Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates Jr. - General Discussion

[shapeshifter]

1 hour ago, PattyG said:

I also noticed that he avoided calling it a genocide, but used the term massacre instead. I know it's not like massacre has a positive connotation but genocide has another added dimension. 

I hope that with regard to HLG Jr. tiptoeing around the Armenian genocide that it’s just about his sensibilities as a scholar and not related to some big donors’ directive.  

[Grammaeryn]

I am a daughter of a WWII survivor. I grew up hearing about starving, losing everything, bombs, and women with cyanide in their teeth. Quite frankly, I’d love to have had a traumatized into silence kind of family! My grandmother told the stories for the attention/drama. My dad told the stories to guilt us when we complained about dinner or clothes. He was a ruminator. He had entire bookshelves full of WWII books. He even figured out the exact squadron that bombed the city he had been living in as a child. I like to joke that my other sibling is WWII.

I believe I read somewhere that Hitler knew he could get away with the Final Solution because look at what happened to the Armenians. 

[Yeah No]

On 2/11/2021 at 4:06 PM, Razzberry said:

I'm also skeptical about this "melon head" story.  Most heads are round and not shaped like bananas so WTF?  Sometimes I wonder if Gates just makes up this stuff on the spot.

On 2/11/2021 at 6:05 PM, shapeshifter said:

It's common in the U.S. for adults to refer fondly to babies as "pun'kin" (pumpkin) --which I'm not sure if it's supposed to be a reference to something being found in a pumpkin patch, and, if so, the origin of that reference, or if it's a reference to the smooth, baldness of a pumpkin. Anyway, that might be similar to the melon reference. Any Italian speakers here? Or anyone with Italian-speaking relatives (the older the better, and especially if they were from that part of Italy)?

 Sure, I think HLG Jr. was just pointing out that Meloni's name means "melon," and might have an interesting reference. 

When Henry mentioned the "melon head" thing, I actually chuckled because it is sooooooo Italian to make everything about food.  

I suppose this isn't the most shining example, but if anyone saw the movie "The Green Book", when the African American workers were over at the main character's house, his relatives called them "muligniani", which is a slur in the old Sicilian dialect for a black person and literally means "eggplant".

When I was a kid I was routinely called all sorts of affectionate vegetable names in both Italian and French since my family was fluent in both having lived in Tunisia and Montreal after leaving Sicily.  I was shocked but LOL when I eventually found out that I was being called everything from a little potato to a cabbage to a meatball, etc.  So yeah, I totally bought that.

[Yeah No]

On 2/10/2021 at 8:00 PM, OtterMommy said:

While the Ellis Island name changing myth seems to be just that, immigrants often changed their names.  Sometimes it wasn't so much because their names were hard to pronounce (although I'm sure that did happen), but because they were more employable with a more American sounding name.  Prejudice was not just directed at the Irish.

Even though my mom was born in the US, before she got married she had difficulty getting a job as a secretary in NYC with an Italian last name in the 1940s and was using an anglicized version.  Fortunately her name was easily translatable into English.  She never had it formally changed but back then it was easy to use a different name on your job application and get away with it.  Then she married my Dad, whose father (as I've already mentioned) changed his German/Jewish sounding name to a more anglicized version.  I have actually known a few people with the same spelling as my Dad's anglicized name (including a semi-well known author), and it is kind of rare so I have always wondered if any of them were related but never found that to be true.  I have found relatives but they all used the non-anglicized versions (and there were more than one of those too).

Interestingly, my Mom worked for a few years for an African American lawyer in Harlem after WWII and before she went back into the Army.  I just found his photo the other day.  He was a well known and prominent attorney in Harlem back then and took her to all the jazz clubs.  On the back of his photo my mother wrote that they joined the crowd in Times Square for the VE Day celebration on May 8, 1945.  It is not commonly known but back then Harlem had a distinctly Italian neighborhood on the East side.  My great grandfather lived there until he died in 1965.  If anyone here knows of Rao's, the famous Italian restaurant that's over 100 years old, it's in East Harlem.

Edited February 15, 2021 by Yeah No

[SophiaD]

On 2/13/2021 at 10:43 PM, shapeshifter said:

I hope that with regard to HLG Jr. tiptoeing around the Armenian genocide that it’s just about his sensibilities as a scholar and not related to some big donors’ directive.  

I was wondering that myself, @shapeshifter.  I hope not, too.  It upset me quite a bit when he danced around the Genocide (my mother is Armenian and my father is Jewish).  

I suppose one of the reasons I was so shocked that Tony Shalhoub knew so little about that is we heard about it all of the time.  OTOH, my father's family never talked about Judaism and our branch didn't practice at all.  I didn't even find out I was of Jewish descent until I was a teenager, which reinforces that every family deals with trauma differently.  

