Month: October 2018

Inter-Connected Chickasaw Freedmen Families Episode #433 October 3, 2018

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A recent visitor to a Facebook group devoted to Choctaw and Chickasaw Freedmen, has seen a surge of activity with new visitors asking questions and getting help. One visitor placed some questions about her family that came from Burneyville, Indian Territory. Friend and colleague Terry Ligon responded .

Starting out with a query about the Gaines family, Terry pointed out that one branch of that family lead to his Love ancestors through Simon Love.

We spoke more in-depth about how inter-connected Chickasaw Freedmen families are from southern Oklahoma. Our conversation described how important it is for the family researcher to look beyond the one immediate line, and to study the community. By doing so–an amazing adventure awaits the researcher where so many incredible aspects of the family’s history will be learned.

Here are the cards that started the conversation.

Minor Chickasaw Freedman Card #213*

Chickasaw Freedman Card #546*

Enjoy the conversation between two Oklahoma Freedmen researchers. (Click on the link above to hear our conversation.)

* (National Archives Publication M1186 Image accessed on Ancestry.com)

Digging the Roots – Episode #432 Talking DNA

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In this episode I am here with my good friend and colleague Shelley Murphy and we recently attended an event at Poplar Forest, the “other” home of Thomas Jefferson. We were there for African American Family History Day!

 

On Saturday September 22, we both presented there, and we talked about numerous issues at Poplar forest including looking at documents and we discussed methods of analyzing documents to tell the family story. Shelley was able to get the class to move beyond simply having a document, but to analyzing it and asking her favorite question—“So What?”

And I enjoyed the opportunity to get to share the story of how I was able to extract a story from a Civil War record, by telling the story that I found from one of my favorite ancestors—Uncle Sephus Bass! There was much interest in not only the story of Uncle Sephus and the 4 ancestors who were captured and who later escaped from Nathan B. Forrest but also of the US Colored Troops. Truly that was a wonderful day with much discussion about our job to find the story from the records.

The following day, Shelley and I sat down to reflect and our conversation evolved into one of  our responsibility as family historians—which these days is enhanced so much more by DNA and its impact on genealogy

As we spoke, we asked questions— What do we do with sensitive information? What is our responsibility? Especially this arises when it comes to DNA. What do we do when find out that family members are not closely related to us? What is our role? Do we share it–and how do we handle it?

Listen to this lively discussion between Shelley and myself about our responsibility as researchers. I hope you enjoy our dialogue. Thanks for listening and remember to keep researching, keep documenting and always keep sharing what you find.