Genealogy Adventures

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2010/12/29/crockett-sheffey-buffalo-soldier/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2011/04/18/newman-brockenbrough-roane-a-historic-unconventional-divorce-in-19th-century-virginia/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2011/10/24/recording-names-maiden-names/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2012/02/14/passing-for-white-ancestors-who-jumped-the-colour-line/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2012/03/30/crockett-sheffey-buffalo-soldier-part-ii/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2012/12/31/beyond-the-pale-interracial-relations-in-colonial-america/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2013/01/05/forgotten-american-black-jockeys-joseph-sheffey/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2013/06/26/love-and-lynching-in-wytheville-raymond-arthur-byrd/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2013/11/27/when-the-genealogy-mistakes-of-others-leads-you-astray-elizabeth-bartellot/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2014/01/26/why-anglicizing-immigrant-ancestors-names-isnt-such-a-good-idea/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2014/02/18/the-concepts-of-race-vs-culture-an-introduction/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2014/02/20/the-concepts-of-race-vs-culture-pt-1-race/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2014/02/25/the-concepts-of-race-vs-culture-pt-2-culture/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2014/07/16/tobias-roane-the-dark-side-of-emancipation/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2014/07/23/finding-jefferson-crockett-sheffey-a-surprising-link-to-hampton-university-3/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2014/09/04/the-online-etiquette-of-meeting-newly-discovered-relations-from-different-ethnic-groups/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2014/09/21/can-you-really-pinpoint-dna-ancestry-in-africa-to-one-tribe/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2015/01/15/when-ancestral-documentation-trumps-belief-the-harling-harlan-harland-family/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2015/02/13/legislating-slavery-in-virginia-understanding-william-henry-roane/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2015/04/07/martha-fowler-hill-smashing-genealogy-walls-with-the-correct-maiden-name/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2015/05/01/isaiah-franics-grubb-melinda-straw-a-tale-of-love-across-19th-century-colour-lines/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2015/08/11/my-working-practice-for-my-african-american-genealogy-research/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

Politics aside, Joseph found himself part of a group of African American expatriates who were encouraged by the Stalinist government in the 1930s to work in the Soviet Union building a society free of class and racism. And he tells a telling story with regards to the latter. The only experience of racism he ever experienced in the USSR was at the hands of fellow Americans, who were white, in a Moscow barbershop. Their white compatriots demanded that he and another African American leave. When Joseph relayed the request of the two gentlemen to the Russian barbers, the barbers insisted that the two white gentlemen had to leave, not even allowing the two men to wipe the shaving lather from their faces before being ejected This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2015/08/19/black-in-the-ussr-the-life-of-joseph-jepthro-roane/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2015/09/20/the-roanes-of-virginia-2-families-with-the-same-surname-are-they-related-or-not/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

The August 1926 lynching of my second cousin twice removed, Raymond Arthur Byrd, remains one of my most-read posts. Every week. Thanks to Google Analytics, I've been able to monitor the reach with posts relating to Raymond's story. It doesn't surprise me that Black History/Studies academics have read it. I can gauge this from all of the readers accessing the original post from university computers (e.g. IPs associated with accounts like .edu and .ac.uk). The NAACP has certainly read it. As have journalists from CNN, Al Jazeera, the BBC the UK's Channel 4, Italy's La Repubblica and the French newspaper Le Monde. It's also been read by people at Twentieth Century Fox. Its reach led to a British PhD student to get in touch with myself and one of Raymond's descendants as part of her research into race issues in America. This is a widely read story.This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2016/01/21/the-1926-lynching-of-raymond-byrd-part-ii/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

19th Century Pennsylvania-born Quaker Josiah Harlan, Prince of Ghor (Afghanistan). He's my second cousin quite a few times removed on my mother's side of the family. The more I read about him, the more I feel he's a kindred spirit. Restless in the times he lived in, definitely a non-conformist – he was a man who was never going to be a 9-5 white-collar office kind of guy; although that was very much the world he was born into. A man who reputedly inspired the main character in Rudyard Kipling's story The Man Who Would Be King. This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2016/01/24/an-american-quaker-in-afghanistan-josiah-harlan-prince-of-ghor/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

Researching my earliest African-descended ancestors and family in America has taken a decidedly left-field turn. Once again a foray into genealogy research has made me revise my knowledge of another aspect of American history. The subject matter? Quakers and slavery in the Colonial period and pre-Civil war period. This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2016/02/18/quakers-slavery-50-shades-of-grey-and-then-some/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2016/03/04/why-i-struggle-with-west-africa-as-a-genetic-classification/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2016/03/05/how-the-term-bantu-tripped-up-my-genetic-genealogy-journey/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2016/03/18/jemimah-sheffey-the-founding-mother-of-african-american-sheffey-lines/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2016/04/01/can-we-really-make-assumptions-about-african-american-dna-admixtures/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2016/04/30/the-mystery-of-henry-west-1608-1647/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2016/05/13/finding-lost-branches-through-obituaries/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2016/06/06/when-family-history-turns-into-a-game-of-thrones-episode/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2016/06/10/genetic-genealogy-endogamy-identifying-the-father-of-cornelius-white-using-dna-triangulation/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2016/07/14/discovering-pocahontas-a-family-surprise/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2016/07/19/1667-the-year-america-was-divided-by-race/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2016/09/09/amy-roane-of-halifax-north-carolina-a-mystery-with-some-answers/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2016/09/19/finding-reuben-byrd-free-person-of-color-an-american-revolutionary-war-veteran/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2016/10/21/moses-byrd-a-revolutionary-war-musician/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