 

[shapeshifter]

I watched this episode this past evening:

Quote

"Write My Name in the Book of Life"

New, 2/16/2021,  Season 7 / Episode 5

Henry Louis Gates Jr. helps musician Pharrell Williams and filmmaker Kasi Lemmons uncover rare first-person accounts of their enslaved ancestors.

It broke my heart to see the juxtaposition of Pharrell's "Happy" song against his palpable anger at learning about the brutality of his ancestors' owners. 😞

I'm glad they also included Kasi Lemmons' laughter at learning she was pretty much just "6 degrees"* from Kevin Bacon. 
-----------

* They did Not use the phrase "6 degrees from Kevin Bacon"
BTW, on the show that feature Kevin Bacon, even his wife, Kyra Sedgewick, was related to him.

[Razzberry]

1 hour ago, SophiaD said:

It upset me quite a bit when he danced around the Genocide (my mother is Armenian and my father is Jewish). 

I think Hitler learned a lot from the Turks.  The genocides had many similarities, from the smashing of store windows, "resettlement" lies, crowded train cars, death marches, all under cover of a wider war.  It's high time for Turkey and other countries to stop denying this happened, or there can be no healing.

[Yeah No]

2 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

I watched this episode this past evening:

It broke my heart to see the juxtaposition of Pharrell's "Happy" song against his palpable anger at learning about the brutality of his ancestors' owners. 😞

I'm glad they also included Kasi Lemmons' laughter at learning she was pretty much just "6 degrees"* from Kevin Bacon. 
-----------

* They did Not use the phrase "6 degrees from Kevin Bacon"
BTW, on the show that feature Kevin Bacon, even his wife, Kyra Sedgewick, was related to him.

Oh, I know, I felt the same way about Pharrell.  It was also a sad juxtaposition to see his reaction vs. Kasi's relatively positive one at learning her family history in spite of slavery.   I hope he can overcome some of that anger in time, not that I blame him in the least.

I wish that when they found famous cousins they would tell us the actual relationship rather than say, "meet your cousin".  It makes it sound like they're a first cousin when they may actually be a 6th cousin 10 times removed.  I'm sure I'm probably related to Kevin Bacon too given that we both have similar genealogy in New England.

[blueray]

Pherrell wasn't nearly as bad as I thought he was going to be. I Hate! the song Happy. Seriously every time I hear a second of it, I get instantly angry and want to smash stuff. I've obviously restrain from this and turn off the sound so quick during this episode, I almost fell off the couch. But besides the song (and the rest of his "music"), I've also never been a fan of him. I finally realize what it is that rubs me the wrong way. He lacks the ability to show normal emotion so instead he over confiscates for it. This leads to him saying things that he thinks are profound and moving when they are just annoying. Like just talk it's okay if it comes out kind of boring, not everything is "It came from my soul".  He did this on the voice as well. Also leads to him seeming like he isn't interested. But after watching this episode, I realized he obviously did care or he wouldn't have done the show. And that he probably has some disability (?) that makes it hard for him to show his emotions in a way that doesn't come off as fake. 

Edited February 17, 2021 by blueray

[Dehumidifier]

8 hours ago, Yeah No said:

 

I wish that when they found famous cousins they would tell us the actual relationship rather than say, "meet your cousin".  It makes it sound like they're a first cousin when they may actually be a 6th cousin 10 times removed.  I'm sure I'm probably related to Kevin Bacon too given that we both have similar genealogy in New England.

I think they base their determination of cousin-ship only only the few sections of shared DNA. I don't think they research that issue any further. They all seem to be pretty distant to me.

[sempervivum]

I'm tired of these celebrities who can't come up with any reactions other than 'That's crazy!'. Pharrel Williams was particularly bad, though hardly the only one I've seen on this show.

Also, it seemed weirdly like he had never connected himself to the history of slavery- where did he think he came from, a long line of Swedish sailors? All of a sudden, he sees the words of Jane, and the picture of her master, and he's angry-what was he before? It just struck me as an odd reaction for a middle-aged Black man. 

 

 

 

[meep.meep]

12 hours ago, shapeshifter said:

 

I'm glad they also included Kasi Lemmons' laughter at learning she was pretty much just "6 degrees"* from Kevin Bacon. 

Actually, if she's related to him, she's 1 degree from Kevin Bacon.

They're not really cousins - they just have some identical DNA.  They didn't even show how much the two of them shared.

I think it's one thing to know that your ancestors were enslaved and had a hard life.  It's another to be confronted with the description of that life from an actual person who you are related to.  Pharell seemed overwhelmed and about to burst into tears and is apparently someone who can't show emotion on camera.   

[Suzn]

1 hour ago, sempervivum said:

I'm tired of these celebrities who can't come up with any reactions other than 'That's crazy!'. Pharrel Williams was particularly bad, though hardly the only one I've seen on this show.

Also, it seemed weirdly like he had never connected himself to the history of slavery- where did he think he came from, a long line of Swedish sailors? All of a sudden, he sees the words of Jane, and the picture of her master, and he's angry-what was he before? It just struck me as an odd reaction for a middle-aged Black man. 

