back in 1918, and that the butler of a friend of his was a direct descendant of Cheddar Man.

Let me explain that Sykes is not saying there were never more than these 7 women. What he is saying is that these 7 women are the ones whose DNA has survived thousands of years to today, as traceable from mother to mother. The other women's DNA does not appear because they had no children, had only one daughter, had only sons, or possibly because over those thousands of years only descendants of women with the best DNA for survival won out. The focus here is on European DNA.

I'm linking to information on Sykes USA DNA.

Here's some of the information within it:

• Of Americans whose ancestors came as slaves, virtually all have some European DNA.

• Racial intermixing appears least common among descendants of early New England colonists.

• There is clear evidence of Jewish genes among descendants of southwestern Spanish Catholics.

• Among white Americans, evidence of African DNA is most common in the South.

• European genes appeared among Native Americans as early as ten thousand years ago.

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RESCUE AT PINE RIDGE : A BUFFALO SOLDIER NOVEL by ERICH MARTIN HICKS

I'm going to admit to you that I have not yet read this novel. However, I met the author Erich Martin Hicks, in of all places, a laundry, and the story he told me about how hard and smart he worked in order to get his work published and read while we both awaited our comforters to dry, was inspiring.

We also had a little conversation about African American genealogy and historical research and he is a direct descendant of a Buffalo Soldier and did heavy research. So I told him, I was going to aid in his effort by posting about him and his book.

I'm linking to his own web site, and I'm recommending also that my local public library buy a copy, since he is a local author. To me, genealogy research should go hand in hand with historical research...

THE BATTLE FOR CHRISTMAS : STEPHEN NISSENBAUM : ANCESTRY WORSHIP BOOK REVIEW

THE BATTLE FOR CHRISTMAS by STEPHEN NISSENBAUM 

Stephen Nissenbaum takes wassailing, an English custom, to the early American colonies where Christmas was a day for reversing roles, and the gift giving was more like a Halloween trick or treat. Perhaps the idea was to let off resentment?

Christmas as we know it to be was invented by New Yorkers who leaned on a myth that the holiday was from the Dutch heritage of early residents of Dutch New York. In early new England the day was not celebrated because the festivities were not considered to be Christian behavior.

Perhaps no better a day of the year existed for slaves. A good portion of this book by Stephen Nissenbaum, a Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts, is devoted to the relations between slaves and their masters.

Genealogists will learn more about the Freedman Bureau too!

Maybe you'll want to read this one after the holidays?

Book is C 1996 by the author Stephen Nissenbaum and published by Borzoi/Alfred A. Knopf.

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A PRINCESS FOUND by SARAH CULBERSON and TRACY TRIVAS : ANCESTRY WORSHIP BOOK REVIEW

A PRINCESS FOUND by SARAH CULBERSON and TRACY TRIVAS 

SARAH CULBERSON's search for her birth parents took her to Sierra Leone, Africa and the devastation of that country due to war. So many children were left without limbs. As a result of meeting her birth father and being accepted by the whole village she started a Foundation to support the school.

Sarah wanted to meet her birth parents, though she had a happy childhood with her parents and siblings in Morgantown, West Virginia, soon after her 18th birthday. Luckily her parents and some locals had enough information to get her started and over time she came to understand their history and to accept herself as is.

She resolved the mystery of her birth mother, a white woman first, and then her African father. He was a student at the university and her mother could not cope with raising her on her own.

None of this took extensive genealogy research because people knew people and were willing to divulge information but it did take personal courage and openness.

The book is copyright the authors and published by Saint Martin's Press, and should be of interest to anyone who is facing a similar search.

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JOE MOZINGO makes the FRONT PAGE OF THE LA TIMES for his three part article on TRACING HIS FAMILY HISTORY

"One came from an acquaintance who said he found a bunch of Mozingos in a phone book in the Imperial Valley and was told they all were Basque shepherds. On this authority, we became French Basque.

Next we heard that "Mozingo" was an Americanized version of "Mont Zingeau," a mountain in France or maybe Switzerland I could never find on a map.

All of this was beginning to feel a bit dubious when I met Sherrie Mazingo, whose name is a variation of ours. Sherrie was a broadcast journalism professor at USC when I was a grad student there in 1996.

She was black — and she had news." Joe Mozingo

I READ THE STORY ON THE FRONT PAGE OF THE MAY 16, 2010 LOS ANGELES TIMES in paper... Link now to the internet version.