Every genealogist, regardless of experience levels, has a family line that makes him or her want…
Tag: interracial relationships
1667: The year America was divided by race
Genealogical research has sent me down an American history rabbit hole once again. I don’t mind.…
Discovering Pocahontas: A family surprise
I never get tired of saying that it’s been the women in my family tree who…
The 1926 Lynching of Raymond Byrd Part II
The August 1926 lynching of my second cousin twice removed, Raymond Arthur Byrd, remains one of…
Isaiah Francis Grubb & Melinda Straw: a tale of love across 19th Century colour lines
I’ve been spending some time researching my distant Sheffey relations in Wythe County, Virginia. Specifically, I’ve…
Martha Ann Fowler Hill: Smashing genealogy walls with the correct maiden name
Martha Fowler Hill is an important linchpin in my black Wythe Sheffey family story in the…
When writing about an ancestor ‘outs’ their race: can there ever be an etiquette for this?
I’m sitting on the horns of dilemma. As you’d suspect, it’s not a comfortable place to…
John Newton Sheffey: Scandalous adultery in 1860s Wytheville
This isn’t the funny story I promised in my previous post. That one involved Stuart Sheffey…
George Henry Roane: Ancestry.com DNA test throws me a curve ball
While Ancestry.com’s DNA test answered a fundamental question about which second generation German-American Sheffey was the…
Ancestry.com DNA test answers one fundamental question
In my previous post Using the right DNA testing tool to answer the right ancestry question…