Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen

Genealogy in Black & White

• Kathleen Brandt • Episode 22

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Is Black and White genealogy research different?

John dropped by the office to have a chat with Kathleen.  It gets personal!

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John:

Ladies and gentlemen from the depths of flyover country in the heartland of America, the Kansas City on the other side of the mighty Moe, Welcome to Hitting the Bricks with Kathleen, the do-it-yourself genealogy podcast that features your questions and her answers. I am John, your humble hubby host, and on this episode we'll be talking about Kathleen's favorite subject Kathleen, oh well, genealogy, but also Kathleen. So let's start Hitting the Bricks.

Kathleen:

Hi, john, how are you today? How's your morning been?

John:

It's been great. Started it with the dog and had a great breakfast. The honey bunny made me and now we get to do this fun stuff. It was delicious, delicious and nutritious. Delicious and nutritious, yes.

Kathleen:

Yes, this morning I read an article from Yale University, and Yale University, just like Georgetown, was to acknowledge their part of the slave trade and slave labor. Well, there's actually people who did not know that Connecticut had slaves. They wanted to deny it. They want to say, oh, but Connecticut only had black indentured servants. But I will be putting up a post today to show them that no, this is not true. That's just one of the questions that was asked of me yesterday because of the Yale University article.

John:

It really does depend on the terms of the contract.

Kathleen:

Okay, but indentured. An indentured servant does have a contract. That is what an indenture is right. It's a contract. There are African Americans who had contracts to fight, for example, in the Revolutionary War, to purchase their freedom. That was extended to African Americans. It was extended to my own family and I have a copy of their emancipation only because it had to.

John:

Yeah, based on their, based on service in the Revolutionary War.

Kathleen:

That's correct, they were Ed Griffin, from North Carolina, served in the Revolutionary War. He served as a substitute and when he came out, the enslaver the previous the slave enslaver who made the contract with him, put him back into servitude or slavery.

John:

He re-enslaved the guy after he fulfilled his part of the bargain.

Kathleen:

That's correct.

John:

Well, now, now, hang on, Now, stop that. That just doesn't seem right Now. Why would somebody, why would somebody think it's okay to, after somebody fulfills their portion of a contract, to go back on that contract?

Kathleen:

Because it was a black man. He was a mulatto is the way he's described in court records. He took his enslaver to the courts and after after his, after his enslaver violated his contract?

John:

Yes, then he took them to court.

Kathleen:

Yes.

John:

And what happened.

Kathleen:

Well, he had white witnesses of the contract and the agreement and he was entitled to his freedom and that of all of his heirs Before I have free colors on the Griffin side. So he won the court case. He won the court case. This is not unusual and what year?

John:

Wait a minute. What year was?

Kathleen:

this. By this time it's about 1777 or eight. I believe I have a copy of the entire court case from Edgecone County, north Carolina Actually my family, if you just Google Ned Griffin. That court case was well known Because it was the court case that helped a lot of other enslaved people who came back out of the Revolutionary War to gain their freedom. Wow, I'm just saying wow.

John:

Yeah, Wow. Is there anywhere in the transcript to that trial or any any documents? I don't know if they're transcripts.

Kathleen:

I have the original document.

John:

Is the justification for re-enslaving is what I'm really, really interested in, because it strikes me as a piece of I would say it's a form of entitlement. Yeah, this entitlement is extraordinary when you think, yes, we have a contract, but I don't have to abide by that.

Kathleen:

That is true. It's a true example of the early years of our history as far as America goes. Just the early years, just the early years. Well, I'm just saying it's a true example of the early years.

John:

Yeah, true example of the early years, and we can go back even further with the same conversation.

Kathleen:

Ned was not by any means the first to take his master to court. His was well known because it was in North Carolina and, luckily for him, the one thing worse than a slave was a coward who did not want to fight in a revolutionary war. So they had a substitute, and a lot of the griffons in that area fought and did get their freedom from being a substitute or for serving in a revolutionary war.

John:

So not only Ned, but there's a whole other group of griffons that did this guy basically hired, will use as a loose term hired his enslaved person.

