February 21, 2025 • 62 mins
This episode reveals the significance of exploring family history through the lens of genealogy with expert Nick Sheedy. He shares insight into the emotional landscape of ancestry research, the challenges of limited records, and the transformative impact of DNA testing in uncovering hidden familial ties.
• Understanding the role of a genealogist in uncovering family mysteries
• The emotional intricacies of revealing family histories
• Navigating the challenges in African-American research
• The transformative impact of DNA testing on genealogical discovery
• Shifts in interest towards exploring historical legacies within Black communities
• Crafting heirloom reports that connect past to present
• Emphasizing the importance of acknowledging both proud and painful histories
• Inspiring reflections on personal identity and family impact across generations
If you’re curious about discovering your roots, you can reach out to Nick Sheedy at nick@findingyourancestry.com for assistance with your genealogy needs.
Hello, and thank you for listening to Thirsty Topics podcast! I'm Lawrence Elrod, and every week Meryl Klemow and I dive deep into the stories that matter, the conversations that shape our world."
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Hello everyone, welcome to this week's episode
of Thirsty Conversations.
Hello, I am Lawrence Elrod.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
And I am Kristen Walinga.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
I'm really, really excited about our guest for this
week.
He's formerly the leadgenealogist for the popular show
called Finding your Roots,which is on PBS.
He has his own, which is on PBS.
He has his own ancestry companythat he does work for private
(00:51):
customers and you know help allkinds of people you know find
out about their roots, abouttheir genealogy and how their
family is put together.
Please, please welcome NickSheedy to our show.
Nick welcome.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Thank you so much, Lawrence and Kristen.
It's my pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
It is definitely our pleasure to have you.
Now, nick, do me a favor, kindof explain to everyone what a
genealogist does, and you knowhow do you help people, sure
Well, a genealogist.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
If you're an amateur genealogist does, and you know
how do you help people.
Sure Well, a genealogist ifyou're an amateur genealogist
you're probably interested inyour own family.
You might be the familyhistorian, you might keep the
family Bible and keep track ofthe family tree.
You're the person at familyreunions running around and
asking everybody for birth datesand babies' middle names and
(01:45):
things like that.
And so you know a genealogist.
As an amateur, you might beinterested in your own family
tree and learning more, not onlyabout your ancestors, but
connecting your cousins andrecording family history and
family stories for posterity foryour own children,
(02:05):
grandchildren, maybe your niecesand nephews or your cousins.
But as a professionalgenealogist, I do much of the
same sort of work.
It's just I'm working forprivate clients and so my work
is driven by the goals andobjectives of my clients.
And so some people say, oh, Iwant to know more about my
(02:29):
ancestors and there's no realspecifics, just as much as you
can find and as far back as wecan go.
But other people have a veryspecific family mystery.
They might have a grandfatherwhose name is not known, a
father whose name is not known.
You know, those become DNAmysteries typically, but there
(02:54):
may be family stories thatthey'd like to try to either
verify or dispel.
You know, like my wife's greatgrandmother supposedly ran booze
for Al Capone duringProhibition I suspect that she
might have.
But there's a lot more to thatstory and it's probably not as
(03:14):
glamorous definitely probablynot as glamorous as you might
imagine when you say somethinglike that.
But in my own family I neverknew it growing up until I
started doing family history.
But my fourth great grandfather, lot Holmes, was not only an
abolitionist, he sat on thepublishing committee for an
anti-slavery newspaper calledthe Bugle the anti-slavery bugle
(03:38):
in Columbiana County Ohio.
But when I looked up he endedup moving to Marshalltown Iowa.
But when I looked up he endedup moving to Marshalltown Iowa.
When I looked up the littlebiographical sketch for him in
the local county history book,it talked about the anecdotes of
him and his brother, stacyNichols, being conductors on the
Underground Railroad and somestories of how they actually
(04:01):
helped certain people escapeslavery and, you know, go north.
And that was something that wasa story that was never
preserved in my family tree.
But and it's something that youso rarely document and I have
people quite often say oh, wehave this story and we don't
ever find documents or recordsto verify it.
(04:23):
So that was a surprise to me.
But he was a Quaker and so it'snot so surprising that he would
have been an abolitionist oranti-slavery, but it's
surprising to me that I actuallyfound it.
But so often our private clientswill have a family story they'd
like verified, a family mysterythat they'd like us to focus on
(04:47):
.
And for finding your roots youknow it's a little bit of
everything the first thing youhave to do is map out someone's
entire pedigree, identify asmany ancestors as you can and
then start doing some deep divesor sniff around to see what
(05:10):
stories might be out there andwhat documents could be located
to help tell a story you know isTV worthy, and so you know, as
a professional genealogist, it'sreally up to the client what
their goals are, what theirobjectives are.
I've also worked for probateclients, probate cases, and
those are really interesting.
We had an estate where thewoman had a will, a trust.
(05:32):
It was all bulletproof.
We're not looking for heirs.
But, still in New York.
You have to notify next of kinthat somebody died, just in case
they wanted to contest the willor challenge something.
And this woman had leftpractically everything she owned
to the Studio Museum, which isa prominent African-American art
(05:53):
museum in Harlem, and so herestate was to benefit the Studio
Museum.
And this was just a formality.
But what it boiled down to isshe had one sister who died
young, no nieces or nephews, shenever married, never had kids I
should say that first.
And so on her mother's sidewe're looking for first cousins,
(06:14):
and there are a few, butthey're already deceased.
So you have to track down thechildren or grandchildren of
first cousins.
But on her father's side, herfather was the youngest of 12 or
13 children, but on herfather's side, her father was
the youngest of 12 or 13children and the oldest uncle
was born like in the 1870s.
So you're going back and theseare black people in Virginia
coming out of slavery.
(06:35):
There were hundreds of peoplethat we had to identify in order
to track down, you know, wouldbe heirs if she had died with no
will, and so that's somethingthat a lot of people might not
think about when you'reimagining what sort of work a
genealogist might do.
I had another case where awealthy philanthropist in
(06:56):
California donated like athousand acres to the state of
California for a littleexperimental state forest and
it's on the ridge just north ofNapa Valley.
Well, my grandma, betty's greatgrandparents were pioneer
vintners in Napa Valley.
I know that area well and whatthey wanted to do is the state
forest.
We wanted to build a firestation but the deed
(07:18):
restrictions when the gift wasmade said you know, you can't
build anything on the property.
And there were other deedrestrictions and so we needed to
track down who would her heirshave been.
And the state and the state'sattorneys were asking them to
waive certain deed restrictionsso they could build a fire
station.
And when I was in Sacramentoabout a year and a half ago I
(07:41):
flew down to do a PBS station, afundraiser, and my wife went
with me and we took an extra fewdays and took a weekend through
Napa Valley over to the coastdown to San Francisco.
I said you know what, let'sdrive up there.
I want to see if this firestation ever got built.
And there it is.
And we actually drove through aplace where there had been a
(08:02):
forest fire, but there's homesall over.
They actually drove through aplace where there had been a
forest fire, but there's homesall over, and so you know, being
able to build this forest, forthe state forestry, to be able
to build a fire station it's,you know, it's protecting homes
in this little area from forestfires.
So, anyway, that work ends upbeing a little more interesting
(08:23):
and maybe you know not what youmight expect when you're talking
about doing family historyresearch.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
So how do you handle cases that have very limited or
obscure records you hadmentioned?
You know 1700s coming out, youknow starting to come out of
slavery.
That has unique challenges ofits own, I'm sure.
How do you handle those?
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Well, I think the important thing to emphasize and
this is also to anybody whodoes their own family history
research is the paper trail runsout for everyone, for every
single line, for every singleperson and every single
ancestral line.
The paper trail is going to runout at some point.
Now some people can trace theirlines back to early colonial
(09:07):
America or back to medievalEngland, back to Charlemagne and
even earlier, but that'sactually rare to be able to do.
Most people, you know you cantake your family back.
If you're immigrants fromEurope, say.
Most people can get theirfamilies back to the boat.
I won't say most a lot.
(09:27):
You know it's not uncommon.
But then there's a.
You have to jump back to theold country.
There's certain information youhave to know exactly.
Where did they come from.
You need birth dates and a veryspecific place to look for.
You know parish records.
Those are very local records,and so that's often where you
end up hitting a brick wall,especially for Jewish immigrants
(09:50):
, if we don't know the exactplace where they came from in
Eastern Europe, usually you'reat a dead end.
For African-American families,the brick wall, the very typical
brick wall, is between the 1870census and emancipation.
You know those that five yearsafter the Civil War, you know
(10:12):
there's there's very few recordsthat help you connect those
dots, and so if you find people,if you can document a family
back to the 1870 census, there'sa number of things that have to
come together in order for youto be able to delve back into
the slave era and I'd say I'monly successful maybe 20 or 25%
of the time to identify thelikely or positively identify
(10:36):
the slaveholder of any Blackpeople that you find after the
Civil War.
And you have to know, you haveto figure out who the
slaveholder was in order todelve into those slave era
records to see if you canscratch out any more information
.
And you know if I'm onlysuccessful 20 to 25% of the time
(10:57):
, that means 75 to 80% of thetime I'm not successful and
that's typical.
And so for a lot of black peopleto get back to that era.
You know people born intoslavery.
You find them on the 1870census.
You know 75 to 80% of the time.
That's as far as it goes, andso it's challenging.
(11:19):
So you know, I preface that's'sthe preface to my answer is the
paper trail runs out foreverybody and it depends who
your people were, where theylived, what records were kept to
begin with, what recordssurvived and then how accessible
are they?
(11:40):
so if the records were neverkept to begin with or they don't
survive, you're out of luck.
But if the records maybe theywere kept to begin with or they
don't survive, you're out ofluck.
But if the records maybe theywere kept, maybe they weren't,
you don't know but if they'renot very accessible for instance
, jewish records in EasternEurope they aren't very
accessible to us.
You have to know oh, they camefrom Lithuania, they came from
(12:00):
this town, or they came fromBelarus or Ukraine or Poland, or
they came from Belarus orUkraine or Poland.
You have to have a specificplace, and then we have to hire
someone in country in order togo to the archives to access the
records that maybe have neverbeen microfilmed, have never
been digitized, and so there'shurdles to jump over and you
need a budget for that.
And so, as a professionalgenealogist and working for
(12:22):
Finding your Roots, there's abudget, but it's not unlimited,
right, and our time is notlimited.
You know, for the TV show, youhave hard deadlines, and so,
whether you're a professional oran amateur, you're limited by
time and budget.
And so, as an amateurgenealogist, if you're working
on your own family tree, if thisis your hobby, you can put in a
(12:44):
lot of time.
If you're working on your ownfamily tree, if this is your
hobby, you can put in a lot oftime, you know, evenings,
weekends.
If you're retired, even when Iwas younger, I put in, I
probably put in 20 hours a weekon average researching my own
family tree, just because I was,you know, super interested in
it.
I wasn't married, I didn't have, I was footloose and fancy free
, so you put in a lot of time.
(13:07):
But I was a poor youngster, acollege kid, I had no money, so
I had no budget, time but nobudget.
And so if you have a budget butyou don't have the time or the
inclination of the skill set,that's when you go out and you
hire a professional and see whatthey can do and you tell them
your goals, your goals, yourobjectives, and you know they'll
take your money, your budget,and say, okay, that buys so much
(13:29):
time and we'll see what we canaccomplish.
And that's the other thing younever know what you're going to
find until you dig in.
And so you know, to answer yourquestion, what you're able to
find, what family trees you'reable to document.
There's so many variables thatyou can never anticipate how the
(13:49):
family tree is going to cometogether until you actually
start documenting generation bygeneration.