 

 

 

That struck me as very odd.  Certainly to read the words of someone from his ancestry is very effecting and makes it more personal, but did he never connect the horrors of slavery to himself before?  I don't remember seeing anyone become so angry about their ancestry.  Of course outrage and anger is an appropriate response to slavery, but there was something in his reaction that was a little concerning.  It sounded as though that if he met descendants of the slave owners that it would be confrontational.  It can be argued that there should be reparations for slavery, but I have trouble with holding descendants personally responsible for what their ancestors did.

ETA  I'm pretty tired of hearing "That's crazy".

Edited February 17, 2021 by Suzn

[12catcrazy]

This was an interesting episode.  I thought the personal history of living under slavery as told by Pharrel's great, great, aunt was especially fascinating, and to realize that there were people still alive in the 1930s who had lived through that.  

I agree with others above who think that Pharrel's reaction seemed... I don't know, odd.   Either he is a man who doesn't think too deeply about life outside his own experience or he really doesn't know the way to react,  so he  fakes it?   I can see where many African American people just want to put the stain of slavery behind them (in the way that so many European immigrants had put their hardships behind them when they started anew in America), but Pharrel reacted like the whole slavery thing was a big surprise to him.  It just seemed very odd.    And anybody else think that he looks so much like his mother?  

I had never heard of the other guest, Kasi Lemmons, -  she seemed like somebody who you could actually kick back and have a drink with.  Interesting how her DNA was almost half European.  Amazing how the genetic roll of the dice works.  

[Razzberry]

We're probably all related to someone famous, but it takes some in-depth genealogy. Once you get to third cousins it explodes exponentially.

I also thought his reaction was disturbing.  One can get mired in ancestral grudges if they choose to and it seemed like Gates was egging him on.  

[tljgator]

See, I had a totally different reaction than most of you...I thought Pharrell was genuinely overwhelmed by the emotion of reading a first-person account of how devastatingly awful her experience was and couldn't bring himself to imagine what kind of person could do that to another human being. He seems so focused on being empathetic and understanding humanity that it kind of short circuited his thinking to not be able to understand, and also, to have a reaction of 'hate' rather than empathy. (I also think that was Dr. Gates' larger point about how different it is to think of what "a slave" is in the abstract -- something we envision from TV or movie depictions -- and reading a vivid accounting from someone close enough in relation to someone you knew in reality, for it to register meaningfully as 'personal' history.)

I often do find people like that fake or off-putting, but I didn't with him for some reason -- I think because he did offer thoughtful responses to how he felt until it got to that point, and I could see him trying to work through it in his mind, even if he couldn't quite get there. In his way of thinking about the world, he just couldn't make sense of it. Kasi, on the other hand, seemed to realize the contrary feelings she was having, and while genuinely upset, could still find meaning in a way that Pharrell couldn't at that moment.

Mileage varies and all that. I've really been enjoying this season bringing some new stories and angles on things. (Also, really, really loved her burst of laughter at realizing she really was six degrees from Kevin Bacon, lol -- much needed after a heavy episode.)

[Yeah No]

4 hours ago, sempervivum said:

Also, it seemed weirdly like he had never connected himself to the history of slavery- where did he think he came from, a long line of Swedish sailors? All of a sudden, he sees the words of Jane, and the picture of her master, and he's angry-what was he before? It just struck me as an odd reaction for a middle-aged Black man. 

I think it's probably different when most of your life you've had some vague idea of how your ancestors were probably treated and then suddenly being confronted with actual first or second hand accounts of that mistreatment.  I'm sure it was a shock to him to actually be faced with that information and so his angry reaction was to me more understandable.  I think he was trying not to appear as angry on camera as he actually was, which is why some people interpreted his behavior as being odd or disingenuous.  Henry doesn't give the participants any foreknowledge of what he's going to reveal to them so their reactions are "in the moment".  I think it would be a lot to process for anyone and even harder having it recorded for a TV show.  I can remember when I first found out some pretty shocking genealogical information my head was spinning until I could process it.  In some cases I was so proud I could burst but in others I was taken really off guard.  I would find it hard to react "appropriately" in some of those cases.  Pharrell is not an actor or someone that's probably that used to effacing his real feelings in order to look "TV appropriate" so I actually thought his reaction was a result of trying too hard and not doing so well at it.  And it was no wonder then that Henry stopped the interview and resumed it at a later time after he was able to process the information.

25 minutes ago, tljgator said:

See, I had a totally different reaction than most of you...I thought Pharrell was genuinely overwhelmed by the emotion of reading a first-person account of how devastatingly awful her experience was and couldn't bring himself to imagine what kind of person could do that to another human being. He seems so focused on being empathetic and understanding humanity that it kind of short circuited his thinking to not be able to understand, and also, to have a reaction of 'hate' rather than empathy. (I also think that was Dr. Gates' larger point about how different it is to think of what "a slave" is in the abstract -- something we envision from TV or movie depictions -- and reading a vivid accounting from someone close enough in relation to someone you knew in reality, for it to register meaningfully as 'personal' history.)

