|
I haven't ever posted in this group before, and not much else besides the Iowa forum, so I hope you all will bear with me.
About a year and a half ago, my husband and I heard about a free weekend on Ancestry, so we checked it out and got hooked on genealogy.
One thing we found, was that the 1925 Iowa Census had people list their parents' names and other info. My husband found, for the first time, his paternal grandfather's father's name and was able to find his great-grandfather in censuses prior to 1925.
What surprised him was to find that his great-grandfather was listed as mulatto in some censuses and as black in others (my husband is white).
Come to find out, his great-grandfather was the last in a long line of freeborn mixed race people who had gradually migrated from Virginia and North Carolina, to Illinois, and there to Iowa. His last name is one that is often considered as Melungeon, as are many other names in that branch of his family. And all his life, he had no clue at all, that he was anything but Irish and English.
It's been an incredible journey and my husband has contacted a number of people who's he's related to and found some amazing history.
And of course one thing that makes it really, really cool, is that for the first time this year, he and our daughter were able to vote for someone like them - mixed race. Obama's story is one that could only happen in this great country, and so is my husband's.
|