When Ben Affleck insisted that his "Finding Your Roots" not include mentioning his slave-owning ancestor he missed a real opportunity to help a broad audience explore and understand a very real and painful era in American history, and how it might relate to their ancestry. One one level, I understood his reluctance to associate with any ancestors who owned slaves. I was upset when I realized that a hefty portion of my mother's father's ancestors were slave owners, but I also immediately saw that this opened up new possibilities for helping in the enormous task of drawing out and distinguishing and naming at least some of the individuals who were trapped in slavery.
My mom has done some work toward this already in her series of posts on Mary Warren of Virginia, Georgia, and Texas (c. 1810-c. 1885). She also covered incidental information on a few of the slaves of my 4th great grandmother Timney Watts (1805-1863) who racked up medical bills at the end of her life.
Nicka Smith presented "Full Circle: Tracing the Descendants of a Slaveholding Ancestor" yesterday showing steps in tracing people like me and my mom (and even Ben Affleck):
Descendants of former slaveholders come from all walks of life. DNA and renewed interest in family history research continue to unearth this phenomena for thousands of people every day. In this session, learn how to confirm slaveholding ancestors and the tools needed to trace and identify living descendants of their formerly enslaved.
1 hour 37 minutes
Free through January 19, 2018
© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.
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