I often do find people like that fake or off-putting, but I didn't with him for some reason -- I think because he did offer thoughtful responses to how he felt until it got to that point, and I could see him trying to work through it in his mind, even if he couldn't quite get there. In his way of thinking about the world, he just couldn't make sense of it. Kasi, on the other hand, seemed to realize the contrary feelings she was having, and while genuinely upset, could still find meaning in a way that Pharrell couldn't at that moment.

Mileage varies and all that. I've really been enjoying this season bringing some new stories and angles on things. (Also, really, really loved her burst of laughter at realizing she really was six degrees from Kevin Bacon, lol -- much needed after a heavy episode.)

I had the exact same reaction as you, FWIW!

[Yeah No]

5 hours ago, Dehumidifier said:

I think they base their determination of cousin-ship only only the few sections of shared DNA. I don't think they research that issue any further. They all seem to be pretty distant to me.

Actually, 23andMe's algorithms automatically compute your predicted relationship (i.e. 4th cousin, etc.) to someone based on the percentage of DNA sections match, so Henry would be able to give them that information.  I can see it on my account.  I can even compare my strands to my matches to see how many segments we share.  In most cases we don't share that much, and the farther back you share a common ancestor, the less segments are shared.

4 hours ago, meep.meep said:

They're not really cousins - they just have some identical DNA.  They didn't even show how much the two of them shared.

If you share some identical DNA with someone that automatically makes you at least some kind of cousin, so the real question is how long ago you shared an ancestor, and 23 and me can predict that within a certain margin of error based on the percentage of DNA that is shared.  If you share parents, you are siblings, if you share grandparents you are first cousins, great grandparents, second cousins, etc., etc. all down the line.  Of course there are aunts and uncles too all down the line, which is another relationship they can calculate based on what is shared. Then there's the matter of how many times you are "removed", which is another matter.  I wish the show actually did give out that information but I suppose I'm asking for too much.

Edited February 17, 2021 by Yeah No

[Suzn]

3 minutes ago, Yeah No said:

Actually, 23andMe's algorithms automatically compute your predicted relationship (i.e. 4th cousin, etc.) to someone based on the percentage of DNA sections match, so Henry would be able to give them that information.  I can see it on my account.  I can even compare my strands to my matches to see how many segments we share.  In most cases we don't share that much, and the farther back you share a common ancestor, the less segments are shared.

If you share some identical DNA with someone that automatically makes you at least some kind of cousin, so the real question is how long ago you shared an ancestor, and 23 and me can predict that within a certain margin of error based on the percentage of DNA that is shared.  If you share parents, you are siblings, if you share grandparents you are first cousins, great grandparents, second cousins, etc., etc. all down the line.  Then there's the matter of how many times you are "removed", which is another matter.  I wish the show actually did give out that information but I suppose I'm asking for too much.

Ancestry.com also gives that information.

[AppleCore]

My first thought was, "Dang, he broke Pharell!" I thought Pharell looked stunned and was glad he got a break. It seemed to me that seeing the smug slave owner named William Williams slammed home the origin of his last name. I wouldn't be surprised if he dropped the last name and just went by Pharell now. I wouldn't blame him either. He really seemed to be affected by reading the letter. I think he really felt Jane's voice. 

[Yeah No]

6 hours ago, Suzn said:

Ancestry.com also gives that information.

Yup, I have an account with them too.  I mentioned 23 and Me because that's the service used on the show.

[ShelleySue]

22 hours ago, sempervivum said:

16 hours ago, Yeah No said:

I think it's probably different when most of your life you've had some vague idea of how your ancestors were probably treated and then suddenly being confronted with actual first or second hand accounts of that mistreatment.  I'm sure it was a shock to him to actually be faced with that information and so his angry reaction was to me more understandable.  I think he was trying not to appear as angry on camera as he actually was, which is why some people interpreted his behavior as being odd or disingenuous. 

I had the exact same reaction as you, FWIW!

Also, it seemed weirdly like he had never connected himself to the history of slavery- where did he think he came from, a long line of Swedish sailors? All of a sudden, he sees the words of Jane, and the picture of her master, and he's angry-what was he before? It just struck me as an odd reaction for a middle-aged Black man. 

 

 

 

Like most Jewish people I knew that I must have had relatives that were murdered in the Holocaust.  It wasn't until I started doing research that I found out my grandfather's siblings, their spouses and children were murdered.  The Yad Vashem records  had pictures of them and accounts of some of their deaths.  Even though I knew that things like that happened, and must have happened to my family, it was very different seeing it in writing.  So I didn't find Pharrell's response at all odd or strange.

