#Ancestry.com

[kemetic-dreams]

The unspoken history hidden behind a surname

ByLolly Bowean

Chicago Tribune

•

Dec 26, 2017 at 8:00 am

Only the truly curious even ask.

And when a Harvard University student recently inquired about my name, she was clear that she wanted to know about my surname. She repeated it three times out loud and then began probing for something deeper.

She didn’t have to say it, but I knew she was trying to better understand my heritage and ethnic background. My surname, Bowean, is puzzling. And for some, it doesn’t match my physical presence.

When I’m in the Boston region, people ask me if it’s French and I think they are trying to determine if my heritage is Haitian. Others will ask if it’s Celtic, a question that would connect me to the Irish.

The truth is, my last name was probably supposed to be Bowen, but somewhere in the past someone misspelled it and the lives of my family clan were forever changed.

This was a common occurrence. Some Southern African-Americans struggled with literacy after emancipation, and so names took on new spellings. In other cases, white officials didn’t bother to document the correct spellings on public records and the mistakes lived on.

I learned this when I tried to research the history of my last name.

In this country, there are hundreds of Bowens.

Yet, my immediate relatives are the only people I have found with the “Bowean” last name.

I explained this all to the young, curious student. I went on to tell her that the Bowean surname came to my people through marriage.

Before we were Boweans, we were Norwoods and Wakefields rooted in a small town in western North Carolina — near the mountains. Those names are connected back to England.

“Those are my people,” I told her.

“I know some Norwoods and some Wakefields from western North Carolina,” she piped up, almost with an instant giddy excitement. It seemed that for a moment she thought we had found common ground. I’m sure she thought that maybe we knew some of the same people.

The next sentence she almost whispered: “But they’re white.”

As we both stood in the silence, we didn’t speak about the legacy of American slavery.

Yet this is the moment when race and what it means to be African-American comes creeping into the most fleeting of encounters. It’s these unexpected confrontations with history that trigger what writer and social commentator James Baldwin called the “constant state of rage.”

I didn’t tell the student that during slavery, African-Americans were assigned names by their owners, and many times didn’t even have a surname, records show. I didn’t talk about how those residents were at times given the last name of their owner so that they could be identified as that white family’s property.

I also didn’t bother to talk about how, even after the 13th Amendment brought enslaved people a form of freedom, some chose the plantation name as their last name in order to reveal where they were from. African people held on to these names for many reasons — one being the hope to reunite with other family members who would only be able to identify them by these familiar markers.

These are the names that so many African Americans still wear.

The decision to stay bound to these names is deeply personal. I would never change my name — even if I married — mainly because it connects me to a fragmented people. It is the name that binds us together. And I hold on to hope that my relatives, disconnected long ago, can locate me through that shared legacy.

It is in these innocent moments that the troubling history of this country becomes real and the residue reveals itself as still present. I’ve never been ashamed that I am a descendant of people who were enslaved. Yet it is in subtle, seemingly innocent moments that the trauma strikes me.

I began to feel weighted as I stood staring at the college-age woman with a classic, sophisticated Latin name that means purity. I felt the weariness of being pushed into an emotional space and frustrated from having to contemplate whether to delve deeper into a topic I didn’t expect during idle small talk.

Then I remembered that this history is one we don’t like to discuss anyway. We were only making small talk.

“There’s probably a relationship between the two families,” the African-American one and the white one, I remember telling the student. “But I don’t know exactly, specifically, what it is.”

And then to be polite, we left the rest unspoken and parted ways.

#kemetic dreams #african #african culture #southern african americans #afrakan #afrakans #africans #slave names #irish #celtic #european names #ancestry #ancestry.com #african ancestry #family history #genealogy research #lineage

[married-to-a-redhead]

My Family Tree

I was playing around with Ancestry.com last night and I noticed I had some new hints. I managed to connect my lineage to someone else's family tree in Ancestry.com and have now traced my Scottish and English lineage to my 14th Great Grandfather. He was born in 1525AD. 443 years later, his first name is my middle name. And with a minor spelling variation that happened in the 1600's, we have the same last name. I also learned that my 11th Great Grandfather was named Lancelot and my 13th Great Grandfather was named Cuthebert.

Pretty cool. I am glad I didn't know this at the time my sons were born because that might have led me to make some poor naming decisions.

#personal #ancestry.com #one of my sons would probably have cuthebert as his middle name #my wife would have stopped me #Lancelot would be a cool middle name #lancelot is a family name so it's legit to have it as a middle name

[thefearandnow]

yes

#ancestry.com #goodness gracious I spend too much time on that website #but it's soooo fun #this was the first time I'd seen it do this #and yes i would like to make my great great aunt trans thank you

[trouserchili]

#dysfunctional family circus #ancestry.com

[solarpunkjesusfan]

How to find how you are related to other people on someone else's Ancestry.com tree that is shared with you.

I had to figure this out on my own because Ancestry.com tech support articles suck, and I thought I would share in case this comes up in search results. I know Reddit would be better for SEO, but from what I hear Redditt is not really functional right now.