Kathleen:

So the person who was had enslaved Ned, let Ned make an agreement with another fellow by the name of William Kitchen.

John:

Oh, so it wasn't for the person who enslaved Ned Griffin. Ned Griffin allowed his, allowed his property to be subcontracted by another person. I'm going to stop you again.

Kathleen:

He rented Ned. He basically the original Griffin white enslaver. Okay, so Ned allowed Ned to be sold for the purpose of serving as a substitute for William Kitchen. That was the original agreement.

John:

So he was supposed to. Okay, he was just serving for William Kitchen.

Kathleen:

No, he became a slave of William Kitchen and then enslaver. Okay so. William For one. William Kitchen purchased him for the purpose of substitution.

John:

Okay. So here's my question then who did Ned take to court? His William Kitchen? He took William Kitchen to sleep because he was the one who tried to re-enslave him.

Kathleen:

However, the Griffin family also came to his rescue.

John:

I'm not sure how we got on this conversation. I think we got on this conversation because of Ned Griffin. Right.

Kathleen:

And how my family became free colors. You've gone to some of the reunions, our family reunions, which are the Morse family reunions A Morse slave who was the son of his father, the enslaver, who was the son of the enslaver Most sons are sons of their father.

John:

They're sons of their mother too. Just to clear that DNA up for you. I know you're an expert. I don't want to get in your field, thank you.

Kathleen:

The Morse man born in 1807. He married the free colored in 1855, the Griffin woman, and so therefore all of their their heirs were automatically free, because they were. It was matchelennial, so it followed the woman and that is why my family was free colored. We have land deeds as early as 1811 in North Carolina and that would be in Rutherford County.

John:

That's what we went to that particular reunion.

Kathleen:

We had lunch at the Carson plantation, which was Green River.

John:

Okay.

Kathleen:

Because they also married one of the free colored morses and Griffin combination. Then we went to the Morse plantation, which was Fox Haven Right, which is where Wiley Morse was freed in 1855.

John:

He purchased his freedom, so weren't we let in by the current owner?

Kathleen:

That is correct. It was on, it was not planned?

John:

No, it was not planned. And she let this whole group of people I don't know was it 25 or 30 of us.

Kathleen:

There was about 50 of us, yeah, and she was in a robe and she. We were supposed to be able to have a tour of the outside of the ground and we could walk the grounds, yeah, but we were not to come inside because she was ill actually and she saw the bus, came out to the bus and she said she opened up the house because we walked through the whole thing.

Kathleen:

She said one room and we talked to her and she allowed us to go to every room and see the pictures and see the see her, the entire home. It was absolutely, and I have pictures of it that are on some social medias.

John:

I'm going to bring up something that you told me when we were dating. We were in you like the steakhouse in Rosalind, virginia, or Alexandria, virginia. Do you remember the steakhouse?

Kathleen:

I do, that's when I like steak still.

John:

It's when you liked steak. Yes, so we went to a steakhouse and you said you as a white man can be totally ignorant of black culture and it will never have an impact on your success. And it was kind of like a thunderbolt moment where you have things revised. Your image of how the world is completely revised in a matter of seconds.

Kathleen:

In order for me to do as well as I did even in corporate America for 20 years as an executive, I always had to be quite aware of where everyone in the room or around that table stood.

John:

So they're called your, and when you're saying that, you're talking about cultural backgrounds and ideas and idioms and everything else is that you had to and you had to fit into their conceptions.

Kathleen:

That is correct.

John:

Or I had to change. I had to change their conceptions more than either either change your conceptions or basically assimilate into their their, their conceptions of who, you, who will work, or exactly it's more of a psychological thing or mental.

Kathleen:

I had to break their stereotypes to accept me. I had to break what they thought they knew about African Americans to accept me. Well, I'm a great person to do this right. I'm from central Kansas, my family's from central Kansas six generations. We did not come through the Exodus group. We did not come through the black communities. We came as free colors master blacksmith to Western Kansas. Even my father's side, who came as an ex-slave, came because he was six foot seven or eight and he was recruited to work the salt mines in Lyons, Kansas. So our family was always the only black family in whatever town we lived in.

