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Archiver > PAALLEGH > 2003-01 > 1041800796


From: "Kit McChesney" <>
Subject: Re: [ALL] Disguising Identities/Passenger and Immigration Lists
Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2003 14:06:36 -0700
References: <184.14aea22b.2b49d2e7@aol.com> <001201c2b4f8$625434d0$561a500c@richard>


Many records are incorrect because the person who provided the information
was misinformed, or deliberately misled the record-keeper. And it is also
possible for folks to disguise their heritage, and very effectively, too,
even from their immediate families. Madeleine Albright only recently learned
that her parent were Jewish--they had hidden that fact from her because of
the events of WWII--and she has only recently begun to unravel her Jewish
identity.

One of my lines is directly descended from Native American folks, and pretty
recently, too, and they kept that hidden for a long time. It wasn't a good
idea in the mid-19th century in North Carolina to let anyone know you'd
somehow escaped the Removal, and people who had clear title to their own
lands were fearful of having their lands taken away from them, and that they
would be send West, or to a reservation. Even in the 1920s, some of our
relatives were turned away from school in rural North Carolina because they
were dark-skinned, and whites did not want anyone dark in the school, be
they black or native american. Because of this effort my grandparents'
generation expended to keep their heritage quiet, it's been extremely
difficult to uncover the truth of who they really were. One thing is for
sure--they were listed as "free colored persons," "mulatto," and later
"Indian," on census records. For all their efforts to hide who they were,
the census has recorded something of their heritage, sketchy though it may
be. But it's been a nightmare trying to find out more details other than
those remembered by now very old or recently deceased kin.

People who wanted to hide, for whatever reasons (many Poles fled to the U.S.
to avoid being conscripted by the Russians, and changed their names, their
ages, all sorts of vital info to avoid detection) would naturally avoid
being truthful on any sort of documentation. This is why it's so important
to know your history in conjunction with doing your genealogy. They are
inseparable! :)


KM

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