When you do that and you testDNA and you go wait a minute, I
(14:09):
don't match DNA with any of thecousins.
I should match on that wholebranch of my family tree you
often get surprises.
I don't have any surprises inmy family tree so far where
there's a totally unanticipated,what we call a misattributed
paternity.
We do have one on the Bettyside of the family where her
grandfather we suspected thathis dad was not who everybody
(14:34):
said the man whose name's on hisdeath certificate.
This is kind of a mystery guy.
But then DNA confirmed that itwas not that guy.
It was a totally different name, confirmed that it was not that
guy, it was a totally differentname.
This is somebody born in the1850s in Canada and ends up in
California as a teenager and so.
But we've had guests forFinding your Roots who took a
(14:56):
DNA test and they find out thattheir father or their
grandfather is not the man thatthey put down on paper and so uh
, that's not uncommon foranybody taking a dna test, um,
and so that, uh, dna, thattechnology has really um changed
.
It's changed the landscape.
(15:18):
Um, dna testing has changed thelandscape because, one, we're
we're able to connect dots thatwe would have never been able to
connect without DNA.
But, two, the DNA can tell youthat there is in fact a family
mystery, when you never evensuspected it to begin with.
So that's been very interestingover the past, you know, 10 to
(15:44):
15 years, with the advent of DNAand more and more people
testing to see how prevalent youknow, you get a surprise that
was not expected.
And you know, for some people itturns their world upside down.
Yeah, Sure down, yeah, sure,and not only the person who
(16:07):
tested.
And they find out my dad's, notmy biological father.
But then if you identify thebiological father maybe his
family and your half siblingsthat you're just learning that
exist, you know, maybe they hadno idea either, and so it turns
a whole family groups worldupside down.
And so you know it can bechallenging.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Yeah.
I can imagine, especially whenyou know there's an unknown out
there.
You know, you're actually kindof kicking over the rocks and
turning the papers over to seewhat's there and I'm kind of
curious and the reason I'masking this.
I remember watching an episodeof Tamron Hall show where she
had a genealogist on her showand she traced her family roots
(16:52):
and this genealogist actuallywas able to trace it all the way
back to the plantation ownerand she did not want to know who
that was.
You know she.
She's like OK, I know enough, Idon't want to know that.
Have you ran across, you know,without being specific, have you
run across clients that youknow they were like you know
what Like?
Have you run across clientsthat you know they were like you
(17:14):
know what this is, as far as Iwant you to take this, or maybe
you found something that youknow they didn't know about
their own tree and they werelike you know.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
I really don't want to know about that.
Oh, absolutely.
And what's really interestingwith you know that story you
just told my mentor, johnnyCerny was chief genealogist for
Finding your Roots up untilabout halfway through season
seven.
She passed away right beforethe COVID pandemic hit, but she
was a dear, dear friend and foreight years she was just an
(17:47):
amazing mentor.
But she was one of the leadinggenealogists for conducting
African-American research.
Going back to the early 1980swhen Roots came out.
She was kind of the go-toperson because she wrote a
chapter in one of the referencebooks called the Source.
She wrote the chapter onAfrican-American genealogy
research and so she was a go-toperson and she became good
(18:13):
friends with Quincy Jones andshe did Quincy Jones' Family
Tree.
She worked on Michael Jacksonvery early on but she also did
the genealogies for a lot of theactors on Roots who became
interested themselves.
So what?
Johnny told me that in the 80sBlack people who wanted to learn
(18:35):
more about their roots had zerointerest in learning about any
white ancestors.
They had very little interestin learning about the plantation
where their ancestors wereenslaved and forced to work.
Um, that was not of interest tothem at all and if you reported
it.
It was, you know, know, notnecessarily like they turned a
(18:57):
blind eye, but they're.
You know that's not their goal,they're not interested in that.
If you, you know, if you workedon somebody's family tree and
phases and you said, oh, youknow, we could follow up by, you
know, identifying earliergenerations of this white
ancestor of yours, you knowpeople weren't interested in
that, this white ancestor ofyours, people weren't interested
(19:20):
in that.
But now I would say most of myblack clients that is one of
their goals Like, okay, mygrandfather was Malara and so
that suggests that his fatherwas white, his mother was black.
Who was this white guy?
I want to know who was this guy?
and I want to know who, what,who is this guy and what can we
learn about their family tree?
Um, but, uh, one of the topgoals for any black person that
(19:43):
fills out one of my questionquestionnaires.
It's often where were myancestors held in slavery?
I'd like to know whether, wherewas, where was the plantation?
Can we identify its specificlocation?
You know?
I mean they want to take a tripand if it may, you know it's
probably not still intact.
It's going to be a, you know asuburb of Atlanta now, or you
(20:03):
know something.
But occasionally you canactually.
You look on a map, you can delveinto the deed records.
You identify the slaveholderfirst.
You know what land did they own.
You can outline it on a map.
You identify the slaveholderfirst.
What land did they own?
You can outline it on a map.
We can nail that down sometimes.
But that's an interesting shiftfor African-American research
(20:25):
where that's actually becoming alot more interesting to my
Black clients, to my blackclients.
But also I have had whiteclients who say I know my
ancestors held slaves.
I would like to learn moreabout the lives of the slaves
that they held.
And then the questions are am Irelated to any of them.
(20:49):
You know DNA is the only way toknow and can we track down
anybody?
And I did have one client andhe's deceased now and you know I
work in strict confidence withmy clients but I think that he
would be OK with me telling thisstory.
I had a client.
He had never married, never hadchildren.
(21:11):
He had a little estate, not ahuge estate.
He owned a home and had asuccessful little business in
town and he asked me to.
He knew that his ancestors heldslaves but he asked me to track
down, or see if I could trackdown, any descendants of any
slaves slaves that his ancestorsheld.
(21:33):
And I did.
But his intent was to make themhis heirs, write it in his will
and leave something to them.
Not a lot this is not a superwealthy man, but it was
something that he thought.
I mean he wanted to do it, hedidn't want to leave it to his
(21:57):
nieces and nephews.
And it turns out you're lesssuccessful.
(22:17):
Actually starting way back whenand trying to come forward.
It might be counterintuitive,but if people move around you
might just lose them.
Especially between the 1800 andthe 1900 census, or sorry, the
1880 and the 1900 census.
We have a 20-year gap incensuses.
We often lose people if theymove, but we're not always
successful tracking down to theliving generation.
But it turns out one of thedescendants of an enslaved
person that his ancestors heldwas actually a close friend of
his.
I mean, he knew the guy, heknew the guy.
(22:39):
They were fishing buddies.
He's like I, I never imagined,he never knew, and so he's like
this is fortuitous.
And so I have had that'sprobably the most interesting
white client I've had who wantedto track down descendants of
(23:00):
the enslaved people theirancestors held.
But I've had some other whiteclients doing the same.
They want to learn more aboutthat history and some of them
may have had deep pockets andthey don't have a clear idea
what they want to do.
But they're thinking aboutreparations, they're thinking
about healing, they're thinkingabout you know how do we use
(23:22):
this information?
But you can't use it unless youknow it Right.
So, yeah, you can say ingeneral oh, my ancestors
probably held slaves, may haveheld slaves, who knows?
My ancestors probably heldslaves, may have held slaves,
who knows?
And oh, yeah, those blackpeople, well, yeah, maybe
they're descendant from some ofthe people I held.
My ancestors held slaves.
But if you don't know theparticulars, if you don't know
(23:44):
the details, you know you'rejust guessing.
So with Finding your Roots, youknow, when I write up a report
for clients and we're givingpeople details I write up a
report for clients and we'regiving people details that
knowledge becomes power becauseyou are getting specific and you
are connecting the dots and allof a sudden you're taking like
a general idea of history andyou are giving people specific
(24:08):
knowledge and this is how youare connected to history and you
know that can be reallypowerful.
I descend from a man namedNicholas Gassaway.
This is through my grandma,betty, and this is a whole
branch of the family.
I haven't actually documentedvery well myself, but when
Nicholas Gassaway died in the1690s he would have been one of
(24:33):
the larger slaveholders inMaryland and he was not one of
these one percenters you knowwho held hundreds of slaves.
I forget how many slaves heheld, but it was 20 or 30.
It might have been more, but mypoint was going to be when I've
done genealogical researchthroughout the South and I will
(24:56):
be just going through censuspages looking for whomever I'm
looking for and I'll come acrosspeople named Gassaway.
Well, nicholas Gassaway is theprogenitor of the white Gassaway
family in America.
But I will also come acrossBlack people named Gassaway.
Where did they get that nameRight?
(25:17):
These people had to have beenheld in slavery at some point by
some cousin on that branch ofthe family.
You know, maybe a very distantcousin, but it jumps out at me
and you know it's there and Ican't unsee it.
You know it's like oh, gassaway, yeah, that I probably have a
(25:38):
connection to those peoplesomehow.
But then of course you'retalking about slavery.
I may be related to them byblood as well and you never know
the circumstances of that.
Even with DNA you get back sofar.
You may or may not actuallymatch DNA with true distant
cousins at some point, and sothe DNA may or may not show that
(26:03):
relationship.
But it's been very interestingto me.
My grandma, betty's mother'smaiden name is McCrimmon, so
it's my middle name or maidenname.
My great-grandma's maiden namewas McCrimmon.
It's my middle name or maidenname.
My great-grandma's maiden namewas McCrimmon.
It's my middle name.
Mccrimmons are great bagpipersfrom the Isle of Skye in the
highlands of Scotland.
They're actually well-knownbagpipers the great Highland
(26:25):
bagpipe.
My McCrimmon ancestorsimmigrated to Canada in 1815.
From Canada they went toMinnesota for a short time, then
on to California after theCivil War.
You know, they never lived inthe Deep South.
They never held slaves.
Although my grandma's cousin,adele Adele, told all sorts of
(26:47):
stories, she thought that ourMcCrimmons had been loyalist
refugees from South Carolina whoended up in Canada.
Totally not true, althoughthere were McCrimmins in the
Deep South before and after theRevolution we're related somehow
.
Mccrimmins all come from thislittle place in the highlands of
(27:08):
Scotland Isle of Skye and theGlenelg Peninsula and I do match
DNA with them.
We have letters back and forthbetween some of these people in
the Carolinas and some of thepeople who end up in Ontario,
but our connection is way backin Scotland.
Well, fast forward, dna comesout and I match DNA with some
(27:30):
people named McCrimmon in Texasand they're black and I reached
out and I heard back and then Inever heard anything again.
But I'm like I need to knowmore about this and from the
little information that they hadshared with through their DNA
profile in their family tree, Iwas able to oh, they are.
(27:50):
They were held in slavery by aparticular white guy named
McCrimmon who came out of theCarolinas but could never quite
figure out who his father was oryou know, connect all of those
dots.
But I'm like I match DNA withthis person.
There's no way in the world Ihave no, I had no ancestors in
Texas.
I had no ancestors in Georgiaor South Carolina that I know of
(28:14):
, in Georgia or South Carolinathat I know of, and the only way
I might connect to this personis through my McCrimmon family
and our connection is going tobe way back in Scotland in the
1700s.
But their line immigrated tothe Carolinas white people who
obviously fathered children withblack slaves and end up in
Texas.
(28:34):
And my line ends up going fromCanada to the United States and
ends up in California shortlyafter the civil war, in very
different paths.
We are related back in Scotland, you know, 250 years ago or
more.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
So I mean, obviously, gene genealogy is like full of
surprises.
Has there been, you know, anysurprise, or really just
anything that you've uncoveredthat has felt, maybe especially
you know, rewarding, or justparticularly like moving to you
(29:14):
a specific discovery that comesto mind?
