Exploring my family tree

The recent brouhaha over Al Sharpton's ancestors possibly being slaves of Strom Thurmond's ancestors sparked my interest anew in tracing my family tree. Several years ago I had started on this journey but after a while abandoned it. Last week, I started up again.

I went to Ancestry.com, the tool the researchers used to find the link between Al Sharpton and Strom Thurmond's ancestors, and began plugging in the names of family members I knew. Ancestry.com has a search feature that helps you explore birth, marriage, death, census, military, and other records (they give you access to copies of original documents) that can give you detailed information about your ancestors. For example, I knew who my Grandma Charlie Mack's parents were but I had know idea that census records would tell me where she and her family lived when she was nine years old and the names and ages of her siblings at that time. It was very eye opening.

Through my research I've discovered a distant cousin who has been tracing the maternal side of family roots for years. She has a website linking to photos, marriage records, and a whole host of information on my mother's family from now to the mid to early 1800s. I now know the names (and even have a photo, which I posted) of ALL my great great great grandparents. Unfortunately that's as far back as she's been able to go, but her search and mine continues.

While I can trace my mother's family back to the mid to early 1800s, before last week, I could only trace my father's family as far as my grandparents. My father was able to give me some names of his family, but he wasn't sure how they were related to him. So I started making phone calls to my aunts and uncles to see if they could give me some information, and although they knew maybe a fraction more than my dad, what little they knew really helped my search. Within 2 days, using their input and Ancestry.com, I was able to trace my paternal grandfather's maternal line to the early 1800s and possibly even the late 1700s. I say possibly because in the 1800s people had very similar names and it can be easy to get one John or James confused with another. So I'm trying to be very careful.

One thing I'm learning is that this type of research takes a lot of time and patience. I'm not sure how easy or hard it is for White people to trace their lines, but it can be very difficult for African Americans. For me to be able to trace my family to the early 1800s or beyond is very good and I assume very rare. The institution of slavery split up families, changed people's names, and spread people all over the country. Trying to trace a family member who lived during those times can be nearly impossible. What's been helpful to me is that most of my ancestors lived in the same area that their descendants live today.

My hope is that within the next few weeks I will be able to have at the very least the names of my paternal great grandparents. Overall, it's really been a fascinating journey. One I hope to share with my own children one day.