John:

So this is this? Is that that sort of compensatory behavior? Where you're, you're, you're assessing where you are and you're assessing who you need to be in order to either be accepted or to move on and not just be accepted but to be accepted at a level where you're able to be able to be mobile within. That is kind of it was kind of built in, baked into the pie because of where your family was sitting in the middle.

Kathleen:

Yeah, Since the 1880s we integrate the schools way before Brown versus Topeka integrated schools in the 1800s. I have the documents.

John:

I have even the documents of them bragging on who had perfect attendance and I have documents of what school they went to and why when you started doing genealogy and started hanging at your shingle, when you realize that this was something you like to do and could do for other people, you made a conscious choice and can you tell, tell listeners about that conscious choice. Now we're back in 2008.

Kathleen:

now this is about 2007. I started thinking how to create the company I wanted a genealogy research firm that I wanted. I also went to several conferences and in those conferences what I saw was there were the African Americans very few, and the other 3000 were white Americans, and there was one person and a fellow named Michael who did teach African American genealogy, but none of the African American genealogists taught anything else.

John:

And so they only, they only did African American genealogy.

Kathleen:

That's correct. However, I was raised to accept 100% of me and I already knew my mixture and my admixture. I knew that there was more to me because I'd also done my research on my family. I already knew about the free colors and the colors in County Roscoe and Arlen. I already knew about the slave families from Missouri, north Carolina and Kentucky. So, having done that, I designed my company so that I could apply all of my research. I could apply my Irish research, my European, other European, my British. I was able to apply my slave research. But my question to people that I called upon black and white there was about five or six. My question was will white people hire an African American genealogists to do their genealogy? And it was a resounding beside you who thought that some crap. You have the knowledge. Others said the answer is no. They are not going to give you what you're looking for if they know you're African American.

John:

The surety that I had that it would not make a difference. That when I realized it really does make a difference was another point that I was kind of gobsmacked. You know it didn't make a difference. In my head it wouldn't make a difference. It was 2008.

Kathleen:

Nobody cares about that, but time and time again you find out somebody does, people do Lots of people do the idea at that point for me to design a firm where I could do what I wanted to do, which is everyone's research. The idea formed into that means you must hide your face.

John:

So that was why A3 genealogy the logo never had you on it.

Kathleen:

It did not have me on it from 2008, when I opened up the company Full Blown, to 2011, when I had to go on TV with Tim McGraw.

John:

And then you're stuck, aren't you?

Kathleen:

Yes.

John:

Tim McGraw didn't seem to have an issue with you.

Kathleen:

He didn't seem to have one with me. The hardest part actually was shortly after the airing of that January show, that spring I went to a conference I believe it was in Springfield, a genealogy conference and that's when I realized people connected me with the show. They were realizing I was the one and they wanted to know where I came from. I had been to a conference before, but this is one that I knew was going to be an issue because I was kind of pre-worn and you wouldn't go with me. So I took my mother.

John:

Well, I think I was working, you were working, I had my mother go. I wasn't interested, I was like no, you're on your own. I believe I had a good excuse of working and mom was around to go. These were always wonderful bonding and your mom wouldn't have it any other way because it would have been. It would have been you, me and mom. It never would have been just you and I, while mom was around.

Kathleen:

That's correct. That's correct. So she did go and she was a typical mother, especially of a black woman culture. Be kind, keep your head up high. You're going to hear good and bad.

John:

Yeah.

Kathleen:

And that was the message.

John:

But she was yeah, she was the person to have with you, though.

Kathleen:

So what we did is from 2008, when I actually hung up this, hung up out my shingle on the internet and had an entire internet based company. No one knew I was African American.

John:

This actually gets into the concept of white genealogy and black genealogy. What are we doing here? Is there really a difference between white and black genealogy, or is it just simply what you need to know? Your resources you should know anyway.

Kathleen:

I think it's not only the resources, is the research that you should do ahead of any kind of genealogy work, and that is no longer your culture that you're working with, no, the social implications and the social scheme of things that your ancestors are working with or working within, rather.