Anyway:

Go to your name on the top right

Go to account settings

Go to trees (on the left side menu)

Go to trees shared with you

Click the arrow to open settings for that tree

Set “who you are in this tree”

After you do that, when you search for anyone in that tree the relationship explanation on their profile will be how they are related to you.

You can then click on that explanation and it will give you the whole chain of people

#ancestry dot com #my post #ancestry #it help #ancestry.com #ancestry.com help

[airbrickwall]

#ancestry.com #black stone #Bloomberg #DNA

[historyhermann]

The "rules of genealogical research": Responding to Tanner's "Genealogy Star" blog

An image from a post on familytree.com titled "Long Lost Relatives from Across the Aisle"

In late December James L. Tanner wrote, on his "Genealogy Star" blogspot, about genealogical research in the age of the internet. He wrote that "fundamental rules of genealogical research" necessitate that every conclusion cite a record or document.He added that "genealogy is not something you just make up in your spare time. The whole idea is that genealogy is based on history." I write this post not to disagree with him, but to the contrary, to agree with him with a doubt.

Reprinted from my History Hermann WordPress blog and Wayback Machine. Originally posted on Jan. 10, 2018.

In the rest of Tanner's post, he notes how the "popular part of genealogy has evolved into a copycat deluge" with content of "record hints" ignored or dismissed, adding that there is "no way to purge the system of the old inaccurate information" meaning that such inaccuracies are "copied as well as the accurate information." He gives examples of the ""Family Data Collection - Deaths" collection (which was "copied from copies") , the "Family Data Collection - Births" collection (similar to the other family data collection), and the "U.S. Social Security Applications and Claims Inde[x]s, 1936-2007" (which could be "accurate, but unless the person looking at the entry goes beyond this entry, there is no way to know if the information is useful") on Ancestry.com. He ends his post by saying the following to the reader:

These are examples of the need to look carefully at the sources and to avoid copying copies. Without a general community-wide awareness of this need, we will keep getting copies of copies and preserving inaccurate information. Part of the blame for this situation lies with the individuals, but more lies with the large online companies who think they have "protected themselves" from criticism by explaining the traps but still promote the traps at the same time.

Before moving on, I'd like to respond to the above recommendations and comments. I agree that it is easy to preserve inaccurate information. However, I think it is horrible that companies like Ancestry and sites like Family Search promote bad records with inaccurate sources. So, you have to be careful with genealogical research without a doubt.

Now, let me add my two cents and personal experience.

When I originally started doing genealogy I was adding sources left and right, copying directly from family trees. These trees made it seem that the family on my mom's side descended from English royalty. I used similar information to "prove" the link from my mom's ancestors to a family of a similar name in England. However, this was all for naught: I only relied on family trees but little else. This meant I had to delete many individuals, deleting the "stinky" parts of my family tree on Ancestry.

Since then, my family tree on Ancestry has become a work in progress. I add and subtract information as needed, from time to time. I use "family trees" as a source but only when other sources are available.I recommend that one avoid other horrible sources like the "American Genealogical-Biographical Index (AGBI)", "Millennium File", "U.S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900" and "Web: Netherlands, GenealogieOnline Trees Index, 1000-2015" if at all possible. One of the collections looks like this:

And here is an example of what the "hints" (or the green leaf on profiles) look like on Ancestry:

In this case, both of these hints are about the right person. However, I clicked "ignore" on both because the profile of his father already listed both censuses. I Just wrote "see 1850 census linked on his father's page" (and the same for 1860), adding in the information from his father's page. I did this because I don't currently have an Ancestry.com subscription, but I have information attached to pages from the time I did have a subscription.

Anyway, more to the point of Tanner's post is a biography on Cyrus Winfield Packard. I originally was going to do the entry on Samuel Packard, which is one of the earliest entries on my family tree but I mostly cite my Packed With Packards! blog (which cites original sources), so it probably isn't a good example of good sourcing. So, I present the following biography (with certain identifying of the family tree information blacked out) as an example of something for other researchers to emulate.

Here is the top half of the page:

Census records and marriage records are the mainstay of this biography, whether federal or state censuses (only some states like Massachusetts have them). There is also a peppering of vital records of Massachusetts, Find A Grave, and posts from my Packed with Packards! blog about Cyrus. Now, census records and vital records can be found on ancestry, but if you don't feel like paying for a subscription like yours truly then you can look up the same records on familysearch.org. You need to create an account now, but it is still relatively easy and a free-to-use service. This is an advantage of Family Search over Ancestry without a doubt.

Then there is the second half of the biography:

It continues in the same vein as the top half. I tried my best to source every bit of information I found. You may notice that I used photographs as a source. These come from a collection of Massachusetts Land Records at www.masslandrecords.com which you can search free and online. I was able to find a good many land records that way, which was very helpful to telling the story of Cyrus Winfield Packard. This blog is one, maybe of the first posts connecting my Packed With Packards! blog with this one.

I look forward to hearing your comments.

© 2018-2023 Burkely Hermann. All rights reserved.