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Oh, you know, certainly with working for
Finding your Roots it's verymoving to me.
I would get to watch the fullinterview with the guest and the
interviews might be, you know,four or five hours long, and so
you know it's from that footagethat they craft the final
(29:40):
episode for each guest, and soyou might only end up with 20 or
30 minutes of footage in thatfinal episode for each guest.
But that's taken from a fivehour interview and that you know
long interview is taken fromreally hundreds of hours of
research to go into it, toidentify ancestors and then try
to craft stories, and so themajority of the work that's done
(30:03):
never makes it on to the air.
And finding your roots, butthat's the way it works with
most documentary type televisionor documentary series.
But watching the guests'reactions I'm getting teared up,
just like everybody elsewatching is getting teared up.
But I'm reminded of Michael KWilliams.
(30:26):
His father died when he wasfairly young.
He didn't know a lot about hisfather's family tree but they
had deep roots in the South andwhen we did the research and you
know pulling it together, I'mlike we identified the
slaveholders.
You know we had some records towork with and his ancestors
(30:49):
ended up owning land very earlyafter emancipation, like by the
1870s.
They were landowners andwell-established and relatively
prosperous black farmers intheir region.
And if I read the script ofafter the interview, we didn't,
(31:14):
I didn't watch that interview.
We that was pre-pandemic and weweren't always zooming every
interview for me to watch andreview.
But I read the transcript ofthe script, you know
post-interview script and thisis like what's going to end up
airing.
Just, fact-checking is part ofour protocol.
And I was thinking, oh, this iskind of flat, it's part of our
(31:35):
protocol.
And I was thinking, oh, this iskind of flat.
You know the responses aren'tthat great.
He doesn't have a lot ofinsight here.
You know, some guests thinkquicker on their feet or they
know more about history andhistorical context.
And I was just thinking,michael K Williams, it's all
(31:55):
right, we have, we present astory, story, but it's kind of
flat.
However, when it airs, he was soemotional and the way he said,
you know, the way he crafted hisresponses, he's tearing up.
I'm like whoa, this is sopowerful.
You know he is very moved bythis and you didn't.
You don't get that if you'rejust reading the words on a
piece of screen, on a piece ofpaper.
Um, you don't get that ifyou're just reading the words on
(32:16):
a piece of screen, on a pieceof paper.
You don't get that from justreading it.
But watching the guest'sreaction, you know, brings a
tear to my eye and really, youknow that starts you thinking.
Doing that sort of research, youknow you want those stories
that are going to elicitemotional responses, not only
(32:37):
from the guest but from theaudience, the general audience,
because for finding your roots,a lot of the stories that get
told end up being representativeof many stories that maybe
can't be told because of youknow, you, a lack of records
allow you to document certainthings, but when you're able to
do it and get back into theslave era and tell some slave
(33:02):
story, that becomesrepresentative for so many
stories that have been lost.
And we do that, you know, forany immigrants, where you have a
difficult time jumping into theold country, especially Jewish
research, immigrants where youhave a difficult time jumping
(33:29):
into the old country, especiallyJewish research, the stories
that you're able to tell become,you know, representative and
kind order to understand thedynamics that might have been
going on and how your family fitinto you know general history.
And so you know that's.
I think that's a good exampleof something that was unexpected
(33:51):
to me because I thought thatthe research was kind of ho-hum,
you know, kind of typical BlackSouthern research in the
Carolinas.
Kind of cool.
Yeah, we identified theslaveholder, we, you know they
were landowners shortly afteremancipation.
They did pretty well forthemselves.
But then to see on the screenMichael K Williams, you know
(34:12):
really emotional response, howmeaningful it was to him, and
then to understand, for him tounderstand why his dad had such
a deep connection to this place,you know, for him to connect
those dots, you know that'spretty powerful.
But then you also have theangle that this is impacting,
you know, millions of viewers.
And you're helping other peoplewrap their head around a similar
(34:38):
situation and maybe inspirethem to learn more about their
family history or at least thinkabout, you know, the context of
your family history, and sothat's been very impactful to me
and I think the work on thatshow, it was not lost on me that
you know that we were doingwork that was very meaningful to
(35:00):
the guest but also could bevery meaningful to the viewers,
and so.
But when you work on privateclient projects, you know I'm
working for typically one person.
Occasionally we have, you know,somebody's putting together a
family reunion and some cousinschip in.
It's a much smaller audience,but often I start crafting my
(35:22):
report and I say to the clientI'm like, you know, I like to
make this more of an heirloomproject.
You know what, if yourgrandkids pick this up 40 years
from now, what you know?
Maybe they don't have kids orgrandkids.
They're like I don't have anychildren, nieces, nephews,
cousins, anybody who'sinterested in this.
Um, I try to craft my reportsin such a way that it tells a
(35:45):
family story, uh, that's goingto be relevant to you know, that
person's whole family, anybodythat might pick up, uh, that
report or that booklet.
You know years from now, and soyou know that's.
I think as a genealogist, you'realways trying to connect the
dots, and some of the dots thatyou're connecting might be, you
(36:07):
know, living people like, hey,we want to try to make this
relevant to the livinggeneration.
Otherwise, you know who, if I,if I write a report about these
people that have been long deadand you read it and then you
know, 20 years from now you dieand that knowledge is lost again
, you know what's the point,right, and most people that it
(36:32):
clicks like, oh yeah, I want topreserve this for future
generations.
And a lot of people go into itwith that mindset.
Some people don't, they're justcurious for themselves.
So I tend to approach familyhistory with the idea that, yeah
, we're connecting dots goingback to earlier generations, but
(36:54):
you also want to make itrelevant to the living people.
And that's where you know youkind of help inspire people to
understand.
You know where they came from,how they got here, and if you
know that, hopefully thatknowledge helps you think about
well, what am I doing today toimpact the future?
(37:16):
And that's my hope when puttingtogether any family history
project is to help people puttheir family into historical
context.
And one thing that's interestingto me is, occasionally it's
(37:39):
something really specific, butit's clear that so many things
that happen throughout afamily's history come back to
one moment Somebody's decisionto immigrate, somebody's
decision.
I mean, it could be somethingyou're never going to document,
(38:01):
but you know some, some girlends up going into town today
and goes to the county fair andshe ends up meeting the guy
she's going to marry.
You know, and it's just totallycapricious, you know how this
happened.
My dad hadn't broken his back.
If my father hadn't broken hisback and I hadn't decided to go
down to Arizona to spend sometime with him and help him get
(38:23):
him back on his feet, I wouldn'thave met my wife.
You know little things like thatthat end up turning, you know,
a whole family's story in adifferent direction.
And so if you read between thelines, quite often you start
(38:43):
realizing that you throw thatpuddle in the water and it makes
some ripples.
The little things you do todayhave an impact around you, not
only to the people we mightinteract with on a daily basis,
but maybe generations to come.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
Which is horrifying.
Let me tell you of all thehorrible decisions I make on a
daily basis.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
The fate of the world depends on whether or not you
drank this cup of coffee today.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
Right, have chicken or fish.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
Yeah, horrifying you know, nick, I'm really curious.
I mean, obviously you find outa lot of great stuff about about
your clients and you know theylearn a lot about their history.
How do you handle the range ofemotions?
Because obviously you knowthere's gonna be times where
they're like, wow, this is great, I love, I love that you found
(39:37):
out this.
And there's going to be timeswhere, let's say, there are some
really disturbing things thatyou uncover, like, for example,
let's say, if you have a whiteclient and they found out not
only that they have an ancestorthat was a slave owner but was
one of the most brutal slaveowners at that particular time,
and you know they're kind of notreally processing it because
(39:59):
they're kind of horrified aboutwhat they find, how do you
handle your emotions when youknow you come to that situation
where you have to deliver thisnews to your clients?
Speaker 3 (40:10):
Yeah, it's really interesting.
And I have a philosophy aboutthis, and that is that it's
really kind of silly one to beashamed of anything your
ancestors did because you hadnothing to do with it.
But two, also it's kind ofsilly to be proud of anything
your ancestors did because youhad nothing to do with it.
(40:31):
I had an ancestor who was anabolitionist and a conductor on
the Underground Railroad.
Should I be proud of that?
I mean, I can cherish thatheritage, I can latch on to it,
but at the same time, I hadancestors who also held slaves.
I mean, they're the same degreeof relationship some of them Do
.
We latch on to that and cherishthat heritage as well?
(40:53):
And so, or should I be ashamedof that?
Should I be, you know?
Is that something that shouldimpact my self-esteem?
And the answer is no on bothaccounts.
And so my philosophy there isyour heritage can ground you if
(41:13):
you want it to.
But also, you know, I knowpeople who maybe they didn't
have a very good home life ormaybe they came from an abusive
home, and that, you know,encourages them, it really
catalyzes them to make sure thatthey break that cycle and, you
(41:41):
know, they end up becomingwonderful parents and providing
a wonderful, safe home for theirchildren.
And so recognizing andrealizing oh, I had some
ancestors, a real son of a bitch.
I have an ancestor who murderedhis brother.
We don't know the circumstances, but he was convicted of
murdering his brother, shootinghim from the bushes while his
(42:02):
brother was plowing a field,shot him off of his plow in
front of his son.
What would motivate a man tokill his brother like that?
And that kind of also maybeanswered the question why that
branch of the family wasn't wellremembered.
You know, down to mygrandfather, who remembered lots
(42:25):
of other family stories.
Why wasn't that one told?
You know he probably neverheard it, but you know you.
You know you cannot choose whoyour ancestors were.
(42:47):
And we have had, I've hadclients who were conceived
through rape, you know.
Maybe they were adopted, fullyadopted.
They didn't know who either oftheir biological parents were,
or they knew their mother.
And their mother told them youknow, you were conceived through
rape.
And I had one situation where acousin of mine maybe she's a
third cousin somebody reachedout to her because they matched
DNA, so this cousin of hers isnot related to me.
(43:10):
But it came back that thisnewfound first cousin of my
cousin said I think that youruncle might be my father.
And my cousin said well, youdon't want to have any contact
with that man.
You know he's a terrible humanbeing and you know.
The person finally said well,my mother said that she was
(43:32):
raped and so that makes sense.
But you know there's a cautionthere and how do people wrap
their head around it?
Well, therapy is a good avenue.
My wife's a therapist, by theway, and she actually
specializes in helping peoplewho have experienced trauma and
(43:54):
abuse, and especially children,but some adults as well.
But you know, when you learnsomething about a very close
family member, that's unsavory,terrible news.
Yeah, that can, it can reallybe devastating.
(44:16):
But it goes back to are youresponsible for that?
You know, do you have to carrythat?
And you know that's more of aphilosophical and psychological
question.
And the answer is no, you'renot responsible for it, you know
, and you don't need to carrythat guilt.
But at the same time, yeah,I've had clients who learned
(44:39):
that they had slaveholders andthey're not interested to know
much more about that side of thefamily, and usually it's
crickets, you know.
And I've had some black clientsand some there are guests for
Finding your Roots, too, thathave had a hard time wrapping
their head around Discoveries.
(45:00):
And there are guests forFinding your Roots, too, that
have had a hard time wrappingtheir head around discoveries.
I'm thinking of Jay Johnson.
We discovered a pretty coolstory for him.
He descended from a white manwho was part of a
German-American ancestry inVirginia but he was married to a
white woman, had children.
But he also had a bunch of kids, like eight or 10 children with
(45:29):
one of his slaves and at theend of the day he ends up not
living with his wife his legalwife.
He ends up he has threeplantations.
He ends up living on aplantation with the woman that
he has black children with andafter the Civil War they end up
living together.
I mean, he's choosing to livewith her openly in a state where
(45:51):
it's illegal.
