We can’t get too far back because most of our records were in the wrong churches in Europe. ( bombed and burned so a lot of stuff is no more. )
But one of my aunt’s that likes this stuff did find a horse thief hanging from one of our family tree brances.
He is the Shizzle-atz Oy-derach, the Opener of Doors to Foam Parties!
Well, on behalf of that branch of the family I thank you.
But as the descendant of branches of the family that owned slaves I’m compelled to say “I WANT MY REPARATIONS FOR THE PROPERTY YOUR KINFOLK STOLE!” And I happen to know for a fact that my family owned all of the direct ancestors of both Emmanuel Lewis and Prince, so you owe me a part of their earnings which by rights should be mine as owner/manager/producer! (The weird thing is, if I could prove that assertion, there is probably a lawyer somewhere who would take the case.)
Interesting query. I know that how much freedom slaves had constantly went up and down. Sometimes they were allowed to own guns for hunting, other times it was punishable by death, sometimes they could leave their plantation on Sundays to attend black churches and other times they could be shot dead if walking unescorted off their master’s property, etc… I would guess that the 1780s were a stricter time in Virginia since so many thousands of slaves had escaped to serve with the British and gain their freedom (a memo to masters everywhere as to just how much they enjoyed being enslaved- both Washington and Jefferson lost slaves to the British this way) so laws and restrictions were probably tightened to keep them from heading off to Canada or other British possessions.
You’re probably right about livery as well, especially since he left all farm land and cattle to his son. One thing that I noticed in the will is that he did not leave his daughter (and he does not mention a son-in-law) anything income producing, so how she was to support herself I don’t know. Perhaps he had a box of money hidden or some such.
Were women of that time period expected to support themselves? It seems likely that she would live with the brother unless/until she married.
The COOKIE GUY?!? :eek:
John Amos isn’t that famous.
I did some of this research for myself and for my ex-wife. It was easy for me - all records ended with my grandparents on my father’s side in Ireland, and with my great-grandparents on my mothers side (again, in Ireland.)
But with my ex, it was a different story. Her grandfather on her father’s side was the product of a freed/escaped slave (male) and a Chippewa Indian (female). Something she wasn’t too happy to hear (although she loved to trot out the “repressed Native American” song-and-(rain)dance at times. I told her she couldn’t have one without the other.
SPLORT!!
That’s an image that defies description! 
Just wanted to add the speculation that the “mulatto” may very well have been William Milliner’s own unacknowledged son by one of his slaves. Oh, the intrigue!
I want interesting ancestors. I do have a murderer who caused a schism in the family by killing his sister-in-law over a cow and forcing the good side of the family to change the spelling of the family name so that even now you can tell the law-abiding side from my side.
But otherwise? Nuthin’.
That must’ve been a hell of a cow.
When my parents were into genealogy they found some pre-Civil War ancestors who kept slaves. They were wealthy enough to provide a plantation and several slaves for the daughter’s dowry. I had a moment of *schadenfreude * when I also learned they lost it all as a direct result of the war.
One of my sisters did some extensive research into our family tree for family picnic (not exactly a reunion because none of the extended family were there) in '93. We have a Native American great-great-grandmother from the Flathead tribe named May Fenno (could be May Fehho), a great-great-grandfather with a very Norweigan name who fought under General Sherman, and Og knows what else. Mom was born out of wedlock to a man whom we don’t even have a name for and was raised by an aunt.
For the umteenth time somebody must say I can’t wait for Casseroles for the Dead to be published.
More like, " Some Day My Prince Will Schlep"…
How wonderful to have been able to trace back that far. Hey, embrace your DNA. Interesting to see how the extended family deals with it.
Cartooniverse
A toaster. Silly.
A George Foreman Grill would be more apropos, especially since it’ll allow Sampiro’s mom to catch the drippings.
-snerk- You are a Bad Man.
I’d been WAITING for someone to catch that detail…
Something I wonder out of curiosity: if Fred was my ancestor, it would make him my great-great-great-grandfather, or roughly 1/32 of my ancestry. (Possibly he would be more since I’m not sure I had 32 g-g-g grandparents due to some cousin marriages, but we’ll go with that number.)
If he was light enough to pass for white, then he was probably at most 1/4 African in his ancestry. It’s not impossible that somebody who had one Euro and one Afro parent could pass for white, but it isn’t likely. (Halle Berry, Lenny Kravitz, Lisa Bonet, Sydney Poitier (daughter of the more famous actor) and Mario Van Peebles, to use particularly good looking examples, all have at least 2 white grandparents but none would be likely to fool an antebellum southern census taker that they were white- Jasmine Guy comes a bit closer and could probably claim Indian ancestry, but even then there’d be rumors.) So it’s not unreasonable to say that Fred would have had probably at most 1/4 African ancestry, which would make me about 1/128 African (assuming he’s the only source, which is not at all certain since genealogy is the oldest and most elaborate form of Southern Fiction Writing).
Would that 3/4 of 1% of my ancestry be likely to show up on a DNA test? I know, of course, that
1- x% of your ancestry does not necessarily equal x% of your DNA
2- there’s really no such thing as “Negroid DNA” (though you could test for similarity against, say, an Ibo or Mandinka or Borana or whatever)
but otoh, Sally Heming’s descendants who tested positive for male Jefferson DNA had dozens more non-Jefferson ancestors and the patterns still emerged. If I can ever swing the $ for a DNA test, I will totally do it because I think every one of us would be really surprised to learn just who made us over the years (“Chinese? How’d that get in there… so that’s why Chao did Great Grandma’s hedges for free and why Meemaw got falsely diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome”).
I hate to admit that there is a certain fascination to genealogy, as irritated as I’ve gotten with the Legions of the Walking Dead (and a strangely high percentage of gay men) who are absolutely obsessed with it and patronized the libraries I’ve used. (The most irritating are the newbies, who dont’ seem to understand that newspapers in 1844 didn’t print obituaries for common folk, that the Butts County Times for 1893 has nothing like an index and that we don’t just happen to have every record of mule sales in Quitman County in 1853 lying around.) It’s not even so much the personal connection as just how recently people left human beings in their wills along with wagons and heirloom pendants (not just in the south but in NYC, Philadelphia, etc., as well- Alexander Hamilton, Ben Franklin, etc., all owned slaves), or how people who somehow managed to accumulate 4,000 acres had to make a mark because they couldn’t write their names and yet as illiterate as they were they had children named Flavius Josephus and Catullus, or how the great-grandparents who raised 10 kids to adulthood did so when their farm and net worth together were appraised at $500. They are so like us and so not.
In any case I must run as Louis Farrakhan is waiting. There are some other new guys he wants me to meet before Orientation starts.
Didn’t I read somewhere that every human on Earth is a cousin 64 times removed or something?
At what point does black become black? I don’t think that if you are only 1/128th black you can call yourself black. To me, that smacks of the racist “one drop of blood means you’re tainted!” idea. I would consider it very interesting to consider that you are possibly the descendant of a former slave, and I await with interest your sister’s reaction. How do you think your mom will take it?
