Earlier this year, I had the honor of revealing the maternal ancestry of Dr. Marilyn Gaston to her family, friends, and colleagues.

Dr. Gaston is a historymaker with a fascinating story. Beginning with her medical school experience as the only African American woman in her class at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, her career has been committed to improving the health of poor and underserved Americans. She has been an Assistant Surgeon General and as the director of  the Bureau of Primary Health Care in the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration, was the first woman to direct a public health service bureau.

Dr. Gaston shares ancestry with the Mende women in Sierra Leone. Mende woman participate in the Sande society which is responsible for initiating girls into womanhood. If Dr. Gaston were living in Sierra Leone today, she would definitely be recognized as a Sowei.

In her book, Radiance From the Waters: Ideals of Feminine Beauty in Mende Art, art historian Sylvia Ardyn Boone describes the Sowei as the teacher, healer, and judge of the women. She is an arbiter and creator of feminine beauty in Mende society.

Today, Dr. Gaston and her partner Dr. Porter are the creators of Prime Time Sister Circles. Their approach encourages midlife Black women to take charge of their lives.

Among all of the coverage of the devastation in Haiti, I was pleasantly surprised to read the AP article about Senegal offering land to Haitians. The headline reads, “Senegal’s president offers voluntary repatriation and land to any Haitians that want to come”. President Abdoulaye Wade made this offer to our brothers and sisters in Haiti because they are the descendants of enslaved Africans, many of whom likely were taken from Senegal.

It is encouraging to see the intensive outreach to Haiti from all over the world. It is particularly empowering to see this type of outreach from Senegal. It is at the core of our mission at African Ancestry that we see ourselves differently and that we see Africa differently. I am glad to know that it works both ways.

Today, Dr. Kittles and I decided to make a commitment to Haiti as well. We are going to donate 2% of all African Ancestry sales this month to the CARE Haiti Earthquake Relief effort.

We encourage you to also find a way to give to the people of Haiti. There are many credible organizations that are on the ground in Haiti making a difference.

I’m excited about our newest partnership with the brothers of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, the oldest African American fraternity in the United States!

Today marks their 103rd Founders Day celebration as well as the launch of the Brother Simon Alexander Haley Initiative. Through this initiative, African Ancestry will help Alphas across the country research their family histories and trace their ancestral pasts.

Over 30 years ago, it was Alex Haley, the son of an Alpha man, who opened our collective eyes to the rich and valuable histories of our families. We sat glued to the TV set night after night with a sense of pride in our African roots. Haley had a rare gift, the gift of family stories that had been passed down, intact, through the many generations. Sharing his gift with the world sparked an unprecedented interest in genealogy among African Americans.

Most of us quickly learned that we were not going to find our Kunta Kinte. However, Haley’s legacy lives today through genetic ancestry tracing. Technology enables us to make transformative connections with our African roots. We are honored that Alpha President Skip Mason chose to partner with African Ancestry to move his organization forward while keeping them grounded in their powerful pasts.

What started out as an evening celebrating DC-area teens who have beaten the odds, turned into a blog post to raise awareness about child slavery in Africa. I recently attended the Children Defense Fund’s “Beat the Odds” Dinner in DC where I met Martha Newton, Executive Director of the Touch A Life Foundation. Her organization is doing great work to financially support the care of Ghanaian children rescued from slavery.

There’s child slavery in Ghana? There’s child slavery in DC? What?! As African Americans, we still experience the psychological, economic, and sociological effects of slavery and its legacy, as individuals and as a community. The idea of our little brothers, sisters, and cousins living as enslaved people is unimaginable. Not here. Not today.

Her organization’s work led me to other sites and articles about the prevalence of child slavery not only in many African countries but also here in the United States (not to mention other parts of the world). Can you even begin to imagine children enduring a system of slavery today?

Please take a few minutes to educate yourself and your family about the present-day issue of child slavery and more importantly, how you can make a difference. Click on the images or the links below to get started. We’ve come too far and we have too much to not stand up for others.

MSNBC Story: One child speaks for the thousands in silent servitude

Oprah.com Story: Sold into Slavery

Two weeks ago extraordinary attention was placed on the family history of our first lady, Michelle Obama. Her mixed ancestry was found to be a surprise by many Whites in America. Similarly, the European and East African ancestry of President Obama was seen as an exotic mix. For African Americans, mixed ancestry is no surprise; it is part of our history and can be uncovered in most families through traditional genealogy research as well as DNA testing.