You know they obviously had along-term relationship.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
He never freed her and you know there was.
There's a will where he makesprovisions that his executor,
one of his white sons, is tobuild a house for this black
woman who fathered eight or tenchildren with him.
And she got land.
You know obviously had along-term caring relationship
(46:25):
with this woman and his childrenchose to live with them after
the Civil War.
Jay Johnson had a really hardtime wrapping his head around
that you know and so you know.
But the records are clear.
You know this was not yourtypical situation that you would
(46:48):
imagine, where a white manfathers a child with an enslaved
Black woman.
Speaker 2 (46:53):
Mm-hmm, Now you have a very, I think, unique
opportunity or view on, likehumanity, with what you do.
What do you think that this youknow, being a genealogist may
have taught you as far as you,far as resiliency and family,
(47:17):
that maybe you would not haveotherwise known if you became an
architect?
Speaker 3 (47:23):
Well, one thing would be that we are all much more
closely related and much moreclosely connected than we can
imagine.
And that kind of begs thequestion well, if we're so so
much more closely related, youknow that we might realize, you
know, doesn't that mean that youknow people would treat
(47:45):
themselves better if theyrealize each other?
We would treat each otherbetter if we realized how
closely related we are.
But if you think about it, evenin some nuclear families
siblings don't get along.
You don't get along.
I mean I went a year withouttalking to my sister one time.
I don't think she realized Ihad a couple of uncles that
(48:06):
didn't talk to me for a while.
We had a business together andthere was a falling out.
My mother had a strainedrelationship with her siblings
after father died.
Probate stuff, stupid stuff,sure.
So you look at any familydynamic.
Even the people you're born andraised with, that you grew up
with, maybe they don't treateach other the way they're
(48:27):
supposed to.
And then you always havesituations where you know the
people that were supposed tolove and protect you as a child
didn't, and maybe they didterrible things.
You know, maybe, that weresupposed to love and protect you
as a child didn't, and maybethey did terrible things.
You know, maybe, that insteadof loving and protecting the
child they should have they wereabusive, terribly abusive.
And so what does it tell you?
(48:48):
They're people, are human, andso, yeah, in one sense, if we
realized how closely connectedand related we all are on this
little blue marble out in themiddle of space, you would think
people would treat each otherbetter.
But if even your closest familymembers end up not treating you
(49:10):
the way that you deserve to betreated, that's not a realistic
expectation.
And so one, yeah, we're allmore closely connected and
related than we might imagine.
But two, that doesn't translateinto the world being a better,
more harmonious place, becausewe're all human.
People are people, and my dadhas a great, great bit of advice
(49:34):
.
He says you can never bedisappointed if you don't have
expectations.
And so I'm doing family historyresearch.
One time there was a bigquestion about, you know, one of
my branches, my family.
It was in colonial uh, colonialnew jersey and back into
colonial connecticut.
And I reached out to a womanwho had done a bunch of research
for it, for one of theselineage societies like the
(49:54):
colonial dames, or one of theselineage societies like the
Colonial Dames, or one of those,and her question to me was well
, who do you hope to bedescended from?
Well, which of these familiesdo you hope to be your ancestors
?
I'm like this was 25 years ago,before I was a professional
genealogist.
I'm just, you know, an amateurwanting to learn more about my
(50:17):
family tree.
I'm like well, I hope I descendfrom the people I actually
descend from.
You know who are, which there'sconfusion here.
You can't choose who thesepeople are.
And so when people hire me tomap out their family tree, or
you're learning more about yourown family history, if you're
(50:37):
expecting to find a bunch ofhappy, rosy stories, you're
probably going to bedisappointed.
But if you go into it withoutthat expectation, your
expectation is I'm going to findout who my ancestors were, what
made them tick the good, thebad, the ugly.
Then, when you put those piecestogether, you let them fall
(51:05):
where they fall and you learnmore about that historical
context, and I think that thatactually speaks louder to the
fact that we're all individuals.
None of us are perfect and thebackground that our ancestors
lived in it can't be changed.
And I'll throw one anecdote outthere.
(51:30):
I was contacted one time.
People will often reach out toProfessor Gates and he'll loop
me into a question, and it was,I believe they were in France.
There was a journalist who waswriting a story and they wanted
to know if we could estimate howmany living people in the
United States today had at leastone ancestor who held slaves.
(51:54):
Well, that's a hard number tocome up with, right, that's a
PhD thesis.
You're going to have to dostatistical analysis.
But just off the top of my head, I said well, there's 40
million African American peopleliving in the United States
today, roughly, and I can sayevery single one of them has
(52:19):
some white ancestry.
I've never seen a black personin America, unless they've had
recent African immigrants, youknow, post-civil War.
Any black person in Americathat goes back to the Civil War
era and the slave era.
If they test DNA, they're goingto have a little European
(52:41):
admixture in that DNA.
Where do you think that whiteDNA came from, that European
admixture?
A white man fathered a childwith an enslaved woman at some
point.
Even if he wasn't theslaveholder, he probably came
from a family where, somewherealong the lines, there's a
(53:01):
slaveholder.
So my immediate answer to thisquestion is well, there's 40
million African-American peopleliving in the United States
today.
You know that's 40 million outof the.
How many people are in theUnited States today?
300, 400 million people.
And so, if that's the numberyou know, the first number I
(53:21):
come up with it's really, Iwould say, almost any white
person who has colonial roots inthe United States.
I would say a majority of them,and I don't know how big the
majority is, but I would say themajority of white people who
have colonial roots in theUnited States have at least one
slave holder in their family.
That's just a guess.
(53:42):
And so 40 million here andmaybe 40 to 80 million here.
We're looking at maybe 120million, maybe more.
At least half the United StatesCould be much higher, could be
two-thirds of the people livingin the United States Descend
from a slaveholder in NorthAmerica.
(54:07):
Now, slavery didn't exist in avacuum in North America.
You want to go back to Romantimes, to biblical times?
Everyone on Earth descends froma slave holder.
It's an institution that's beenaround for millennia, even
among Native Americans.
(54:27):
Before Columbus sailed therewas slavery in America between
certain Native American tribesand that's been kind of a
fascinating thing.
And so you're going to findunsavory facts and how you wrap
your head around it.
Some people do that easier,much more easily than others.
(54:51):
And then what do you do withthat information?
I think is the more importantquestion.
You know you recognize the goodin people.
You want to embrace that, youwant to emphasize that heritage.
But if you have heritage thatwas unsavory, do you sweep it
(55:12):
under the rug or do youacknowledge that as well?
Because you can acknowledge themistakes in the past and by
doing that you're really helpingprevent those mistakes from
being repeated in the future.
Sure, because if you sweep itunder the rug or just we're not
going to talk about that, we'renot even going to go there.
What good does that do to helpfuture generations?
Speaker 1 (55:40):
That's true, that's true.
Wow, I tell you, I wish we hadmore time.
This is, this is a greatconversation.
Speaker 2 (55:47):
So, insightful.
Speaker 1 (55:49):
Yes, now, before I let you go, nick, I want you to
tell people about your business,how you can help them, and then
, possibly, how can they reachout if they want to maybe look
at hiring you to find theirroots and their ancestry, for,
you know, to find their rootsand their ancestry.
Speaker 3 (56:06):
Sure.
So I've done private clientwork full-time since 2012.
And my main client was Findingyour Roots, which was more than
a full-time job, and so when Iwas working with Johnny Cerny
and her business, we did take onprivate client work, but
unfortunately the work for theshow, the TV show, prevented us
(56:27):
from getting a lot of workaccomplished for the private
clients.
We had some other peopleworking with us and for us who
we could pass some of that workoff of, but I left the show
after season 11 this summer andseason 11 is going to air coming
up this winter, probably startairing in January 2025.
(56:48):
But I did have.
I've had some private clientsreach out over the years and you
know I they were on my queueand I have been taking more
projects.
I'm probably four to six monthsout starting a new project if
somebody were to reach out.
But you know I work for, uh,anybody who wants family history
(57:10):
research done, uh, and and anybackground.
That's the kind of I would say.
The interesting thing about thework that I've done as a
professional genealogist is Ihave both depth and breadth of
experience you know we had forfinding roots.
We had to work for clientsacross the board for guests who
come from all backgrounds andall over the world, and it
(57:32):
really opened my eyes.
But also having just a greatmentor in Johnny Cerny.
She's like, oh, you know, if aclient reaches out, you know we
need to be able to either sayyes, we can do that, or no.
Sometimes I'll refer somebodyto an expert in another field,
like, oh, you really need tohire a Jewish genealogist and
you know you're going to need tofocus in the Ukraine and here's
(57:53):
the go-to guy there, or Belarusor wherever.
But so my company is calledFinding your Ancestry LLC and
I'm based in Montana, where Ilive, and my email address is
nick at findingyourancestrycom.
I don't have a website up sofar, just people who've reached
(58:15):
out over the years and I said,yes, I'll get to your project
when I can, and I have a backlogof projects I'm working on and
then a few other people who'vereached out, since I have a busy
schedule without advertisingtoo much.
But I will be getting a websiteup and running and I'm glad to
field questions and even if I'mnot ultimately able to help
(58:38):
somebody, I can point them inthe right direction or kind of
explain the pitfalls or what aresearch plan might look like,
and occasionally someone doesn'thave the budget that would
allow them to hire aprofessional genealogist.
That's, I think, an importantthing to understand is
professional genealogists buildby the hour, just like an
(58:59):
attorney would.
I rarely would sit down and workon a 40-hour project, start to
finish, and I'm done, you know,monday through Friday finished.
It's more like okay, we do alittle work, we order some
records, we see what they say.
Sometimes it takes weeks ormonths to get those records back
and then we go from there.
And so what a professionalgenealogist is able to
(59:22):
accomplish depends on so manyvariables and it's, you know,
every family's unique.
Every pedigree is unique, um,so what we're able to accomplish
it depends on where yourancestors lived, what records
were kept, what records survive,how accessible they are, and
then the dynamics of yourparticular family, um, and what
(59:43):
the complexities of that are.
And so, whether you're going toreach out to me or hire any
professional genealogist, youknow you can never guarantee
results, something, even if atthe end they say you know the
available records don't allow usto do this.
Oh, this is a DNA mystery andyou know we've looked at your
(01:00:15):
DNA matches and we still can'tquite connect the dots.
You know you might end upgetting a report that's
inconclusive, and unfortunatelythat's just the way it goes.
Sometimes I have dead ends inmy own family tree.
I have mysteries that willprobably never be solved, and so
if, as an amateur genealogist,anybody out there hits a brick
wall, you're in good company,because we all have them.
(01:00:38):
But anyway, I do do privateclient research and I'm happy to
field questions from people,offer my assistance.
However, I can at the veryleast point someone in the right
direction or describe the sortsof record groups that they
might search for what they'reafter.
And yeah, you can reach out tome by email, nick, at
(01:01:01):
findingyourancestrycom.
Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
Perfect, thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
Thank you, you nick this.
This was a great, great sessionand, uh, definitely don't be a
stranger we'd definitely like tohave you back on oh, absolutely
, uh, my pleasure.
Speaker 3 (01:01:15):
and, and you know I'm researching people who have
been long dead for many yearsfor the most part, you know.
So it's nice to see the facesand hear voices and live in the
land of the living once in awhile, and so it's my pleasure,
absolutely my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (01:01:35):
Thank you.
Well, for everyone else, we'regoing to take a quick break and
we'll be right back.
Hello everyone, welcome back.
This was a great, great show ohmy gosh.
Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
yes, thank you so much, nick sheeny, for coming on
so insightful, so justknowledgeable in genealogy.
Um, if you are interested inwatching other amazing
interviews, log on toelrodtvnetworkcom.