[deirdra]

On 2/17/2021 at 3:00 PM, tljgator said:

I've really been enjoying this season bringing some new stories and angles on things. (Also, really, really loved her burst of laughter at realizing she really was six degrees from Kevin Bacon, lol -- much needed after a heavy episode.)

That was funny.  It reminded me of a past guest who turned the page to see a pic of "cousin" HLG Jr. himself.  And Bernie Sanders & Larry David.

Edited February 18, 2021 by deirdra

[Gizkok]

As far as being related to Kevin Bacon, I found out I am too! And to a whole lot of other people, many even more famous. I've done my family tree on Geni and if I do a general (such as google) search of someone's family tree and find all sorts of things, scroll down to the geni.com entry and it shows a connection, if there is one. Shows both blood and in-law relationships.

[shapeshifter]

28 minutes ago, Gizkok said:

As far as being related to Kevin Bacon, I found out I am too! And to a whole lot of other people, many even more famous. I've done my family tree on Geni and if I do a general (such as google) search of someone's family tree and find all sorts of things, scroll down to the geni.com entry and it shows a connection, if there is one. Shows both blood and in-law relationships.

Is this because of a Charlemagne connection (https://www.geni.com/blog/discovering-youre-related-to-charlemagne-3103556.html)?

Or: http://m.nautil.us/issue/56/perspective/youre-descended-from-royalty-and-so-is-everybody-else ?

[carrps]

On 2/17/2021 at 11:42 AM, 12catcrazy said:

And anybody else think that he looks so much like his mother?   

Exactly! I also really appreciated that he didn't read his aunt's story in the dialect voice it was written in. I found it a little cringy.

Norah O'Donnell was HLG Jr.'s cousin.

[Gizkok]

I started searching when he had Glenn Close on and I noticed a name that appeared in my family tree too. When Gates talked about that couple, the Strongs, he mentioned how many children they had had and that there were now hundreds of thousand of descendants. I am her ninth cousin, Kevin Bacon's 17th cousin and Kyra Sedgwick's 14th cousin.

My sister has figured out a connection to Charlemagne but I can't put my hands on it just now.  It seems to be harder to find someone I'm not related to.

[Driad]

Some early Americans are known to have royal descent, so if you descend from one of them you have royal ancestors (probably including Charlemagne). One is Thomas Dudley (1576-1653) who was a governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

[shapeshifter]

On 2/18/2021 at 10:24 AM, ShelleySue said:

On 2/17/2021 at 12:18 PM, sempervivum said:

On 2/17/2021 at 5:26 PM, Yeah No said:

I think it's probably different when most of your life you've had some vague idea of how your ancestors were probably treated and then suddenly being confronted with actual first or second hand accounts of that mistreatment.  I'm sure it was a shock to him to actually be faced with that information and so his angry reaction was to me more understandable.  I think he was trying not to appear as angry on camera as he actually was, which is why some people interpreted his behavior as being odd or disingenuous. 

I had the exact same reaction as you, FWIW!

Also, it seemed weirdly like he had never connected himself to the history of slavery- where did he think he came from, a long line of Swedish sailors? All of a sudden, he sees the words of Jane, and the picture of her master, and he's angry-what was he before? It just struck me as an odd reaction for a middle-aged Black man. 

 

 

 

Read more  

Like most Jewish people I knew that I must have had relatives that were murdered in the Holocaust.  It wasn't until I started doing research that I found out my grandfather's siblings, their spouses and children were murdered.  The Yad Vashem records  had pictures of them and accounts of some of their deaths.  Even though I knew that things like that happened, and must have happened to my family, it was very different seeing it in writing.  So I didn't find Pharrell's response at all odd or strange.

Yes, I doubt I will ever know specific names and circumstances of my recent ancestors who were enslaved, brutalized, and put to death by the Nazis. My mother, who would have had relatives in Germany at that time, preferred we not even tell people we were Jewish in our post-war, white suburbs. But that bitter look on Pharrell's face is one I've seen on my mother's.

Pharrell's grandfather's first name was "Pharaoh" (https://www.pbs.org/weta/finding-your-roots/watch/episodes/write-my-name-in-the-book-of-life, 11:23), like a king of Egypt. The marriage document with his name was from 1947 (same year my parents were married) when Pharaoh Williams was 22. So in 1925, he was given a name indicating royalty. But also, his Aunt's brothers --born in the 1850s-- were named "Farro" and "Ceasar" (12:44-13:09) both names of rulers, even though they were then enslaved. This seems to speak to a hope that has born fruit in Pharrell.
Although it is not until minutes 15:52-19:36 that we hear of the severity of the abuse of Pharrell's not-too-distant ancestors, I keep imagining the anger we saw on his face may have been after he had first read those words.

