Inevitably, this led to opening an Ancestry.com account and tree pruning with good documentary truth-trimming shears. The tree was made healthier and it grew. Next, an analysis of Dad's DNA by Family Tree DNA lopped off bad branches and grafted on new ones. When the DNA results surprised me, I started a group on FTDNA, Early Chesapeake Genes. In 2007 and 2008, I wrote articles for the Gloucester County Historical Society's journal, Family Tree Searcher, that distilled what I had learned, primarily about Lewis and Foster lines.
From time to time I looked at my database, but for the most part it just sat there like a monument, as complete a roster as it ever would be. I took a trip to the UK in 2019 to visit places related to my ancestors. I knew I'd never know for sure where they came from, since most made the long and treacherous journey to Virginia when it was still a colony. As younger sons of lesser gentry and poor indentured servants, they lived in a time before writing was common or papers were saved. Visits to Northumberland (Fosters) and Wales (Lewises) gave me a lovely feel from my supposed ancestral lands from Celtic to Medieval times.
But who were my ancestors? I've thought about how they lived, talked, ate, worked. More than names, dates, and places, they were real people who were products of a place and time. Wouldn't it be interesting to weave the facts and stories together and bring history to life?
During this spring of COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter, my interest has wandered into the unspoken forest where one stand of ancestors beckoned me. Circa 1860, some were slave traders and slave owners. One was an overseer. Even poor white ancestors owned a slave or two in antebellum Mathews, Virginia. I have cousins who are black, descended from the same slave owners as me, according to the story written in our DNA. I've seen the nineteenth-century slave schedules in Ancestry.com, but never until now have I clicked on the save button that would attach them to an ancestor and me. They are part of my history too.
During stay-at-home time, between taking walks and listening to the news, I've clicked on save to confess my past. We are finally, at long last, talking about racism and how it got to be this way. I've been given permission to tear down the Robert E. Lee monument that blocked my way to deeper feeling. Here are the stories from my family tree that have too long been hidden, unclaimed, unspoken. At last, I can say these stories and work through them out loud.