Or if you want to connect withus, you can also check out our
instagram at elrodtvnetworkcom.
(01:02:09):
Or no, not com, justElrodTVNetwork.
Speaker 1 (01:02:13):
Thank you again for watching Always, always remember
to have those thirstyconversations.
I'm Lawrence Elrod.
Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
And I am Kristen Olinga.
Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
Enjoy your weekend, everyone, bye-bye, bye.
Hello everyone, welcome to this week's episode
of Thirsty Conversations.
Hello, I am Lawrence Elrod.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
And I am Kristen Walinga.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
I'm really, really excited about our guest for this
week.
He's formerly the leadgenealogist for the popular show
called Finding your Roots,which is on PBS.
He has his own, which is on PBS.
He has his own ancestry companythat he does work for private
(00:51):
customers and you know help allkinds of people you know find
out about their roots, abouttheir genealogy and how their
family is put together.
Please, please welcome NickSheedy to our show.
Nick welcome.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Thank you so much, Lawrence and Kristen.
It's my pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
It is definitely our pleasure to have you.
Now, nick, do me a favor, kindof explain to everyone what a
genealogist does, and you knowhow do you help people, sure
Well, a genealogist.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
If you're an amateur genealogist does, and you know
how do you help people.
Sure Well, a genealogist ifyou're an amateur genealogist
you're probably interested inyour own family.
You might be the familyhistorian, you might keep the
family Bible and keep track ofthe family tree.
You're the person at familyreunions running around and
asking everybody for birth datesand babies' middle names and
(01:45):
things like that.
And so you know a genealogist.
As an amateur, you might beinterested in your own family
tree and learning more, not onlyabout your ancestors, but
connecting your cousins andrecording family history and
family stories for posterity foryour own children,
(02:05):
grandchildren, maybe your niecesand nephews or your cousins.
But as a professionalgenealogist, I do much of the
same sort of work.
It's just I'm working forprivate clients and so my work
is driven by the goals andobjectives of my clients.
And so some people say, oh, Iwant to know more about my
(02:29):
ancestors and there's no realspecifics, just as much as you
can find and as far back as wecan go.
But other people have a veryspecific family mystery.
They might have a grandfatherwhose name is not known, a
father whose name is not known.
You know, those become DNAmysteries typically, but there
(02:54):
may be family stories thatthey'd like to try to either
verify or dispel.
You know, like my wife's greatgrandmother supposedly ran booze
for Al Capone duringProhibition I suspect that she
might have.
But there's a lot more to thatstory and it's probably not as
(03:14):
glamorous definitely probablynot as glamorous as you might
imagine when you say somethinglike that.
But in my own family I neverknew it growing up until I
started doing family history.
But my fourth great grandfather, lot Holmes, was not only an
abolitionist, he sat on thepublishing committee for an
anti-slavery newspaper calledthe Bugle the anti-slavery bugle
(03:38):
in Columbiana County Ohio.
But when I looked up he endedup moving to Marshalltown Iowa.
But when I looked up he endedup moving to Marshalltown Iowa.
When I looked up the littlebiographical sketch for him in
the local county history book,it talked about the anecdotes of
him and his brother, stacyNichols, being conductors on the
Underground Railroad and somestories of how they actually
(04:01):
helped certain people escapeslavery and, you know, go north.
And that was something that wasa story that was never
preserved in my family tree.
But and it's something that youso rarely document and I have
people quite often say oh, wehave this story and we don't
ever find documents or recordsto verify it.
(04:23):
So that was a surprise to me.
But he was a Quaker and so it'snot so surprising that he would
have been an abolitionist oranti-slavery, but it's
surprising to me that I actuallyfound it.
But so often our private clientswill have a family story they'd
like verified, a family mysterythat they'd like us to focus on
(04:47):
.
And for finding your roots youknow it's a little bit of
everything the first thing youhave to do is map out someone's
entire pedigree, identify asmany ancestors as you can and
then start doing some deep divesor sniff around to see what
(05:10):
stories might be out there andwhat documents could be located
to help tell a story you know isTV worthy, and so you know, as
a professional genealogist, it'sreally up to the client what
their goals are, what theirobjectives are.
I've also worked for probateclients, probate cases, and
those are really interesting.
We had an estate where thewoman had a will, a trust.
(05:32):
It was all bulletproof.
We're not looking for heirs.
But, still in New York.
You have to notify next of kinthat somebody died, just in case
they wanted to contest the willor challenge something.
And this woman had leftpractically everything she owned
to the Studio Museum, which isa prominent African-American art
(05:53):
museum in Harlem, and so herestate was to benefit the Studio
Museum.
And this was just a formality.
But what it boiled down to isshe had one sister who died
young, no nieces or nephews, shenever married, never had kids I
should say that first.
And so on her mother's sidewe're looking for first cousins,
(06:14):
and there are a few, butthey're already deceased.
So you have to track down thechildren or grandchildren of
first cousins.
But on her father's side, herfather was the youngest of 12 or
13 children, but on herfather's side, her father was
the youngest of 12 or 13children and the oldest uncle
was born like in the 1870s.
So you're going back and theseare black people in Virginia
coming out of slavery.
(06:35):
There were hundreds of peoplethat we had to identify in order
to track down, you know, wouldbe heirs if she had died with no
will, and so that's somethingthat a lot of people might not
think about when you'reimagining what sort of work a
genealogist might do.
I had another case where awealthy philanthropist in
(06:56):
California donated like athousand acres to the state of
California for a littleexperimental state forest and
it's on the ridge just north ofNapa Valley.
Well, my grandma, betty's greatgrandparents were pioneer
vintners in Napa Valley.
I know that area well and whatthey wanted to do is the state
forest.
We wanted to build a firestation but the deed
(07:18):
restrictions when the gift wasmade said you know, you can't
build anything on the property.
And there were other deedrestrictions and so we needed to
track down who would her heirshave been.
And the state and the state'sattorneys were asking them to
waive certain deed restrictionsso they could build a fire
station.
And when I was in Sacramentoabout a year and a half ago I
(07:41):
flew down to do a PBS station, afundraiser, and my wife went
with me and we took an extra fewdays and took a weekend through
Napa Valley over to the coastdown to San Francisco.
I said you know what, let'sdrive up there.
I want to see if this firestation ever got built.
And there it is.
And we actually drove through aplace where there had been a
(08:02):
forest fire, but there's homesall over.
They actually drove through aplace where there had been a
forest fire, but there's homesall over, and so you know, being
able to build this forest, forthe state forestry, to be able
to build a fire station it's,you know, it's protecting homes
in this little area from forestfires.
So, anyway, that work ends upbeing a little more interesting
(08:23):
and maybe you know not what youmight expect when you're talking
about doing family historyresearch.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
So how do you handle cases that have very limited or
obscure records you hadmentioned?
You know 1700s coming out, youknow starting to come out of
slavery.
That has unique challenges ofits own, I'm sure.
How do you handle those?
Speaker 3 (08:43):
Well, I think the important thing to emphasize and
this is also to anybody whodoes their own family history
research is the paper trail runsout for everyone, for every
single line, for every singleperson and every single
ancestral line.
The paper trail is going to runout at some point.
Now some people can trace theirlines back to early colonial
(09:07):
America or back to medievalEngland, back to Charlemagne and
even earlier, but that'sactually rare to be able to do.
Most people, you know you cantake your family back.
If you're immigrants fromEurope, say.
Most people can get theirfamilies back to the boat.
I won't say most a lot.
(09:27):
You know it's not uncommon.
But then there's a.
You have to jump back to theold country.
There's certain information youhave to know exactly.
Where did they come from.
You need birth dates and a veryspecific place to look for.
You know parish records.
Those are very local records,and so that's often where you
end up hitting a brick wall,especially for Jewish immigrants
(09:50):
, if we don't know the exactplace where they came from in
Eastern Europe, usually you'reat a dead end.
For African-American families,the brick wall, the very typical
brick wall, is between the 1870census and emancipation.
You know those that five yearsafter the Civil War, you know
(10:12):
there's there's very few recordsthat help you connect those
dots, and so if you find people,if you can document a family
back to the 1870 census, there'sa number of things that have to
come together in order for youto be able to delve back into
the slave era and I'd say I'monly successful maybe 20 or 25%
of the time to identify thelikely or positively identify
(10:36):
the slaveholder of any Blackpeople that you find after the
Civil War.
And you have to know, you haveto figure out who the
slaveholder was in order todelve into those slave era
records to see if you canscratch out any more information
.
And you know if I'm onlysuccessful 20 to 25% of the time
(10:57):
, that means 75 to 80% of thetime I'm not successful and
that's typical.
And so for a lot of black peopleto get back to that era.
You know people born intoslavery.
You find them on the 1870census.
You know 75 to 80% of the time.
That's as far as it goes, andso it's challenging.
(11:19):
So you know, I preface that's'sthe preface to my answer is the
paper trail runs out foreverybody and it depends who
your people were, where theylived, what records were kept to
begin with, what recordssurvived and then how accessible
are they?
(11:40):
so if the records were neverkept to begin with or they don't
survive, you're out of luck.
But if the records maybe theywere kept to begin with or they
don't survive, you're out ofluck.
But if the records maybe theywere kept, maybe they weren't,
you don't know but if they'renot very accessible for instance
, jewish records in EasternEurope they aren't very
accessible to us.
You have to know oh, they camefrom Lithuania, they came from
(12:00):
this town, or they came fromBelarus or Ukraine or Poland, or
they came from Belarus orUkraine or Poland.
You have to have a specificplace, and then we have to hire
someone in country in order togo to the archives to access the
records that maybe have neverbeen microfilmed, have never
been digitized, and so there'shurdles to jump over and you
need a budget for that.
And so, as a professionalgenealogist and working for
(12:22):
Finding your Roots, there's abudget, but it's not unlimited,
right, and our time is notlimited.
You know, for the TV show, youhave hard deadlines, and so,
whether you're a professional oran amateur, you're limited by
time and budget.
And so, as an amateurgenealogist, if you're working
on your own family tree, if thisis your hobby, you can put in a
(12:44):
lot of time.
If you're working on your ownfamily tree, if this is your
hobby, you can put in a lot oftime, you know, evenings,
weekends.
If you're retired, even when Iwas younger, I put in, I
probably put in 20 hours a weekon average researching my own
family tree, just because I was,you know, super interested in
it.
I wasn't married, I didn't have, I was footloose and fancy free
, so you put in a lot of time.
(13:07):
But I was a poor youngster, acollege kid, I had no money, so
I had no budget, time but nobudget.
And so if you have a budget butyou don't have the time or the
inclination of the skill set,that's when you go out and you
hire a professional and see whatthey can do and you tell them
your goals, your goals, yourobjectives, and you know they'll
take your money, your budget,and say, okay, that buys so much
(13:29):
time and we'll see what we canaccomplish.
And that's the other thing younever know what you're going to
find until you dig in.
And so you know, to answer yourquestion, what you're able to
find, what family trees you'reable to document.
There's so many variables thatyou can never anticipate how the
(13:49):
family tree is going to cometogether until you actually
start documenting generation bygeneration.
When you do that and you testDNA and you go wait a minute, I
(14:09):
don't match DNA with any of thecousins.
I should match on that wholebranch of my family tree you
often get surprises.
I don't have any surprises inmy family tree so far where
there's a totally unanticipated,what we call a misattributed
paternity.
We do have one on the Bettyside of the family where her
grandfather we suspected thathis dad was not who everybody
(14:34):
said the man whose name's on hisdeath certificate.
This is kind of a mystery guy.
But then DNA confirmed that itwas not that guy.