During the 20 years I worked in a College library, I guarded our microfilm copies of The Slave Narratives from being "weeded" from the collection, and, later, when they became available online (https://www.loc.gov/collections/slave-narratives-from-the-federal-writers-project-1936-to-1938/about-this-collection/) I entered links to online finding aids.
But few students doing research on the subject or instructors teaching the subject were interesting in them -- perhaps because there is a presumption that they are included in other, more readable sources --which they are, but not entirely. 
In 7th grade my history teacher read from them. It shocked me. I have never forgotten.

 

[sempervivum]

6 minutes ago, shapeshifter said:

he was given a name indicating royalty. But also, his Aunt's brothers --born in the 1850s-- were named "Farro" and "Ceasar" (12:44-13:09) both names of rulers, even though they were then enslaved. This seems to speak to a hope that has born fruit in Pharrell.

I assumed that grandfather's name 'Pharaoh' was a family name (of an ancestor from slavery times, perhaps even the 'Farro' referenced). But for the 2Xgreat uncles, slaves born on the plantation would have been named by their owner, I think, and I was under the impression that (male) slaves were sometimes given grandiose names as a 'joke'.

[shapeshifter]

25 minutes ago, sempervivum said:

I assumed that grandfather's name 'Pharaoh' was a family name (of an ancestor from slavery times, perhaps even the 'Farro' referenced). But for the 2Xgreat uncles, slaves born on the plantation would have been named by their owner, I think, and I was under the impression that (male) slaves were sometimes given grandiose names as a 'joke'.

Perhaps. Even probably. But, at least in the case of grandson namesake Pharrell, the “joke” is on the slave owners who died in nearly anonymous infamy, while Pharrell has accolades, fame, fortune, and is known for his generosity and charity as well. 

[NowVoyager]

Wow. I just watched the Pharrell Williams and Kasi Lemmons episode. At one point, I was moved to tears. I turned off the teevee and had a good cry. Later, when I came back to it, I was struck that Pharrell Williams also had to take an unprecedented break from filming the show. The juxtaposition of his "Happy" video with beautiful people all over the world, dancing around and being silly and feeling joy and feeling connected as human beings--- with looking into That Face of the man that owned his ancestors, and reading the transcript of the recorded words of his 3xs great Aunt Ms. Jane from The Slave Project, saying that they treated them so badly that they--- the white slaveowners themselves! had nightmares about it. That's beyond deep. I hope the ghosts haunted them but good and they never had a good night's rest all the days of their lives.

It feels confusing. It's so nightmarish, but it also seems like a blessing to have The Gift of such documents when so many people don't. Like Kasi having a list with no names: just age, gender and Black or Mulatto. (The subtext of "Mulatto:" meaning that a slave was raped and produced a child. So, even that little nondescript "m" represents a lot of pain. Meanwhile, I remember the moment 25+ years ago when I was in college and first heard "rape" mentioned in conjunction with "slavery." The history taught through high school stateside is glossed over.)

Kasi Lemmon's ancestor Primus was also very profound. One generation removed from Africa, and the man literally smelled freedom! But, he went back into slavery for his wife and children. Initially, it would seem like he was an Uncle Tom type--- "We sick, Massa?" But, that's not what it was. The way he built his farm up year after year made me so proud. But, there were many, many former slaves who had the knowledge of farming, the work ethic and could have physically done the same. I was impressed with how he managed to balance the worlds of Black and White; to be successful, but not make the racist whitefolks so mad as to come burn down his farm or lynch him. I'm sure they did him dirty at times. In Alabama? Tuh! Cheated him, treated him like shit.... and he just took it. And persevered. And succeeded! 

Henry Louis Gates really had to talk Pharrell through this process as An Elder. Talking to him about testifying and making peace with our pasts as descendants of slaves. Meanwhile, Pharrell has lived his whole life as an artist and Humanist. I think it was hard for him to reconcile his lifelong Humanist philosophy with the hard, specific reality of what his ancestors suffered through. 

Such a great episode!

[carrps]

Just an aside, but I can't recommend more highly the book The Warmth of Other Suns  by Isabelle Wilkerson to get an in-depth view of the treatment of freed slaves and their descendants post-Emancipation. Heartbreaking. 

[ProudMary]

52 minutes ago, carrps said:

Just an aside, but I can't recommend more highly the book The Warmth of Other Suns  by Isabelle Wilkerson to get an in-depth view of the treatment of freed slaves and their descendants post-Emancipation. Heartbreaking. 

Totally agree. It's brilliant and should be required reading. I'd also add her latest book, Caste.

[carrps]

On 2/20/2021 at 12:02 PM, ProudMary said:

Totally agree. It's brilliant and should be required reading. I'd also add her latest book, Caste.

Yeah, it's on my to-be-read list.

[Yeah No]

On 2/19/2021 at 8:52 AM, shapeshifter said:

Is this because of a Charlemagne connection (https://www.geni.com/blog/discovering-youre-related-to-charlemagne-3103556.html)?

Or: http://m.nautil.us/issue/56/perspective/youre-descended-from-royalty-and-so-is-everybody-else ?

