IT'S NOT A RESOLUTION, IT'S A MISSION!
After taking an autosomal DNA test in 2018, I began discovering my biological DNA matches to perfect strangers who are located all across the United States. Every discovery has been exhilarating, and every connection has had a wonderful story attached to it! My family is descended from enslaved people (and slaveholders) from the Pee Dee Region of South Carolina who were forcibly migrated across the country between the Revolutionary and Civil Wars.
I've shared our SC history and ancestry with them, and they've generously shared the same about the various places our family was forcibly migrated during slavery. Some of us look alike or like our common ancestors, while others share the same interests, abilities, and talents. DNA is no joke, folks.
So far, this journey has been a blast, but it's about to get even better. The new year will mark the beginning of new adventures as I continue to seek out and meet my amazing, multiracial, American family and share the stories, music, and culture of our ancestors.
A story in scholar Heather Andrea William's book, Help Me Find My People, recounts how a social worker named Dorothy Redford began searching for her ancestral history after watching the television series Roots by Alex Haley. After 10 years of research and discovering 21 African American lines of her family, she organized a family reunion. Her family, particularly older members, were grateful to have the opportunity to meet their extended family. When one of Redford's relatives who was attending the reunion was asked by a reporter how she felt about the family's reunification, she said, "Now, I don't feel bitterness. I feel we are found."
That's my goal moving forward, to give my family the same feelings of satisfaction and profound joy of being reunited and found!
HAPPY NEW YEAR