Troy Johnson's Maternal Father Rev. Freeman Foster his 2nd Wife Hazel and 8 of his 15 Children (circa 1933)[/caption]
Every February someone asks me,
"What are you going to do for Black History Month?"
As trite as it might sound, I always reply,
"Every month is Black History Month at AALBC.com"
I view the question the same as, what are you gonna do for Mother's day or Valentine's day. While I'm sure this is not the person's intent, the implication is that we need a day to do something special for our mothers or a loved one. Similarly, everyday is Mother's day and Valentine's day for me.
Today I decided to contradict myself and do something that was specifically motivated by Black History Month and share a small aspect of my family's history.
The initial impetus actually came from a post made on my discussion board from a very popular contributor "Cynique". Cynique, a septuagenarian, wrote what I thought was a fascinating, piece about her recollections from he past. The piece called "A Flashback black history ala Cynique" touched on her recollections of seeing Jackie Robinson, play against the Cubs at Wrigley Field, standing in line to view the mutilated body Emmitt Till, and more. She personalized many of the things I've only read about in history books -- things too many of our young people know nothing about.
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According to this census Jack was a farmer and owned about $100 worth of land. Jackson is listed as "black" and his wife, Cinthya, is listed as "mulatto". I find it fascinating the my third great grandfather, a black man, was not enslaved in 1850. Was he ever enslaved? Were his parents? This is information I hope to learn one day.
Unfortunately, other than what this census record tells me, I know little else about Jackson Pulley. I do know that all of Jackson's descendants, their spouses and children where listed as mulatto or white in this and subsequent censuses (though by the 1920 census Hazel Pulley would be listed as "negro"). We do not have any relationship with Hazel Pulley family. I know the reason for the estrangement, but I'll heed my mother's advice, "Boy, don't be puttin' all your information in the street".
I included links to the website Ancestry.com in this blog post and below. I've had an Ancestry.com account for over a decade now. It has helped my research tremendously. I previously performed this research manually by visiting the National Archives and it was a very tedious and time consuming effort. Today, in a few minutes, I can pull up documents on my home computer. In the past such a search may have taken days. The teriffic thing about Ancestry.com is that they will find related documents for you. The information my come from other family tree, census records, passenger manifests, and other primary source documents. The 1850 census I posted above was pulled from Ancestry.com a few moments ago as I was writing this. Ancestry.com helps you do DNA testing. The results can be matched with others who have taken the test to help you find family members and distant relatives. I now, as result of the DNA testing, my father's line can be traced by to Western Africa, in a region where where Togo, Benin, and Ghana are today. Also, the privacy settings allow you to decide what you want to share with others. For example information about living people is hidden on my tree. Please leave comments and link to stories about your family history.