It was a totally different name, confirmed that it was not that
guy, it was a totally differentname.
This is somebody born in the1850s in Canada and ends up in
California as a teenager and so.
But we've had guests forFinding your Roots who took a
(14:56):
DNA test and they find out thattheir father or their
grandfather is not the man thatthey put down on paper and so uh
, that's not uncommon foranybody taking a dna test, um,
and so that, uh, dna, thattechnology has really um changed
.
It's changed the landscape.
(15:18):
Um, dna testing has changed thelandscape because, one, we're
we're able to connect dots thatwe would have never been able to
connect without DNA.
But, two, the DNA can tell youthat there is in fact a family
mystery, when you never evensuspected it to begin with.
So that's been very interestingover the past, you know, 10 to
(15:44):
15 years, with the advent of DNAand more and more people
testing to see how prevalent youknow, you get a surprise that
was not expected.
And you know, for some people itturns their world upside down.
Yeah, Sure down, yeah, sure,and not only the person who
(16:07):
tested.
And they find out my dad's, notmy biological father.
But then if you identify thebiological father maybe his
family and your half siblingsthat you're just learning that
exist, you know, maybe they hadno idea either, and so it turns
a whole family groups worldupside down.
And so you know it can bechallenging.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Yeah.
I can imagine, especially whenyou know there's an unknown out
there.
You know, you're actually kindof kicking over the rocks and
turning the papers over to seewhat's there and I'm kind of
curious and the reason I'masking this.
I remember watching an episodeof Tamron Hall show where she
had a genealogist on her showand she traced her family roots
(16:52):
and this genealogist actuallywas able to trace it all the way
back to the plantation ownerand she did not want to know who
that was.
You know she.
She's like OK, I know enough, Idon't want to know that.
Have you ran across, you know,without being specific, have you
run across clients that youknow they were like you know
what Like?
Have you run across clientsthat you know they were like you
(17:14):
know what this is, as far as Iwant you to take this, or maybe
you found something that youknow they didn't know about
their own tree and they werelike you know.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
I really don't want to know about that.
Oh, absolutely.
And what's really interestingwith you know that story you
just told my mentor, johnnyCerny was chief genealogist for
Finding your Roots up untilabout halfway through season
seven.
She passed away right beforethe COVID pandemic hit, but she
was a dear, dear friend and foreight years she was just an
(17:47):
amazing mentor.
But she was one of the leadinggenealogists for conducting
African-American research.
Going back to the early 1980swhen Roots came out.
She was kind of the go-toperson because she wrote a
chapter in one of the referencebooks called the Source.
She wrote the chapter onAfrican-American genealogy
research and so she was a go-toperson and she became good
(18:13):
friends with Quincy Jones andshe did Quincy Jones' Family
Tree.
She worked on Michael Jacksonvery early on but she also did
the genealogies for a lot of theactors on Roots who became
interested themselves.
So what?
Johnny told me that in the 80sBlack people who wanted to learn
(18:35):
more about their roots had zerointerest in learning about any
white ancestors.
They had very little interestin learning about the plantation
where their ancestors wereenslaved and forced to work.
Um, that was not of interest tothem at all and if you reported
it.
It was, you know, know, notnecessarily like they turned a
(18:57):
blind eye, but they're.
You know that's not their goal,they're not interested in that.
If you, you know, if you workedon somebody's family tree and
phases and you said, oh, youknow, we could follow up by, you
know, identifying earliergenerations of this white
ancestor of yours, you knowpeople weren't interested in
that, this white ancestor ofyours, people weren't interested
(19:20):
in that.
But now I would say most of myblack clients that is one of
their goals Like, okay, mygrandfather was Malara and so
that suggests that his fatherwas white, his mother was black.
Who was this white guy?
I want to know who was this guy?
and I want to know who, what,who is this guy and what can we
learn about their family tree?
Um, but, uh, one of the topgoals for any black person that
(19:43):
fills out one of my questionquestionnaires.
It's often where were myancestors held in slavery?
I'd like to know whether, wherewas, where was the plantation?
Can we identify its specificlocation?
You know?
I mean they want to take a tripand if it may, you know it's
probably not still intact.
It's going to be a, you know asuburb of Atlanta now, or you
(20:03):
know something.
But occasionally you canactually.
You look on a map, you can delveinto the deed records.
You identify the slaveholderfirst.
You know what land did they own.
You can outline it on a map.
You identify the slaveholderfirst.
What land did they own?
You can outline it on a map.
We can nail that down sometimes.
But that's an interesting shiftfor African-American research
(20:25):
where that's actually becoming alot more interesting to my
Black clients, to my blackclients.
But also I have had whiteclients who say I know my
ancestors held slaves.
I would like to learn moreabout the lives of the slaves
that they held.
And then the questions are am Irelated to any of them.
(20:49):
You know DNA is the only way toknow and can we track down
anybody?
And I did have one client andhe's deceased now and you know I
work in strict confidence withmy clients but I think that he
would be OK with me telling thisstory.
I had a client.
He had never married, never hadchildren.
(21:11):
He had a little estate, not ahuge estate.
He owned a home and had asuccessful little business in
town and he asked me to.
He knew that his ancestors heldslaves but he asked me to track
down, or see if I could trackdown, any descendants of any
slaves slaves that his ancestorsheld.
(21:33):
And I did.
But his intent was to make themhis heirs, write it in his will
and leave something to them.
Not a lot this is not a superwealthy man, but it was
something that he thought.
I mean he wanted to do it, hedidn't want to leave it to his
(21:57):
nieces and nephews.
And it turns out you're lesssuccessful.
(22:17):
Actually starting way back whenand trying to come forward.
It might be counterintuitive,but if people move around you
might just lose them.
Especially between the 1800 andthe 1900 census, or sorry, the
1880 and the 1900 census.
We have a 20-year gap incensuses.
We often lose people if theymove, but we're not always
successful tracking down to theliving generation.
But it turns out one of thedescendants of an enslaved
person that his ancestors heldwas actually a close friend of
his.
I mean, he knew the guy, heknew the guy.
(22:39):
They were fishing buddies.
He's like I, I never imagined,he never knew, and so he's like
this is fortuitous.
And so I have had that'sprobably the most interesting
white client I've had who wantedto track down descendants of
(23:00):
the enslaved people theirancestors held.
But I've had some other whiteclients doing the same.
They want to learn more aboutthat history and some of them
may have had deep pockets andthey don't have a clear idea
what they want to do.
But they're thinking aboutreparations, they're thinking
about healing, they're thinkingabout you know how do we use
(23:22):
this information?
But you can't use it unless youknow it Right.
So, yeah, you can say ingeneral oh, my ancestors
probably held slaves, may haveheld slaves, who knows?
My ancestors probably heldslaves, may have held slaves,
who knows?
And oh, yeah, those blackpeople, well, yeah, maybe
they're descendant from some ofthe people I held.
My ancestors held slaves.
But if you don't know theparticulars, if you don't know
(23:44):
the details, you know you'rejust guessing.
So with Finding your Roots, youknow, when I write up a report
for clients and we're givingpeople details I write up a
report for clients and we'regiving people details that
knowledge becomes power becauseyou are getting specific and you
are connecting the dots and allof a sudden you're taking like
a general idea of history andyou are giving people specific
(24:08):
knowledge and this is how youare connected to history and you
know that can be reallypowerful.
I descend from a man namedNicholas Gassaway.
This is through my grandma,betty, and this is a whole
branch of the family.
I haven't actually documentedvery well myself, but when
Nicholas Gassaway died in the1690s he would have been one of
(24:33):
the larger slaveholders inMaryland and he was not one of
these one percenters you knowwho held hundreds of slaves.
I forget how many slaves heheld, but it was 20 or 30.
It might have been more, but mypoint was going to be when I've
done genealogical researchthroughout the South and I will
(24:56):
be just going through censuspages looking for whomever I'm
looking for and I'll come acrosspeople named Gassaway.
Well, nicholas Gassaway is theprogenitor of the white Gassaway
family in America.
But I will also come acrossBlack people named Gassaway.
Where did they get that nameRight?
(25:17):
These people had to have beenheld in slavery at some point by
some cousin on that branch ofthe family.
You know, maybe a very distantcousin, but it jumps out at me
and you know it's there and Ican't unsee it.
You know it's like oh, gassaway, yeah, that I probably have a
(25:38):
connection to those peoplesomehow.
But then of course you'retalking about slavery.
I may be related to them byblood as well and you never know
the circumstances of that.
Even with DNA you get back sofar.
You may or may not actuallymatch DNA with true distant
cousins at some point, and sothe DNA may or may not show that
(26:03):
relationship.
But it's been very interestingto me.
My grandma, betty's mother'smaiden name is McCrimmon, so
it's my middle name or maidenname.
My great-grandma's maiden namewas McCrimmon.
It's my middle name or maidenname.
My great-grandma's maiden namewas McCrimmon.
It's my middle name.
Mccrimmons are great bagpipersfrom the Isle of Skye in the
highlands of Scotland.
They're actually well-knownbagpipers the great Highland
(26:25):
bagpipe.
My McCrimmon ancestorsimmigrated to Canada in 1815.
From Canada they went toMinnesota for a short time, then
on to California after theCivil War.
You know, they never lived inthe Deep South.
They never held slaves.
Although my grandma's cousin,adele Adele, told all sorts of
(26:47):
stories, she thought that ourMcCrimmons had been loyalist
refugees from South Carolina whoended up in Canada.
Totally not true, althoughthere were McCrimmins in the
Deep South before and after theRevolution we're related somehow
.
Mccrimmins all come from thislittle place in the highlands of
(27:08):
Scotland Isle of Skye and theGlenelg Peninsula and I do match
DNA with them.
We have letters back and forthbetween some of these people in
the Carolinas and some of thepeople who end up in Ontario,
but our connection is way backin Scotland.
Well, fast forward, dna comesout and I match DNA with some
(27:30):
people named McCrimmon in Texasand they're black and I reached
out and I heard back and then Inever heard anything again.
But I'm like I need to knowmore about this and from the
little information that they hadshared with through their DNA
profile in their family tree, Iwas able to oh, they are.
(27:50):
They were held in slavery by aparticular white guy named
McCrimmon who came out of theCarolinas but could never quite
figure out who his father was oryou know, connect all of those
dots.
But I'm like I match DNA withthis person.
There's no way in the world Ihave no, I had no ancestors in
Texas.
I had no ancestors in Georgiaor South Carolina that I know of
(28:14):
, in Georgia or South Carolinathat I know of, and the only way
I might connect to this personis through my McCrimmon family
and our connection is going tobe way back in Scotland in the
1700s.
But their line immigrated tothe Carolinas white people who
obviously fathered children withblack slaves and end up in
Texas.
(28:34):
And my line ends up going fromCanada to the United States and
ends up in California shortlyafter the civil war, in very
different paths.
We are related back in Scotland, you know, 250 years ago or
more.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
So I mean, obviously, gene genealogy is like full of
surprises.
Has there been, you know, anysurprise, or really just
anything that you've uncoveredthat has felt, maybe especially
you know, rewarding, or justparticularly like moving to you
(29:14):
a specific discovery that comesto mind?
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Oh, you know, certainly with working for
Finding your Roots it's verymoving to me.
I would get to watch the fullinterview with the guest and the
interviews might be, you know,four or five hours long, and so
you know it's from that footagethat they craft the final
(29:40):
episode for each guest, and soyou might only end up with 20 or
30 minutes of footage in thatfinal episode for each guest.
But that's taken from a fivehour interview and that you know
long interview is taken fromreally hundreds of hours of
research to go into it, toidentify ancestors and then try
to craft stories, and so themajority of the work that's done
(30:03):
never makes it on to the air.