The story of Melvina Shields, the great-great-great-grandmother of Michelle Obama who was enslaved and impregnated by a white man is a consistent theme heard in many narratives of African American family history.  Noted sociologist, E. Franklin Frazier, explained in “Black Bourgeoisie” that the nearly 600,000 mulattoes in the U.S. in 1860 were mainly the result of the sexual association of white men and enslaved African women. We also see this reflected in the DNA of African Americans. When we test the paternally inherited Y chromosome DNA we find that 3 out of every 10 (30%) African American men have European Y chromosomes while less than 5% of the maternally inherited mtDNA is of European ancestry. This is called sex-bias gene flow and is largely the result of the behavior of many slaveholders and/or their male relatives.

The increased focus by the media on uncovering white ancestry in African Americans is interesting to some but is also disturbing to others, especially when these stories portray mixed ancestry as the reason for African American achievement. It is important to understand all of your family history. However, for most African Americans, including Michelle Obama, we cannot trace our family history using traditional methods beyond the Melvina Shields and others enslaved in the mid 1800s. This is because of the lack of adequate records on the enslaved and why DNA testing offered by African Ancestry is so important and exciting to African Americans.

The recent posthumous pardon of Tom Joyner’s great uncles is a great lesson. It teaches us the value of family and the value of persistence.

In 1915, Joyner’s great-uncles, Thomas and Meeks Griffin were executed in 1915 for a murder they didn’t commit. After they were electrocuted, his grandmother (their sister) was moved to Florida and was never told the story of her brothers. So, the Joyner family had always believed that their family history began in Florida. When researchers for the series African American Lives II told Tom about this part of his family’s history, he set out on a mission to have his great uncles pardoned.

While the pardon is something to be celebrated, I think the bigger lesson here is the importance of researching your family’s history. Our elders hold so much information about our family’s collective and individual experiences. Sometimes these experiences inform our personal experiences in ways that we don’t even realize.

One Thanksgiving, my father’s family sat around a large table discussing a plan to purchase the house next door to my grandparents’ house. The conversation turned to getting the mortgage and we began laughing about how no one in the family had “a job”. We were all self-employed. That lead to my grandmother sharing a story about the family work history. She and my grandfather had owned a barbershop and grocery store for most of their adult lives. Her father (my great-grandfather) built houses in Virginia, where she grew up. His father made the cinderblocks that were used to build the houses. Apparently, I come from a long line of entrepreneurs! When we traced one of my father’s lineages to the Hausa of Nigeria, I then learned that the Hausa women were the business people of the culture. Who knew that the line of entrepreneurship was that long!

What’s your family’s story?

Some of us at the Paige Family Reunion 2009

My African Ancestry Experience has allowed me to meet some amazing people. Today has brought yet another one of them into my life. Sheila Kenner stopped by the office today to pick up a MatriClan Test Kit.

Sheila at the African Ancestry Headquarters

Her brother, who is the family genealogist, turns 50 on Saturday and finding their roots is her gift to him. She told a story of getting her sisters’ opinion of her gift idea. She wanted them to guess what it was, so she gave them the following clues:

“It is tangible, although you can’t kick, see or touch it. It will touch you and you can feel it deep down inside.”

“It’s not a trip, although it does involve a journey.”

“It involves technology although it doesn’t require upgrading. It can be built upon.”

“You may only use it once although its usefulness and value will serve over and over.”

“It is a mirror unto yourself that helps to you to see, project, and appreciate a bigger picture.”

All of us in the office were touched by the depth of her perceptions of our service. I had to share it with you. We’re excited to get her brother’s reaction to his gift and the entire family’s African Ancestry Experience. I’ll let you know what happens!

Oh, and by the way, her sisters are getting him a GPS. He’ll have two tools to help him navigate through life!

My maternal grandmother, Margaret Marianno, turns 90 today. We are blessed to have a living part of our family’s history here with us to share ninety years worth of stories and experiences. I encourage you to look at the living history in your life. Give them the opportunity to leave a legacy that can be passed on to future generations. Don’t wait until next week, next month, or next year. Document their stories and experiences today!

Happy Birthday Grandmom!