Who Do You Think You Are?

My religion has always emphasized genealogy and researching family history. I have found it interesting to see how in recent years this desire to learn more about where we come from has become more and more mainstream. Now NBC has a new series called "Who Do You Think You Are?" where celebrities search out their genealogy. It is a fascinating program.

I am lucky that so much of my family history has been researched:

• Father's father - 9 generations, 1600's, Long Island (one from Denmark) - we don't know from where they emigrated
• Father's mother - 11 generations, 1600's, Worscestershire, England
• Mother's father - 17 generations, 1400's, Gloucester, England
• Mother's mother - 7 generations, 1700's, Wales

There's actually more than that. I know I'm related to William the Conquerer. There are numerous charts and records available to me. Plus I grew up in a small town in southern Utah (Blanding) which was settled by my ancestors. I grew up listening to stories about my family. There is even a small town in Utah named after one of my ancestors (Hanksville). My family once owned much of Long Island. I have taken great pride in knowing where I come from. I need to study more and learn more of the details. I feel guilty that I've been to Wales twice and didn't do any research while there.

Tonight's episode of "Who Do You Think You Are?" was about Emmitt Smith. He traced his ancestry back to slaves and a white slave owner. At one point a slave owner raped one of his slaves and the daughter born from that was Mariah, an ancestor of Emmitt Smith. As I watched this program, I thought of my children. I want them to feel that my history is their history, but I know that they have a history completely separate from my own. I want to help them search that out as well. It will be difficult. I know their mother's names, but that is all. I know nothing about their fathers or their grandparents. Plus, slave records were often sporadic since slaves were treated like livestock rather than people. About half of slave families were broken up and sold to different plantations, so it's hard to trace families.

One thing that struck me is that Emmitt Smith learned that he is 81% African. The person who tested his DNA said she had never seen a percentage that high and that she has never tested an African American that was 100% African. There are so many stories hidden in black genealogy. I wonder what my children's stories will be. I hope we will be able to discover at least some of it. Watching this program has inspired me to do more and to do it now.