And finding your roots, butthat's the way it works with
most documentary type televisionor documentary series.
But watching the guests'reactions I'm getting teared up,
just like everybody elsewatching is getting teared up.
But I'm reminded of Michael KWilliams.
(30:26):
His father died when he wasfairly young.
He didn't know a lot about hisfather's family tree but they
had deep roots in the South andwhen we did the research and you
know pulling it together, I'mlike we identified the
slaveholders.
You know we had some records towork with and his ancestors
(30:49):
ended up owning land very earlyafter emancipation, like by the
1870s.
They were landowners andwell-established and relatively
prosperous black farmers intheir region.
And if I read the script ofafter the interview, we didn't,
(31:14):
I didn't watch that interview.
We that was pre-pandemic and weweren't always zooming every
interview for me to watch andreview.
But I read the transcript ofthe script, you know
post-interview script and thisis like what's going to end up
airing.
Just, fact-checking is part ofour protocol.
And I was thinking, oh, this iskind of flat, it's part of our
(31:35):
protocol.
And I was thinking, oh, this iskind of flat.
You know the responses aren'tthat great.
He doesn't have a lot ofinsight here.
You know, some guests thinkquicker on their feet or they
know more about history andhistorical context.
And I was just thinking,michael K Williams, it's all
(31:55):
right, we have, we present astory, story, but it's kind of
flat.
However, when it airs, he was soemotional and the way he said,
you know, the way he crafted hisresponses, he's tearing up.
I'm like whoa, this is sopowerful.
You know he is very moved bythis and you didn't.
You don't get that if you'rejust reading the words on a
piece of screen, on a piece ofpaper.
Um, you don't get that ifyou're just reading the words on
(32:16):
a piece of screen, on a pieceof paper.
You don't get that from justreading it.
But watching the guest'sreaction, you know, brings a
tear to my eye and really, youknow that starts you thinking.
Doing that sort of research, youknow you want those stories
that are going to elicitemotional responses, not only
(32:37):
from the guest but from theaudience, the general audience,
because for finding your roots,a lot of the stories that get
told end up being representativeof many stories that maybe
can't be told because of youknow, you, a lack of records
allow you to document certainthings, but when you're able to
do it and get back into theslave era and tell some slave
(33:02):
story, that becomesrepresentative for so many
stories that have been lost.
And we do that, you know, forany immigrants, where you have a
difficult time jumping into theold country, especially Jewish
research, immigrants where youhave a difficult time jumping
(33:29):
into the old country, especiallyJewish research, the stories
that you're able to tell become,you know, representative and
kind order to understand thedynamics that might have been
going on and how your family fitinto you know general history.
And so you know that's.
I think that's a good exampleof something that was unexpected
(33:51):
to me because I thought thatthe research was kind of ho-hum,
you know, kind of typical BlackSouthern research in the
Carolinas.
Kind of cool.
Yeah, we identified theslaveholder, we, you know they
were landowners shortly afteremancipation.
They did pretty well forthemselves.
But then to see on the screenMichael K Williams, you know
(34:12):
really emotional response, howmeaningful it was to him, and
then to understand, for him tounderstand why his dad had such
a deep connection to this place,you know, for him to connect
those dots, you know that'spretty powerful.
But then you also have theangle that this is impacting,
you know, millions of viewers.
And you're helping other peoplewrap their head around a similar
(34:38):
situation and maybe inspirethem to learn more about their
family history or at least thinkabout, you know, the context of
your family history, and sothat's been very impactful to me
and I think the work on thatshow, it was not lost on me that
you know that we were doingwork that was very meaningful to
(35:00):
the guest but also could bevery meaningful to the viewers,
and so.
But when you work on privateclient projects, you know I'm
working for typically one person.
Occasionally we have, you know,somebody's putting together a
family reunion and some cousinschip in.
It's a much smaller audience,but often I start crafting my
(35:22):
report and I say to the clientI'm like, you know, I like to
make this more of an heirloomproject.
You know what, if yourgrandkids pick this up 40 years
from now, what you know?
Maybe they don't have kids orgrandkids.
They're like I don't have anychildren, nieces, nephews,
cousins, anybody who'sinterested in this.
Um, I try to craft my reportsin such a way that it tells a
(35:45):
family story, uh, that's goingto be relevant to you know, that
person's whole family, anybodythat might pick up, uh, that
report or that booklet.
You know years from now, and soyou know that's.
I think as a genealogist, you'realways trying to connect the
dots, and some of the dots thatyou're connecting might be, you
(36:07):
know, living people like, hey,we want to try to make this
relevant to the livinggeneration.
Otherwise, you know who, if I,if I write a report about these
people that have been long deadand you read it and then you
know, 20 years from now you dieand that knowledge is lost again
, you know what's the point,right, and most people that it
(36:32):
clicks like, oh yeah, I want topreserve this for future
generations.
And a lot of people go into itwith that mindset.
Some people don't, they're justcurious for themselves.
So I tend to approach familyhistory with the idea that, yeah
, we're connecting dots goingback to earlier generations, but
(36:54):
you also want to make itrelevant to the living people.
And that's where you know youkind of help inspire people to
understand.
You know where they came from,how they got here, and if you
know that, hopefully thatknowledge helps you think about
well, what am I doing today toimpact the future?
(37:16):
And that's my hope when puttingtogether any family history
project is to help people puttheir family into historical
context.
And one thing that's interestingto me is, occasionally it's
(37:39):
something really specific, butit's clear that so many things
that happen throughout afamily's history come back to
one moment Somebody's decisionto immigrate, somebody's
decision.
I mean, it could be somethingyou're never going to document,
(38:01):
but you know some, some girlends up going into town today
and goes to the county fair andshe ends up meeting the guy
she's going to marry.
You know, and it's just totallycapricious, you know how this
happened.
My dad hadn't broken his back.
If my father hadn't broken hisback and I hadn't decided to go
down to Arizona to spend sometime with him and help him get
(38:23):
him back on his feet, I wouldn'thave met my wife.
You know little things like thatthat end up turning, you know,
a whole family's story in adifferent direction.
And so if you read between thelines, quite often you start
(38:43):
realizing that you throw thatpuddle in the water and it makes
some ripples.
The little things you do todayhave an impact around you, not
only to the people we mightinteract with on a daily basis,
but maybe generations to come.
Speaker 2 (39:00):
Which is horrifying.
Let me tell you of all thehorrible decisions I make on a
daily basis.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
The fate of the world depends on whether or not you
drank this cup of coffee today.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
Right, have chicken or fish.
Speaker 1 (39:14):
Yeah, horrifying you know, nick, I'm really curious.
I mean, obviously you find outa lot of great stuff about about
your clients and you know theylearn a lot about their history.
How do you handle the range ofemotions?
Because obviously you knowthere's gonna be times where
they're like, wow, this is great, I love, I love that you found
(39:37):
out this.
And there's going to be timeswhere, let's say, there are some
really disturbing things thatyou uncover, like, for example,
let's say, if you have a whiteclient and they found out not
only that they have an ancestorthat was a slave owner but was
one of the most brutal slaveowners at that particular time,
and you know they're kind of notreally processing it because
(39:59):
they're kind of horrified aboutwhat they find, how do you
handle your emotions when youknow you come to that situation
where you have to deliver thisnews to your clients?
Speaker 3 (40:10):
Yeah, it's really interesting.
And I have a philosophy aboutthis, and that is that it's
really kind of silly one to beashamed of anything your
ancestors did because you hadnothing to do with it.
But two, also it's kind ofsilly to be proud of anything
your ancestors did because youhad nothing to do with it.
(40:31):
I had an ancestor who was anabolitionist and a conductor on
the Underground Railroad.
Should I be proud of that?
I mean, I can cherish thatheritage, I can latch on to it,
but at the same time, I hadancestors who also held slaves.
I mean, they're the same degreeof relationship some of them Do
.
We latch on to that and cherishthat heritage as well?
(40:53):
And so, or should I be ashamedof that?
Should I be, you know?
Is that something that shouldimpact my self-esteem?
And the answer is no on bothaccounts.
And so my philosophy there isyour heritage can ground you if
(41:13):
you want it to.
But also, you know, I knowpeople who maybe they didn't
have a very good home life ormaybe they came from an abusive
home, and that, you know,encourages them, it really
catalyzes them to make sure thatthey break that cycle and, you
(41:41):
know, they end up becomingwonderful parents and providing
a wonderful, safe home for theirchildren.
And so recognizing andrealizing oh, I had some
ancestors, a real son of a bitch.
I have an ancestor who murderedhis brother.
We don't know the circumstances, but he was convicted of
murdering his brother, shootinghim from the bushes while his
(42:02):
brother was plowing a field,shot him off of his plow in
front of his son.
What would motivate a man tokill his brother like that?
And that kind of also maybeanswered the question why that
branch of the family wasn't wellremembered.
You know, down to mygrandfather, who remembered lots
(42:25):
of other family stories.
Why wasn't that one told?
You know he probably neverheard it, but you know you.
You know you cannot choose whoyour ancestors were.
(42:47):
And we have had, I've hadclients who were conceived
through rape, you know.
Maybe they were adopted, fullyadopted.
They didn't know who either oftheir biological parents were,
or they knew their mother.
And their mother told them youknow, you were conceived through
rape.
And I had one situation where acousin of mine maybe she's a
third cousin somebody reachedout to her because they matched
DNA, so this cousin of hers isnot related to me.
(43:10):
But it came back that thisnewfound first cousin of my
cousin said I think that youruncle might be my father.
And my cousin said well, youdon't want to have any contact
with that man.
You know he's a terrible humanbeing and you know.
The person finally said well,my mother said that she was
(43:32):
raped and so that makes sense.
But you know there's a cautionthere and how do people wrap
their head around it?
Well, therapy is a good avenue.
My wife's a therapist, by theway, and she actually
specializes in helping peoplewho have experienced trauma and
(43:54):
abuse, and especially children,but some adults as well.
But you know, when you learnsomething about a very close
family member, that's unsavory,terrible news.
Yeah, that can, it can reallybe devastating.
(44:16):
But it goes back to are youresponsible for that?
You know, do you have to carrythat?
And you know that's more of aphilosophical and psychological
question.
And the answer is no, you'renot responsible for it, you know
, and you don't need to carrythat guilt.
But at the same time, yeah,I've had clients who learned
(44:39):
that they had slaveholders andthey're not interested to know
much more about that side of thefamily, and usually it's
crickets, you know.
And I've had some black clientsand some there are guests for
Finding your Roots, too, thathave had a hard time wrapping
their head around Discoveries.
(45:00):
And there are guests forFinding your Roots, too, that
have had a hard time wrappingtheir head around discoveries.
I'm thinking of Jay Johnson.
We discovered a pretty coolstory for him.
He descended from a white manwho was part of a
German-American ancestry inVirginia but he was married to a
white woman, had children.
But he also had a bunch of kids, like eight or 10 children with
(45:29):
one of his slaves and at theend of the day he ends up not
living with his wife his legalwife.
He ends up he has threeplantations.
He ends up living on aplantation with the woman that
he has black children with andafter the Civil War they end up
living together.
I mean, he's choosing to livewith her openly in a state where
(45:51):
it's illegal.
You know they obviously had along-term relationship.
Speaker 2 (45:59):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
He never freed her and you know there was.
There's a will where he makesprovisions that his executor,
one of his white sons, is tobuild a house for this black
woman who fathered eight or tenchildren with him.
And she got land.
You know obviously had along-term caring relationship
(46:25):
with this woman and his childrenchose to live with them after
the Civil War.
Jay Johnson had a really hardtime wrapping his head around
that you know and so you know.
But the records are clear.
