From: helfman@aero.org (Robert S. Helfman)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american
Subject: Re: African names-why aren't there more of them?
Date: 5 Oct 1992 22:01:30 GMT
Organization: The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA
Distribution: soc
NNTP-Posting-Host: aerospace.aero.org

In article <Bvo09K.C5C@acsu.buffalo.edu> simon@acsu.buffalo.edu (Patrice A. Simon) writes:
>
>	This is a very good point. The only difference I can see between
>the experiences of Asian Americans and African Americans in the "new world"
>is that Africans were here much longer (in large numbers at least), and 
>because of the slavery system, family roots are harder to come by. How 
>exactly did Alex Haley find his 'roots'?

Actually, it is often easier for African-Americans to trace their roots
than it is for 'vanilla'-Americans. This is, however, 
ONLY if they can determine where their ancestors were at the
time of emancipation.

The reason, as Haley pointed out, is that African-Americans were
chattel property before the Civil War, so they show up on deeds and
wills and tax records. As Haley put it, folks were a bit more
careful about things that related to money. The Census figures were
(his words) a little more devil-may-care.

In Haley's case, his family had been in Henning, Tennessee since
shortly after Emancipation. The illustrious Chicken George (let's see,
Simon Haley = Haley's father, Will Palmer = Haley's grandfather,
Tom Murray = Haley's great-grandfather, so Chicken George was his
great-great-grandfather, whew!)  brought the family from North Carolina
to Tennessee. Haley found his great aunt (Liz, one of Tom Murray's
children) and Murray's whole family, in the Census. But before that,
it had to be done via wills and deeds.

Haley had a number of things going for him:
 
1) His African ancestor was a very late arrival during the course 
of the slave-trade (1767), so the number of generations back to
be traced was probably 50% smaller than it would be with many
other enslaved families (some of whose ancestors got here in the 1600's).

2) His family had been associated with Henning, Tennessee since
the 1880's (Will Palmer was fairly well-to-do in his older years.)
Haley had an extensive extended family there, including a lot of
'old ladies' who carried on the oral tradition. That family stability
was a crucial help to him.

If I were to try to trace my ancestors, I would run into a serious
stumbling block: My grandparents came here from the Ukraine
in 1896. If I wanted to trace anything about them past Ellis Island,
I would have a language problem plus the fact that many, many records
were destroyed by World War II. On my father's side, I'd have to
go to Bucharest, Rumania; again, a serious language problem, plus
World War II, plus not-too-loving feelings toward Jews in either of
those places (why do you think they left?).   

Unless you're a George Herbert Walker Bush-type, whose blue-blood
ancestors came here in Colonial times - and seem to always have
the papers to prove it - if you're a typical 'vanilla-American',
you don't know shit about your ancestors past your grandparents
(and considering the not-too-high-tone background of most
of our constituent immigrant ancestors, you might not want to know!
Hey, my grandfather deserted from the Russian Army and split. Who
knows what other seemy things lurk in the family tree. I'd rather
be judged on my actions and my thoughts, and NOT my gene-pool.
Wouldn't you?) 
 
Newsgroups: soc.culture.african.american