My mother's great-grandmother, Louisa “Lue” Bobo Danner, was born on January 21, 1842, on the plantation of Dr. William J. Bobo in Union County, South Carolina. She was the eldest of the many children born to Clarissa Bobo, an enslaved woman on the Bobo plantation. Around 1859, Dr. Bobo relocated to Panola County, Mississippi, bringing …
Continue reading Artificial Intelligence and Genetic Genealogy
When I recently made the breakthrough discovery involving the family of my 3rd-great-grandmother, Flora Davis, in which I wrote here, it prompted me to revisit the research I had conducted years earlier on her husband, my 3rd-great-grandfather, Jack Davis Sr. of Panola County, Mississippi. I originally documented that investigation in a blog post published on …
Continue reading Artificial Intelligence and Enslaved Ancestral Research
Last week, I made a remarkable discovery. Quite unexpectedly, I learned that after the Civil War, my great-great-grandfather Hector Davis's brother, George Burnett, returned to South Carolina to reunite with his wife and children, leaving his parents, Jack and Flora Davis, and his siblings behind in northern Mississippi. Until then, I had no idea what …
Wednesday evening began like so many others. I logged into my DNA accounts to see whether any new matches had appeared. One match immediately caught my attention. "KM" shared 44 cM across three segments with my mother, 37 cM with me, and 28 cM with my mother’s brother. AncestryDNA correctly identified her as a maternal …
This morning, after breakfast and a good cup of coffee, I felt an urge to do some genealogy research. More specifically, I felt drawn to revisit my Danner family line. The feeling seemed to come out of nowhere, and as many genealogists can relate, it made me wonder if perhaps the ancestors were giving me …
Continue reading A Sheriff’s Sale Record Solves a Genetic Genealogy Mystery
More than two decades ago, I had the privilege of connecting online with the late Henrietta McGrew Holland of Kalamazoo, Michigan. I no longer remember exactly how our paths first crossed, but genealogy brought us together. She may have come across one of my many posts mentioning that my mother’s family was from Tate and …
When I began researching my family history in 1993, one of the first major discoveries I made was locating the death certificate of my mother’s maternal great-grandmother, Lucy Milam Davis of Panola County (Como), Mississippi, at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Lucy died on November 17, 1927, at approximately 80 years of age. …
Continue reading Another Huge Discovery with FamilySearch’s Full Text Tool
My father’s great-grandmother, Jane Parrott Ealy of Leake County, Mississippi, was born around 1829 in Lunenburg County, Virginia. Her enslaver, Rev. William Parrott, transported Jane, along with her parents and siblings, to Mississippi shortly before 1840. While researching the court records of William Parrott and those of his wife’s family—Elizabeth Johnson Parrott—I discovered that Jane’s …
Over five years ago, I noticed something both intriguing and unexpected: my family shared DNA with people with immediate roots from Washington County, Alabama—despite my family having no known genealogical ties to that area. Initial research revealed that many of their ancestors were classified as “mulatto” in the 1850 and 1860 censuses, indicating they were …
I am deeply grateful for the many thoughtful reviews my new book, From Fragments to Foundation: Uncovering a Buried History of Tragedy and Triumph, has received so far. Each one means a great deal to me, but this particular review from Lori Herbison, posted on Amazon, was especially meaningful. She titled it “10 of 10” …
Roots Revealed 