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Archiver > APG > 2000-01 > 0947117421


From: "Douglas/Ungaro" <>
Subject: Re: [APG] African-American research and Americans with African-American Ancestry
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2000 01:10:21 +0100


Dear Elizabeth, thank you for your reply to my email. There is much to
say, but I'll keep it short. I have to get to bed - it's six hours later
here than U.S. east coast time.

I just want to say that as a lay person and experienced journalist, I
hope it will be possible to lower some walls between academics and
professionals - genealogists, historians, etc. - and the general public.
This may be anathema, but, my sense is that the general public needs more
good information regarding history and family history, and getting it to the
public is very useful to some people, not all, depending on their purposes.
It sometimes amazes me, the information that is around but not disseminated
widely to the general public. This probably will change with the Internet
and World Wide Web.

I would not dismiss J.A. Rogers' work out of hand. I have to admire a
person, outside the mainstream, who researched a 'taboo' subject, against
tremendous odds. It is fine to critique and test his methods and findings,
that is fair and necessary. I don't think the man could have found a
publisher when he was researching 40+ years ago, even if his life had
depended upon it. It is also interesting to see some of the things and
people he wrote about long ago, receiving no accolades, now being taken
seriously by many if not all observers.

Yes, I think Ed Ball has done much good in writing "Slaves in the
Family", even if it were just for the hundreds of people and descendants
associated with his own family. But he also has set an example for others
who have private records and information related to African American
enslavement, about why one might, and how to, assist others by further
researching and sharing this priceless information. And South Carolina is a
key state for researching this racial genealogy and slave history.

I will sign off for now. I wish someone could sort out the Rice
families of - just about every state east of the Mississippi, it seems - and
starting with NC, TN and VA. Now I hear my Rices go back to County Armagh
in Ireland. I join jazz immortal Eleanora Fagan (better known as Billie
Holliday), and a bunch of other Black Americans, as some kind of 'Irish'
African American. <grinning online>

Best regards, Marian Douglas, in Skopje, Macedonia


-----Original Message-----
From: Mills <>
To: <>
Date: Wednesday, January 05, 2000 10:16 PM
Subject: Re: [APG] African-American research and Americans with
African-American Ancestry

>... Marion: The Balls of Ed Ball's book are not connected to those North
>Carolinians. In fact, there's more than one set of Balls even in South
>Carolina. Over the years, many people have confused Ed Ball's set with
>others--causing DAR, at one point, to close that Ball line until the
tangles
>were adequately unknotted. (I did this a dozen or so years ago.)
>
>As for Ed Ball's book, it's fascinating and inspiring. However, he was
>neither a genealogist nor a historian; and he was too little aware of what
>has been done in both fields--creating rather warped and/or naive
>interpretations and social perspectives. Still, from the standpoint of
>social relations and awareness today, he has done much good.
>
>> Who is Virginia DeMarce, what does she do?
>Virginia DeMarce holds a Ph.D. in history from Berkeley and has been a
>genealogist for nearly all of her adult life. She was for many years on the
>national staff of the Association for State and Local History and has held
>various positions in the National Genealogical Society, including one stint
>as president. She is currently on the acknowledgment research staff of the
>Bureau of Indian Affairs, in D.C. She's also a long-time authority on
>French-Canadians.
>
> ... Step cautiously, Marion -- but don't hold back. You might equate this
to
>Y2K. Prepare for the worst, enjoy the best. To my knowledge, the first
>cross-racial family study published here in the U.S. came out in 1976 at
LSU
>press -- my husband's Ph.D. dissertation (Gary B. Mills, _The Forgotten
>People: Cane River's Creoles of Color_). It's not a genealogy, although we
>had worked for years on the genealogy of Cane River Creoles of all shades
>
>... Dave Dearborn of NEHGS, who researched Clinton's ancestry for NEXUS,
hit the
>proverbial brick wall with that Gibson line in South Carolina. Those who
have
>pursued it are fairly confident that it *is* part of the tri-racial Gibson
line.
>
> ... , http://www.ngsgenealogy.org.
>>Elizabeth Shown Mills, CG, CGL, FASG
>Editor, National Genealogical Society Quarterly

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