John:

So, in the same way that you might study about, let's say, european famines to look at European migration to America, that you would look in the same way with African Americans migrating from the south, with the, with the clan, with the advent of the clan and politics changing in a certain year, you'd look at a major migration to the north within the context of that history.

Kathleen:

That's correct, it's an American, not black history, not white history, it's American history.

John:

These are facts of America.

Kathleen:

I'm looking at. What did the political climate due to the Irish, or what did the political climate due to a black ancestor of a client? It does not matter. I'm looking at the same and I'm applying that information, that data, to help me create even a research plan. I need to know my time frame, just like I need to know epidemics and plagues. I need to know the difference. What's going on in politics?

Kathleen:

I work with congressional serial records because I need to know what's the law of the time. I work with, again, newspaper articles because I want contemporary information. I can go back easily to 1840 with African-American genealogy. I can go a lot further back easily with most European. Now, if you give me the Eastern block, where every other day there's a war and your ancestor woke up, went to bed and Poland and woke up in Russia, it's just as difficult, because where are the documents? Are there documents? Remember, though, that African-Americans were not always considered human as well as, instead, they were considered chattel, as you've mentioned earlier. So I'm going to look for them, though in a different sense in wills and probates or for deeds.

Kathleen:

And sometimes I can find a first name within a deed of will. I can also go back to territorial, though in the Spanish and Florida we're talking early territory the Spanish and the French often baptize their African-American slaves. Let's say, especially in the south part of St Louis area, I can actually trace them quite easily if I get back that far from the 1820 and earlier, if their family were early slaves, and the reason is because I'm going to turn to church records. So this is what the importance of. How do I look at my documents? So the difference between white and black is what documents are most relevant for the timeframe. I keep talking the topic a lot. I go to conferences. I was invited to several conferences just because they said they needed a safe African experience.

John:

When you are, you are my, yeah, you are my safe African.

Kathleen:

when it comes to the explanation, Well, I went once to the state of Kansas and I set on a desk and I have this one session that I do for genealogists and it's a free session. Actually, if I'm going to a conference, they can ask me anything they want and they could pass a basket around with their question in it. I also did it for the state of Missouri several years back and I just pull out a question, I pull out this question and I read it. No one knows who put the question in, but they all know, everybody knows.

Kathleen:

They may, because sometimes there's 300 or more people, or a thousand people in a room. So I go until the time has expired. Asking, answering the questions Right, and the questions might be as simple as this is what was written in the newspaper, but I want to do a family story. Do I need to black out? You know the article.

John:

Oh, because of the N word being used openly in newspapers, of course, in the 1800s.

Kathleen:

Of course, my answer is don't change history, because those small changes changes the feel of the time and we want to be true to that time frame, whatever the time frame was. We don't want to for no better term. We don't want to whitewash, no, that's an excellent term.

John:

I mean that that isn't applicable an excellent term for that, because that is what is happening.

Kathleen:

John, I do hope that you mentioned that we will be giving away.

John:

Oh see, that's what we forgot to talk about. Yes, absolutely. Well, we will be giving away. Let me see if I can do this right. It's a DNA kit. No, it's a full service.

Kathleen:

Okay, it's called the my hair just complete package.

John:

And it's like a $299 value. That's right. Also, that's amazing. Yeah, that's. That's a lot of fun.

Kathleen:

Are you recording this?

John:

Yes, yes, with you putting your lipstick on it. It's video, baby.

Kathleen:

It ain't audio it was a shiny object in front of me.

John:

Okay. So I think that means we hit our limit on conversation, because my wife is now putting a lipstick on, which means can we go Well, congratulations, you've made it to the end of another episode. Thanks so much for staying. Thanks to my heritage and legacy family tree webinars. Thanks to Chewy Chewbacca brand, our part time candy dancer and full time lazy mob, for his unwavering lack of interest in anything we're doing. The theme song for hitting the bricks was written and performed by Tony Fisnuckle and the photons Watch for the next appearance at the end of eternity. You can find us on Apple, spotify, youtube and, of course, buzzsprout. We'd love to hear what you think about the podcast, so stop by our Facebook page at hitting the bricks with Kathleen and let us know.

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Kathleen Brandt

Host
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John Brandt

Co-host