Our journey begins in North Carolina. It is our aim to research and document the lives of Andrew and Lettie, relying on official documentation, historic newspapers, and oral history as sources in obtaining facts supporting our findings in our quest to trace their lives.
As with many African Americans, tracing family genealogy can be somewhat challenging. However, many sources have indicated that the period during and right after the Civil War is key to beginning their research.
Beginning in 1850, the census named and recorded all free members of households, white and nonwhite. The enumerator recorded the person’s name, age, sex, place of birth, and the color of each free person in a household. The free person’s color was either Negro, Black or Mulatto.
In 1860, nearly 4 million enslaved individuals lived in the United States, representing just under 13 percent of the population.
Everyone has a story. Our mission is to capture and document the hopes and dreams of our ancestors. We imagine that they too, had dreams for our future. And there are so many important and not so important stories about our ancestors that must be told. This is our history and we’re only here for a short time, so it is imperative that we document and pass our history onto future generations. In some cases, the stories have been told, but need to be told from a different perspective. It is our hope that present and future generations will come to appreciate the legacy our ancestors left for us to learn and build upon. Our understanding of our ancestors’ lives and what they experienced continues into our present day. We are who they were.
It is our belief that these stories will reveal that the hope and pain our ancestors endured will make us much stronger and wiser. These stories will reveal the successes, the triumphs, the failures, and the suffering our family experienced. Yet, the lived with such endurance and resilience that we can only imagine. They could not read or write, but they left a legacy that we should be proud of. We have to tell these stories.
Our ancestors are much more than names and dates of birth, they are more that marriage and death. These stories reveal who are ancestors were. The strength they possessed. Through these stories we learn more about our ancestors and their lives. Their lives tell us something about ourselves. So, I am calling on each and everyone of you to share your story about our ancestors and share with pride.