#genealogy #family history #genealogy research #research #rules #ancestry hints #packards #ancestry.com

[neurodivergentgeneologist]

Finally found some of that family drama people warn you about. Apparently my 1st cousin 3x removed divorced his first wife (still figuring out who that was) to marry his mistress when she got pregnant. Guessing that didn’t go over well with the Catholics since he’s listed as living with his MIL in the 1920 census. 

#geneaology #family history #ancestry.com #ancestry #family drama #1920 census

[liluglydudefromdetroit]

My initial fear about doing DNA testing for ancestry was that the most personal information about ME would be given to a company and stored after they determine my historical roots. Then I wondered if they would sell that info, or the DNA itself. Then I wondered who would want that and why. That's when I discovered Blackrock, who is the world's largest assets manager. They're betting on people getting to know their family's history and medical history, then they use that for pharmaceutical research. I don't like it.

But as a guy who is very interested in my family history, having 1 adopted parent and no info on their family leaves the door of unanswered questions wide open, permanently. Could their parents still be alive? Any siblings? Does anyone look like me? Are they looking for us? Do they know about us? Do they even want to know? I've heard some horror stories about finding family that didn't want to be found. Idk how I'd take that...but better to know than to wonder??

What would y'all do in my case? Should I get over the paranoia and take the test?

#ancestry #i'm paranoid #blackrock #conspiracy theory #ancestry.com #adoption #help

[deborabuerk-the-write-stuff]

Scottish? Irish? Who are Ulster Scots. ☘️

View On WordPress

#Ancestry.com #History #Ireland #Ohara #Scotland #Scott-Irish #Source: Ancestry.com #Source: Family Tree Magazine #Source: Wikipedia #Ulster Scott

[kemetic-dreams]

#lupita nyong'o #african #afrakan #kemetic dreams #brownskin #afrakans #africans #brown skin #african culture #afrakan spirituality #afrakan woman #deep reddish brown skin #africa #epic video #roots #finding your roots #ancestry.com #african ancestry #ancestry #Kenyan #Louis Henry gates

[married-to-a-redhead]

My lovely redhead was able to trace her ancestry to an Artillery Sergeant who served in the American Revolutionary War. Today, I mailed my oldest son’s application to join the Sons of the American Revolution. My wife is now in the process of joining the Daughters of the American Revolution. I love history so it’s great to have a connection to it, even if it’s not me directly.

I confess that in a fit of envy, I have been playing around with Ancestry.com as well to see if I could find anything like that and no luck. All of my ancestors were still in Europe at the time of the Revolutionary War. However, I think I found my 15th Great Grandfather who was born in Dyce, Aberdeenshire, Scotland in . . . 1500 A.D. Pretty cool if it is true! I visited Aberdeen twice on business over the years, I had no idea that my heritage could be traced to the area. Maybe that’s why it felt a bit like I belonged there when I visited.

I think I will have a wee dram of Scotch in honor of my ancestor, as if I needed an excuse to drink Scotch.

#personal #sons of the American Revolution #heritage #ancestry #ancestry.com #scotch #this might explain my love for redheads

[vpgoldenrod]

Thank you, AncestryDNA, for explaining how marvelous my ancestors were to the Spanish conquistadors. I bet they really cherished and respected them.

#I’d love to know more about my marvelous Taíno ancestors but turns out they got genocided!?! #wonder who did that #ancestry.com #ancestry dna #Taíno #colonialism

[bobmueller]

Unearthing Generations: How Ancestry Research Revealed More Than Just Names

Well, I had hoped Jim Harbaugh would have stayed at Michigan, but I can’t blame him for leaving. I’m just glad he didn’t end up with the Falcons. Best of luck to new head coach Sherrone Moore. A Genealogy Find The other day I popped over to Ancestry to do some work on Oldest Son’s line. When I searched his maternal grandfather, I got a hit to a family tree with some extra people that I didn’t…

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#Ancestry.com #family history #Fulton #genealogy #Ohio #weekly

[aixelsyd13]

New Year’s Day Pork & Sauerkraut II

I came to blog my recipe then through a search, discovered I posted one last year! That was in the roasting pan though, and it was a pork loin rib half. This year, I put a pork shoulder roast in the crock pot... and made some dumplings 2 ways too!

View On WordPress

#ale #Amber #Amber Lager #American Amber #Ancestry #Ancestry.com #Appalachia #Apple #apple juice #apples #Base #Bavarian Style #Beer #biscuit #Biscuits #Bisquick #Bob Evans #bottle #brown sugar #bullion #butter #Buttermilk #Cabbage #caraway #chili dog #chili dogs #crock pot #CrockPot #dinner #DNA

[stubz]

last night I overheard a group of 12 year old boys arguing and one of them was

"You gonna fight me like the viking you are??? Gonna f*cking take that viking ancestry, grab a boat, and sail over to my house and beat me up? Yah right dude I've got Neanderthal in me!"

I was dying inside cause now I was legit hoping they'd fight cause who wouldn't want to see a viking fight a neanderthal? But then I realized that'd look bad if another adult saw me just standing there in the corner watching two 12 y/os duking it out

#neanderthal boy was like 6 inches shorter and looked to be 90 pounds but I'd put my oney on him #viking kid was bigger but was lacking moxy #neanderthal vs viking #ancestry.com