You know this was not yourtypical situation that you would
(46:48):
imagine, where a white manfathers a child with an enslaved
Black woman.
Speaker 2 (46:53):
Mm-hmm, Now you have a very, I think, unique
opportunity or view on, likehumanity, with what you do.
What do you think that this youknow, being a genealogist may
have taught you as far as you,far as resiliency and family,
(47:17):
that maybe you would not haveotherwise known if you became an
architect?
Speaker 3 (47:23):
Well, one thing would be that we are all much more
closely related and much moreclosely connected than we can
imagine.
And that kind of begs thequestion well, if we're so so
much more closely related, youknow that we might realize, you
know, doesn't that mean that youknow people would treat
(47:45):
themselves better if theyrealize each other?
We would treat each otherbetter if we realized how
closely related we are.
But if you think about it, evenin some nuclear families
siblings don't get along.
You don't get along.
I mean I went a year withouttalking to my sister one time.
I don't think she realized Ihad a couple of uncles that
(48:06):
didn't talk to me for a while.
We had a business together andthere was a falling out.
My mother had a strainedrelationship with her siblings
after father died.
Probate stuff, stupid stuff,sure.
So you look at any familydynamic.
Even the people you're born andraised with, that you grew up
with, maybe they don't treateach other the way they're
(48:27):
supposed to.
And then you always havesituations where you know the
people that were supposed tolove and protect you as a child
didn't, and maybe they didterrible things.
You know, maybe, that weresupposed to love and protect you
as a child didn't, and maybethey did terrible things.
You know, maybe, that insteadof loving and protecting the
child they should have they wereabusive, terribly abusive.
And so what does it tell you?
(48:48):
They're people, are human, andso, yeah, in one sense, if we
realized how closely connectedand related we all are on this
little blue marble out in themiddle of space, you would think
people would treat each otherbetter.
But if even your closest familymembers end up not treating you
(49:10):
the way that you deserve to betreated, that's not a realistic
expectation.
And so one, yeah, we're allmore closely connected and
related than we might imagine.
But two, that doesn't translateinto the world being a better,
more harmonious place, becausewe're all human.
People are people, and my dadhas a great, great bit of advice
(49:34):
.
He says you can never bedisappointed if you don't have
expectations.
And so I'm doing family historyresearch.
One time there was a bigquestion about, you know, one of
my branches, my family.
It was in colonial uh, colonialnew jersey and back into
colonial connecticut.
And I reached out to a womanwho had done a bunch of research
for it, for one of theselineage societies like the
(49:54):
colonial dames, or one of theselineage societies like the
Colonial Dames, or one of those,and her question to me was well
, who do you hope to bedescended from?
Well, which of these familiesdo you hope to be your ancestors
?
I'm like this was 25 years ago,before I was a professional
genealogist.
I'm just, you know, an amateurwanting to learn more about my
(50:17):
family tree.
I'm like well, I hope I descendfrom the people I actually
descend from.
You know who are, which there'sconfusion here.
You can't choose who thesepeople are.
And so when people hire me tomap out their family tree, or
you're learning more about yourown family history, if you're
(50:37):
expecting to find a bunch ofhappy, rosy stories, you're
probably going to bedisappointed.
But if you go into it withoutthat expectation, your
expectation is I'm going to findout who my ancestors were, what
made them tick the good, thebad, the ugly.
Then, when you put those piecestogether, you let them fall
(51:05):
where they fall and you learnmore about that historical
context, and I think that thatactually speaks louder to the
fact that we're all individuals.
None of us are perfect and thebackground that our ancestors
lived in it can't be changed.
And I'll throw one anecdote outthere.
(51:30):
I was contacted one time.
People will often reach out toProfessor Gates and he'll loop
me into a question, and it was,I believe they were in France.
There was a journalist who waswriting a story and they wanted
to know if we could estimate howmany living people in the
United States today had at leastone ancestor who held slaves.
(51:54):
Well, that's a hard number tocome up with, right, that's a
PhD thesis.
You're going to have to dostatistical analysis.
But just off the top of my head, I said well, there's 40
million African American peopleliving in the United States
today, roughly, and I can sayevery single one of them has
(52:19):
some white ancestry.
I've never seen a black personin America, unless they've had
recent African immigrants, youknow, post-civil War.
Any black person in Americathat goes back to the Civil War
era and the slave era.
If they test DNA, they're goingto have a little European
(52:41):
admixture in that DNA.
Where do you think that whiteDNA came from, that European
admixture?
A white man fathered a childwith an enslaved woman at some
point.
Even if he wasn't theslaveholder, he probably came
from a family where, somewherealong the lines, there's a
(53:01):
slaveholder.
So my immediate answer to thisquestion is well, there's 40
million African-American peopleliving in the United States
today.
You know that's 40 million outof the.
How many people are in theUnited States today?
300, 400 million people.
And so, if that's the numberyou know, the first number I
(53:21):
come up with it's really, Iwould say, almost any white
person who has colonial roots inthe United States.
I would say a majority of them,and I don't know how big the
majority is, but I would say themajority of white people who
have colonial roots in theUnited States have at least one
slave holder in their family.
That's just a guess.
(53:42):
And so 40 million here andmaybe 40 to 80 million here.
We're looking at maybe 120million, maybe more.
At least half the United StatesCould be much higher, could be
two-thirds of the people livingin the United States Descend
from a slaveholder in NorthAmerica.
(54:07):
Now, slavery didn't exist in avacuum in North America.
You want to go back to Romantimes, to biblical times?
Everyone on Earth descends froma slave holder.
It's an institution that's beenaround for millennia, even
among Native Americans.
(54:27):
Before Columbus sailed therewas slavery in America between
certain Native American tribesand that's been kind of a
fascinating thing.
And so you're going to findunsavory facts and how you wrap
your head around it.
Some people do that easier,much more easily than others.
(54:51):
And then what do you do withthat information?
I think is the more importantquestion.
You know you recognize the goodin people.
You want to embrace that, youwant to emphasize that heritage.
But if you have heritage thatwas unsavory, do you sweep it
(55:12):
under the rug or do youacknowledge that as well?
Because you can acknowledge themistakes in the past and by
doing that you're really helpingprevent those mistakes from
being repeated in the future.
Sure, because if you sweep itunder the rug or just we're not
going to talk about that, we'renot even going to go there.
What good does that do to helpfuture generations?
Speaker 1 (55:40):
That's true, that's true.
Wow, I tell you, I wish we hadmore time.
This is, this is a greatconversation.
Speaker 2 (55:47):
So, insightful.
Speaker 1 (55:49):
Yes, now, before I let you go, nick, I want you to
tell people about your business,how you can help them, and then
, possibly, how can they reachout if they want to maybe look
at hiring you to find theirroots and their ancestry, for,
you know, to find their rootsand their ancestry.
Speaker 3 (56:06):
Sure.
So I've done private clientwork full-time since 2012.
And my main client was Findingyour Roots, which was more than
a full-time job, and so when Iwas working with Johnny Cerny
and her business, we did take onprivate client work, but
unfortunately the work for theshow, the TV show, prevented us
(56:27):
from getting a lot of workaccomplished for the private
clients.
We had some other peopleworking with us and for us who
we could pass some of that workoff of, but I left the show
after season 11 this summer andseason 11 is going to air coming
up this winter, probably startairing in January 2025.
(56:48):
But I did have.
I've had some private clientsreach out over the years and you
know I they were on my queueand I have been taking more
projects.
I'm probably four to six monthsout starting a new project if
somebody were to reach out.
But you know I work for, uh,anybody who wants family history
(57:10):
research done, uh, and and anybackground.
That's the kind of I would say.
The interesting thing about thework that I've done as a
professional genealogist is Ihave both depth and breadth of
experience you know we had forfinding roots.
We had to work for clientsacross the board for guests who
come from all backgrounds andall over the world, and it
(57:32):
really opened my eyes.
But also having just a greatmentor in Johnny Cerny.
She's like, oh, you know, if aclient reaches out, you know we
need to be able to either sayyes, we can do that, or no.
Sometimes I'll refer somebodyto an expert in another field,
like, oh, you really need tohire a Jewish genealogist and
you know you're going to need tofocus in the Ukraine and here's
(57:53):
the go-to guy there, or Belarusor wherever.
But so my company is calledFinding your Ancestry LLC and
I'm based in Montana, where Ilive, and my email address is
nick at findingyourancestrycom.
I don't have a website up sofar, just people who've reached
(58:15):
out over the years and I said,yes, I'll get to your project
when I can, and I have a backlogof projects I'm working on and
then a few other people who'vereached out, since I have a busy
schedule without advertisingtoo much.
But I will be getting a websiteup and running and I'm glad to
field questions and even if I'mnot ultimately able to help
(58:38):
somebody, I can point them inthe right direction or kind of
explain the pitfalls or what aresearch plan might look like,
and occasionally someone doesn'thave the budget that would
allow them to hire aprofessional genealogist.
That's, I think, an importantthing to understand is
professional genealogists buildby the hour, just like an
(58:59):
attorney would.
I rarely would sit down and workon a 40-hour project, start to
finish, and I'm done, you know,monday through Friday finished.
It's more like okay, we do alittle work, we order some
records, we see what they say.
Sometimes it takes weeks ormonths to get those records back
and then we go from there.
And so what a professionalgenealogist is able to
(59:22):
accomplish depends on so manyvariables and it's, you know,
every family's unique.
Every pedigree is unique, um,so what we're able to accomplish
it depends on where yourancestors lived, what records
were kept, what records survive,how accessible they are, and
then the dynamics of yourparticular family, um, and what
(59:43):
the complexities of that are.
And so, whether you're going toreach out to me or hire any
professional genealogist, youknow you can never guarantee
results, something, even if atthe end they say you know the
available records don't allow usto do this.
Oh, this is a DNA mystery andyou know we've looked at your
(01:00:15):
DNA matches and we still can'tquite connect the dots.
You know you might end upgetting a report that's
inconclusive, and unfortunatelythat's just the way it goes.
Sometimes I have dead ends inmy own family tree.
I have mysteries that willprobably never be solved, and so
if, as an amateur genealogist,anybody out there hits a brick
wall, you're in good company,because we all have them.
(01:00:38):
But anyway, I do do privateclient research and I'm happy to
field questions from people,offer my assistance.
However, I can at the veryleast point someone in the right
direction or describe the sortsof record groups that they
might search for what they'reafter.
And yeah, you can reach out tome by email, nick, at
(01:01:01):
findingyourancestrycom.
Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
Perfect, thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
Thank you, you nick this.
This was a great, great sessionand, uh, definitely don't be a
stranger we'd definitely like tohave you back on oh, absolutely
, uh, my pleasure.
Speaker 3 (01:01:15):
and, and you know I'm researching people who have
been long dead for many yearsfor the most part, you know.
So it's nice to see the facesand hear voices and live in the
land of the living once in awhile, and so it's my pleasure,
absolutely my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (01:01:35):
Thank you.
Well, for everyone else, we'regoing to take a quick break and
we'll be right back.
Hello everyone, welcome back.
This was a great, great show ohmy gosh.
Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
yes, thank you so much, nick sheeny, for coming on
so insightful, so justknowledgeable in genealogy.
Um, if you are interested inwatching other amazing
interviews, log on toelrodtvnetworkcom.
Or if you want to connect withus, you can also check out our
instagram at elrodtvnetworkcom.
(01:02:09):
Or no, not com, justElrodTVNetwork.
Speaker 1 (01:02:13):
Thank you again for watching Always, always remember
to have those thirstyconversations.
I'm Lawrence Elrod.
Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
And I am Kristen Olinga.
Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
Enjoy your weekend, everyone, bye-bye, bye.
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