Long before I traced my African Ancestry, I had a love and hate affair with my name. I can’t deny the pride I felt at the myriad of family reunion’s I’ve attended over the years…all of us gathered to celebrate our family, our history (the little we knew), our ability to come together no matter [...]

I have someone to thank for guiding me back to solid ground. One evening, I watched in wonder as Dr. Henry Louis Gates talked about the process of DNA ancestry tracing, part of a PBS series entitled “African American Lives”. This new technology would at last provide the keys to my ancestral past.