ALRUSSEL-L Archives

From:
Subject: Re: [GAMUSCOGEE] Heritage Book
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2003 22:38:19 EDT

Pam.

White people for the most of it has kept up with their ancestors from the
git go.

From my ancestors in Salam, Alabama, both paternal and maternal were born in
1794 and 1797 They were in Salem , Alabama by the 1830s. On this set of
ancestors alone we have letters, deeds, oral stories, death certs., marriages lisc.
Church memberships, Tax list. Most of us thru our ancestors have been
clinging to Genealogy for two hundred years each generation after the other saw
that our heritage was passed down. This has been a blessing for us. However it
wasn't this way for the black people. . You are just now starting on the ground
floor and it is up to you and your children and future generations to write
down and pass on information just like our white ancestors did for us. It make
take you a hundred years to
get where we are to day. But, it starts with you filling in all the blank
pages. Just a suggestion and not to sound like a racist,but maybe it would help
if you started your own
black genelogy if you haven't already and all join together in seeing the the
truth as you see it and no one can change it then you wouldn't have your
feelings hurt. Maybe genealogy is something we will walk together hand in hand
and the enter our herritage as we lived it.

This is what you said, I (you) was grief stricken to see the
under-representation of Afro Americans. You had only seen two Afro Americans in the book. You
didn't check to see just how many other Afro American wrote their family
History in.

You said, My Gr Gr Gr Grandmother's birth date was shown as 1870 when it was
1815. (Iknow because of several documents I have, including the 1870 Census
in Russell
County, Ala. where she was the cook on the Sterling Boykin plantation.) My
Grandmother's father, according to her death certificate was J. C. Drake of
Drake Cove Alabama. I can only assume that Mr. Drake was white that they instead
chose to printJ. C. Duke.(This was a racist remark) You might not have meant
it to sound racist, but it did to me. Maybe that's how some white people come
across when they are call racist.

I didn't find a Drake , Alabama,but I did find a Drake Cove where J. C. Drake
lived and there was a story of the Johnson's Gang which I sent you. Mr. J. C
Drake had three
sons who rode with the Johnson Gang. They were hunted by the Union Army. I
sent you all the information I found on the Drakes. Something must have happen
because the last information was blocked from your email address. I thought you
would be interested in the Drake's family because you say one of your
ancestors was a mullato child of his and his family history would be yours on the
white half. I was trying to give you the information and how to find it so the
next time you write for a book you could send in the information in on your
black and white blood.

I wish you well in the next hundred years.

This thread:

• Heritage Book by Pam Bates-Kyle <>

  • Re: [GAMUSCOGEE] Heritage Book by