Several weeks ago I received an email from an acquaintance of mine, a man I will describe only as a prominent African American personality. Let's call him Alex. He emailed to say he had read my book, The Stranger in My Genes, and he wanted to discuss something with me...
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Recently, as I was browsing Google, I noticed their doodle for the day.[1] It was honoring Elizabeth “Bessie” Coleman, who was born 26 January 1892. She was the first woman of African American and Native American..
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The documentary “Birth of a Movement” – which premiered on 30 January at the Somerville Theatre outside Boston, and airs nationally on PBS on Monday 6 February during African-American History Month – explores D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a..
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I frequently contribute to a column on The Root online magazine, where I respond with Henry Louis Gates Jr. to genealogical questions from the readers. Often the questions involve trying to trace families..
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[Author's note: This blog post originally appeared in Vita Brevis on 19 August 2015.]
My grandfather died almost 25 years ago, and sometime before that he gave me a box of “family papers.” The box itself is rather striking: a metal strong box, easily portable, with my..
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From tracing free people of color in New England to identifying former slaves in the deep south, NEHGS can help you tell your family story. We have a number of guides and tools in our library and available through our..
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Rock and roll icon Eric Clapton once described Robert Johnson as “the most important blues musician who ever lived.”[1] Despite the fact that Johnson influenced musicians decades after his death, his..
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A couple of weeks ago I was working on an article for The Root, the online magazine, about locating World War I service records for a reader’s Mississippi ancestors. Knowing that the original service records are not..
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One of the envelopes in my box of family papers turns out to contain material on my great-grandfather Campbell Steward (1852–1936) as a boy, as well as a letter written to his married daughter in Europe shortly before his death. Another item caught my eye: a vivid..
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