That second excerpt was fascinating and I've read that before elsewhere but it was somehow not as entertaining.  Now I want the book!   Re: Kevin Bacon, when I started doing my genealogy online and researched my early American ancestors I kept finding out that they were often related to each other somewhere back in their trees, sometimes either through Mayflower passengers or even in England before their ancestors came here.  Plus Ancestry.com at one time had an entertaining feature called "Find famous relatives" that attempted to use your tree to match you to famous people throughout history.  It told me that I was related to several signers of the Declaration of Independence plus numerous others like George Bush, Julia Child, Katherine Hepburn (my childhood movie idol), Ethan Allen, several famous authors, poets, Sir Isaac Newton, etc., etc., and gave me the exact relationship, such as 4th cousin 5x removed.  I was completely amazed.  I realized after a while that anyone that has ancestry in New England going back to the 1600s is likely related most everyone else descended from that area because you had a very small population marrying and reproducing large families often with 8 or more children each in a relatively small geographical area.  There were two big waves of migration and the first one ended in the 1700s so there wasn't a huge influx of new genes coming in for a while, plus the genes that were here were all pretty much from the British Isles.  So that's why I figure that with about 12 or so generations of early New England ancestors here in this country all reproducing with each other, and with the large numbers of them in my tree once you get back that far, the odds are in my favor that Kevin Bacon is at least my 7th cousin if not closer.  That's also the reason why it was found out that Kyra Sedgwick and he are also cousins.  In fact, I have found a few lines where I am related to the same people several times over.  I'm related to the same Mayflower passengers on more than one branch of my tree as well as several other famous people.  It's mind boggling!

I remember on an early season of "Who Do You Think You Are" when Brooke Shields went to England to discover that she was descended from a king (I forget which one now) everyone was ooohing and aahing about how incredible that was, meanwhile I already knew that I was descended from several kings just from poking around in my own tree, LOL.

Edited February 24, 2021 by Yeah No

[mertensia]

Roseanne Cash had some fascinating ancestors. He freed all eight children? Bribed someone to let his daughter marry? 

[HelenBaby]

9 hours ago, UpTooLate said:

My impression of Pharrell Williams' reaction was that he had worked hard to be a peaceful, non-angry person, a pacifist, and then was confronted with some very ugly facts -- and first-person words! -- about his ancestry, and he literally didn't know what to do with the anger and hatred they instilled in him. That was world-changing for him.

I also enjoyed seeing his parents' names and realizing that his unusual name is a portmanteau of theirs.

As for tonight's show, (1) who knew that Johnny Cash was an amateur genealogist!? That's so cool. And (2) I know NOTHING about country music, and hadn't heard of Clint Black, but I thought he looked a lot like young Roy Rogers.

I love this show.

When Clint Black first became well known, Roy Rogers was still alive and I believe they may have even recorded together. I’m sure there are pictures floating around the internet. 

[sempervivum]

I really liked both Roseanne and Clint-intelligent, thoughtful and mature.

10 hours ago, UpTooLate said:

hadn't heard of Clint Black, but I thought he looked a lot like young Roy Rogers.

I think the DNA analysis showed Clint with .2% native American blood, and interestingly, Roy Rogers was 1/32nd Choctaw. Never in a million years would I have guessed 'Sicilian' as part of Clint's heritage, though.

I didn't totally understand Johnny Cash's line- he was only Scottish? His wife was the source of the Sicilian for Roseanne, right? And both lines had traces of the Black ancestors, as I understood it. 

I liked the way Clint expressed what I wish more of the subjects of this show would: he appreciated the good that had been done by his ancestors, but rejected the impulse to take any kind of credit -or blame- for what they did (unlike the way Gates is always egging people on to 'feel' some way or other about these revelations).

 

[Mermaid Under]

I enjoy this show more when I enjoy the subjects, which probably isn't a big surprise.  I liked Roseanne Cash more than Clint Black.  Her reactions seemed less....practiced.  More spontaneous. 

Quote

Tony Shalhoub knew so little about that is we heard about it all of the time.

Tony Shalhoub was so damn quiet I could barely make out a word.  He's a actor, shouldn't he know how to speak for a microphone.

Quote

But, he went back into slavery for his wife and children. 

Gates provided Keenan Ivory Wayans with a similar story about an ancestor returning to slavery.   

Edited February 24, 2021 by Mermaid Under
more to say, but decided not to. I know better.

[carrps]

11 hours ago, Yeah No said:

I remember on an early season of "Who Do You Think You Are" when Brooke Shields went to England to discover that she was descended from a king (I forget which one now) everyone was ooohing and aahing about how incredible that was, meanwhile I already knew that I was descended from several kings just from poking around in my own tree, LOL.

It was Lous XIV (i.e. The Sun King), and it was ridiculous.