Actually, the title of this post should have been finding my father's and my sister's connection to the St. Clair / Sinclair / Sinkler family. Their DNA tests have proved a long-held suspicion of mine. It doesn't look like I inherited enough St. Clair DNA from my DNA test to prove it. That's the autosomal DNA inheritance roll of the dice for you. If you're also using DNA tests to confirm and/or discovery family connections, this is another reason to have a number of people from your immediate family do the old spit or swab in tube thing. In my decade-plus long ancestral journey, DNA testing has unlocked some surprising discoveries. It's confirmed some things my family knew. It's also disproved other theories. One thing it's proven so far is that my African-descended family didn't take the names of enslavers they liked or who may have treated them 'well' within the American chattel slavery system. Nope, they took the surnames that were theirs through birthright. All of them. My link to the St. Clair family is via my father's paternal grandmother, Jane Ann White. This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2016/11/26/ann-st-clair-of-wytheville-va-finding-my-lost-connection-to-the-st-clair-sinclair-family/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

Enter obituaries. Okay, I'll be the first to admit that reading through hundreds of obituaries is more than a little morbid. But hey, we're researching people who are no longer among us. So it's part and parcel of the research that genealogists do. Believe it or not, obituaries are also a goldmine of information. This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2017/01/19/obituaries-matter-when-it-comes-to-genealogy-research/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

I've been meaning to write about Pleasant Roane for quite a while. I've always felt badly that other research and other stories commanded my attention more, and overshadowed his tale. Well, as much of his tale as I'm aware of. It's quite the interesting tale. I've also been surprised that I see to be the only Roane family descendant researching Pleasant. Mine is the only family tree in which he appears. This, in part, probably has to do with the obscurity of his origins. Any Roane would be proud to claim him. So what prompted my interest? He is one of a handful of my enslaved ancestors who sued for his freedom...and then sued the State of Virginia to be allowed to remain in the state once he was freed. This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2017/01/28/pleasant-roane-rowan-and-the-road-to-manumision-in-lynchburg/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

When it comes to Leila A “Storm” Sheffey, a cousin who descends from a different Sheffey line than mine, African American newspapers have revealed a story worthy of a Jane Austen romance: a plucky, astute, and educated heroine; solid middle class values; a trip; an illness; a society courtship; and a marriage. OK, this being an Austen story comparison…a good marriage. This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2017/02/06/leila-sheffey-taylor-a-life-lived-in-the-turn-of-the-20th-century-black-press/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2017/02/18/the-hale-family-of-virginia-using-eastern-cherokee-applications-to-build-family-tree-branches/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2017/03/06/perry-sheffey-snippets-of-a-life-played-out-in-the-early-years-of-reconstruction/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

I diagrammed the movement of enslaved people from one Williams family member to another. Every deed, every Will, every estate inventory, and every tax record citing enslaved people received its own diagrammed work-up. I would make notes linking individual enslaved people from transaction to transaction. I had dozens of sheets of paper in no time at all. Which was fine for me. However, I needed to share this information with an entire research team. Creating a PDF document from dozens of scanned pages wasn't going to cut it. This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2017/04/25/why-diversity-matters-for-online-genealogy-service-providers/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

When it came to dealing with a family tree that is exploding in size due to the Moses Williams Project…I had to think of another way of finding the records I needed for specific individuals myself and the project team has been researching. A different approach hit me out of the blue. My Old Ninety-Six ancestors and family worshiped at specific churches. Churches like Springfield Baptist Church, Liberty Springs Baptist Church, and Shaws Creek Baptist Church were established and built by members of my family. Their descendants still worship at these churches to this day. That was the clue that I needed. It's one of those clues that has been under my nose the entire time. I decided to do a general search on the terms ‘Liberty Springs Baptist Church' and Greenwood, South Carolina' on Newspapers.com. I struck gold immediately. This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2017/06/16/using-church-names-and-obits-to-find-your-ancestors-in-rural-areas/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

Critical thinking is part of my basic toolkit in terms of life skills. It's no wonder considering I minored in philosophy as part of my university degree. Critical thinking is one of the cornerstones of philosophy. It's a skill that I apply to pretty much every aspect of my life. It is also the bedrock of my genealogical work. This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2017/07/24/critical-thinking-an-important-skill-in-genealogy-research/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

I had the opportunity to visit Monticello the other day. Considering my recent trip where I visited some of my Roane family relations on another plantation in Louisiana, I knew It was going to be a day of mixed emotions. While I knew Monticello sat atop a mountain, it never occurred to me exactly what went into its actual construction. Enter our (amazing) tour guide, Mary. One of the first things she told our tour group was that it had taken hundreds of enslaved people to literally level the uppermost part of the mountain in order to create the flat plateau visitors to Monticello see today. It didn't occur to me until long after our tour had finished to ask how much earth had been removed as part of that human engineering feat. It was an exceedingly hot and humid day when we visited. I couldn't image the physical toll that endeavor must have taken. While the view from the house and the surrounding gardens and terraces are stunning…they came at a real human price. This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2017/08/04/visiting-monticello/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support

I thought I would share a quick article about maps…and how you can use them as part of your genealogical research practice. I spent a hot minute or three chatting about how I use maps during my keynote talk at the Le Comité des Archives de la Louisiana- hosted genealogy conference in Lafayette, Louisiana. My first stop during this part of my talk was introducing how I used maps to research my different enslaved Sheffey ancestral groups in southwest Virginia This episode is also available as a blog post: https://genealogyadventures.net/2017/09/13/using-maps-in-your-genealogy-research/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genealogy-adventures/support