[ Dedication ] [ Table of Contents ]

[ Acknowledgements ] [ Foreword ] [ Prologue ] [ Opening Poem: The Greatest Human Right ] [ Introduction, Part 1 ] [ Introduction, Part 2 ] [ Introduction, Part 3 ] [ Introduction, Part 4 ]

Figure 2 – Pops and one of Moms younger brothers.

Over time, these and other multifarious inquiries into my ethnic origins led me to dig deep into the roots of my family tree to uncover the answers. My search began with very specific goals, too. Firstly, I wanted to trace my father’s—not my mother’s—paternal roots back to Africa to see if we had any recent African ancestry. In my mind, this could explain all of the comments about my strong African features. I automatically assumed that any recent African ancestry of mine had to come from my father’s side of the family because, after all, my father is a very dark-skinned man. Some people say that he is just black. Even so, there is a noticeable hint of red to his complexion. To me, his beautiful dark color was the proverbial icing on the cake, proof enough of our recent African ancestry. My mother, on the other hand, is relatively light-skinned from a relatively light-skinned family. Based on their complexion and other features, I could easily see that they were racially mixed and, therefore, concluded that any recent contribution of African ancestry had to come through my father. Secondly, because I was aware of there being oral traditions of Indian ancestry on my mother’s side of the family, I wanted to verify those traditions if possible, but it was my primary goal to trace my father’s paternal ancestry all the way back to Africa .  I do not remember the exact point when I first began tracing my family roots, but I do believe that it was sometime back in 1998, which is the date of some of my earliest postings on the message boards of different genealogy websites. Then, what started out as a small hobby soon turned into something much more serious. As I continued digging up my family roots, I became completely absorbed in my quest to the point that it dominated many if not most of my waking hours. 

Like all other journeys, my journey of a thousand miles began with the very first steps. For me this entailed trying to trace back as many of the branches of my family tree as I could. Then, when I could go no further on my own, I began to painstakingly pick the brains of different family members for what information they had and were willing to share with me. At times, gathering information from some people was like trying to pull wisdom teeth—difficult and painful. I was able to collect a lot of information right away by asking my mother question after question, after long and in depth question concerning her side of the family. At times, I feared she might reach an information overload and her head would explode so I had to ease up on her a little. Information from my father was not as forthcoming as that from my mother and several times he, too, came close to an information overload but he did make substantial contributions, nevertheless. I also found some vital family history written on papers and stored in family bibles or written within the genealogical sections of family bibles that helped me to fill in some of the gaps left behind by family members.

During this information-gathering phase of my family search, understandably, it was critical that I obtain as much information as possible from the older generation before that knowledge became lost to the ravages of time. By the time my search began, however, many of our family elders had already passed on, which made me regret having waited so long to begin. On my mother’s side of the family, I spoke with my grandmother’s older sister, my great Aunt Elizabeth Brewington, born in 1915. I also spoke with my grandfather’s younger sister, my great Aunt Gertrude Artis (1932 – 2007). Additionally I spoke with my great Aunt Gertrude’s sister-in-law, Gertrude Melvin, who was born around the same time as the former. On my father’s side of the family, it was my late Uncle Willie B. Faison (1931 – 2004) who proved to be a valuable source of information. He was actually the Faison family historian thus it was to him that everyone would turn for any information on the Faison family tree. What I obtained from Uncle Willie B. was not so much in terms of quantity, but it was priceless in terms of quality since ultimately, it helped me in my search.

While interviewing my parents and other family members, I asked them specifics about the distant members of our family tree, such as their full names, the dates and places of their birth, along with the names of their spouses, children, siblings and parents—anything I could think of that might help me in my genealogical search. When I asked about a person’s place of birth, I did not simply ask for the state in which he or she was born and leave it at that. I also asked for the name of the town, city and county since all of this information is necessary to successfully locate individuals on federal census records, which was the second stage in my family history search. Actually, the federal census might be considered the first official stop on the journey for persons wishing to trace their family roots. In fact, all of the information I had collected up until this point was actually done to help me locate my distant family members on the federal census. Why? Because the census provides a historical snapshot of individuals and their families all the way back to the year 1790. Some of the information that can be gleaned from census records includes, among other things, an individual’s  full name; date of birth; marital status; children’s, parents’ and siblings’ names; employment or vocation; education and literacy; home ownership; and race, which makes it one of the most valuable genealogical tools that exist.

Using the information I obtained from family and family bibles, I managed to fill in a great deal of my family tree well before I started utilizing the federal census. On my mother’s side of the family, for example, the known branches of my family tree included my maternal grandmother Inez Brewington (1917 – 1975), her parents Fred and Henrietta Brewington, Fred’s mother Francis Brewington and Henrietta’s mother Lizzie Fryar. Opposite my maternal grandmother was my maternal grandfather Emmitt Melvin (1928 – 1989) and his parents Willie and Rebecca Melvin. One generation above them were Willie Melvin’s mother, Lucinda Melvin, and Rebecca’s father Jasper Best. This was initially as far as I was able to go on my mother’s side of the family. On my father’s side, the known branches of my family tree stretched back a few generations and included my paternal grandparents William and Henrietta Faison, William’s parents Sam and Harriet Faison, and Henrietta’s parents, the Reverend Tom and Henrietta Stevens. It was at this point that I turned to the federal census to try to fill-in the remaining branches of my family tree and that is when the fun really began.

 >> My preliminary Family Tree <<