I really enjoyed Roseanne Cash's reactions, too. They were very thoughtful and heartfelt. Too many people seem to search for words that they think people want to hear. She seemed to be searching for the words to match what she really felt. Her story was so much more inspiring than so many others. I feel sorry for her ancestors that they had to deny their blood when Jim Crow was in effect, but I don't blame them one tiny bit.

When Clint Black and Dr. Gates were joking about Clint always wearing black, and now finding out he was part Black, I was thinking of Johnny Cash also having Black ancestry -- because he was called "The Man in Black."

 

[Razzberry]

They both seemed like lovely and thoughtful people.  Rosanne was especially natural in her responses, and delighted to be learning so much new information.   "I feel like a badass!"

[Dehumidifier]

7 hours ago, mertensia said:

Roseanne Cash had some fascinating ancestors. He freed all eight children? Bribed someone to let his daughter marry? 

The bribery was speculation on Gates' part.

[12catcrazy]

The Clint Black/Roseanne Cash episode was another interesting one.   I knew nothing about Clint Black other than he was from Texas and was very popular in the early 90s.   On the other hand, I've been a big fan of Roseanne Cash since her first album in the late 70s and have followed her career, going from Country Super Star to walking away from that and going the singer-songwriter folkie route.   For anybody who is interested, she is also an author and among essays also penned a wonderful memoir that dished no dirt but had some good stories and was beautifully written.   

I always thought that Roseanne's mother's family was totally Italian; I had no idea that her mother also had American ancestry going way back to the 1700s.   It's not really surprising that white Americans with roots in the south also have some Black ancestry.   What was it - the "one drop" law?   How many people were really more "white" than black, yet they were still considered Black and therefore slaves?  It's no wonder that if people could "pass", many of them did.   Racism is inherently stupid, and you have to wonder how many of today's racists would feel finding out that guess what -  YOU have a Black ancestor.  

[carrps]

11 minutes ago, 12catcrazy said:

 Racism is inherently stupid, and you have to wonder how many of today's racists would feel finding out that guess what -  YOU have a Black ancestor.  

This actually happened to some guy. I can't remember the details. Was he KKK? Does anyone else remember?

[One Imaginary Girl]

I've seen Roseanne Cash so much over the past year and a half, between Ken Burns's Country Music and the documentary about her mother, My Darling Vivian, that she seems like an old friend.  I wasn't surprised that the secret foreshadowed in the intro was Black ancestors, since my own genealogy turned up a similar story: an ancestor in the census who was listed as free colored (to use the terminology on the census in those days), and then confirmation on DNA tests.  If my matches, mostly from Appalachia--not even the place where plantations were predominant, are anything to go by, a lot of white southerners must be surprised to find out that they have Black ancestors, too.

1 hour ago, carrps said:

This actually happened to some guy. I can't remember the details. Was he KKK? Does anyone else remember?

I often Google my DNA matches if they have searchable names, and for one guy, the search turned up all these white-power sites.  Ugh.  But he disappeared off Ancestry, maybe once he saw sub-Saharan African in his results.

Edited February 24, 2021 by One Imaginary Girl

[mertensia]

10 hours ago, sempervivum said:

I really liked both Roseanne and Clint-intelligent, thoughtful and mature.

I think the DNA analysis showed Clint with .2% native American blood, and interestingly, Roy Rogers was 1/32nd Choctaw. Never in a million years would I have guessed 'Sicilian' as part of Clint's heritage, though.

I didn't totally understand Johnny Cash's line- he was only Scottish? His wife was the source of the Sicilian for Roseanne, right? And both lines had traces of the Black ancestors, as I understood it. 

I liked the way Clint expressed what I wish more of the subjects of this show would: he appreciated the good that had been done by his ancestors, but rejected the impulse to take any kind of credit -or blame- for what they did (unlike the way Gates is always egging people on to 'feel' some way or other about these revelations).

 

Johnny's paternal grandmother (according to wiki) said she had some Cherokee ancestry. That easily could have been black ancestry instead.

[shapeshifter]

16 hours ago, mertensia said:

Roseanne Cash had some fascinating ancestors. He freed all eight children? Bribed someone to let his daughter marry? 

 

8 hours ago, Dehumidifier said:

The bribery was speculation on Gates' part.

This speculation was more of an educated guess based on knowledge of how things worked at that place and time. 

[shapeshifter]

7 hours ago, 12catcrazy said:

Racism is inherently stupid, and you have to wonder how many of today's racists would feel finding out that guess what -  YOU have a Black ancestor.  

No doubt many families with inter-generational racism initially adopted racist attitudes to certify a claim to whiteness to cover knowledge of black heritage. 

[biakbiak]

11 hours ago, 12catcrazy said:

I always thought that Roseanne's mother's family was totally Italian; I had no idea that her mother also had American ancestry going way back to the 1700s.   It's not really surprising that white Americans with roots in the south also have some Black ancestry.

As noted it is a still persistent  rumor that her mother was black but passing, I actually wondered if she did the show to find out the truth. 

Edited February 25, 2021 by biakbiak