Roots of Cypress: An Afro-Diasporic Familial Tapestry

Happy Mother's Day! Today I want to dedicate a post about the labor Black women have historically been tasked with as caretakers of both their own children and the children of their oppressors. This topic is somewhat sensitive but I feel like it's worth discussing and examining the lives of my maternal ancestors in relation to misogynoir and socioeconomic status. I will give a content warning for discussions of antiblackness, misognyoir, and sexual abuse.  It's well know and well documented that Black women were often domestic laborers who cared for the children of middle and upper class white families. My maternal ancestors were no exception. In fact one of the three pictures of my maternal great great grandmother Anna Beamon , is her with a child she cared for.  The picture is one of the saddest I have of a direct ancestor. Anna, who I know was a strong willed yet fun loving person, looks disaffected. Holding a small white child on her hip, her face in a scowl possibly fr...

Today is the 132nd birthday of one of the most important recent ancestors in my family, Emma Rouse (aka Grandma Emma) Emma Jean Jenkins was born on April 29, 1893 in Hertford, North Carolina. She was the daughter of Berry Jenkins (1867-1932) and Fannie F. Winslow (1875-1954). Her mother married Wright Rouse two years later and Emma was adopted by him. Grandma Emma had 8 children; Josephus/Joe (1909-1959), Anna (1911-1989), Roy (1914-2006), Irene (1915-1949), Clarence (1918-2006), Ruby (1924-1941), Rufus (1926-2019) and Harriett (1929-2024). The father of Emma's children remains unknown/unconfirmed. Many documents list Wright Rouse or Rufus Rouse as a spouse or the father of her children, however this is assumed to be a placeholder, and the latter a made up name as Wright Rouse was Emma's stepfather and there's no records of a Rufus Rouse from Hertford other than her son. She has no records of being married. The father of her daughters, Anna (my great great grandmother) ...

Today is another important birthday in my family. One of the most important ancestors I had the privilege of meeting; my Great Aunt Harriett Rouse. Harriett at around the age of 30, ca. 1959 Harriett Nixon Rouse was born on April 4th or 5th, 1929 in Hertford, Perquimans County, North Carolina. She was the eighth and youngest child of my third great grandmother, Emma Jean Rouse (nee Jenkins, 1893-1967) and the younger sister of my second great grandmother, Anna Beamon (nee Brown, 1911-1989). She spent part of her childhood in Virginia Beach before returning to Hertford around 1940.  Young Harriett, ca. 1940s-50s She attended school up to around 7th grade, where she dropped out to begin working. She worked as a housekeeper for a local family for many years, the granddaughter of the woman she once cared for would bake sweets for her and send them to her later in life. She had a son, Gary, who unfortunately passed away young after moving to New York, and grandchildren and great gra...

Today is my great grandfather's 97th birthday. He died almost 20 years ago and since then I've learned a lot about my lineage, more than I ever would've expected and more than he possibly knew himself.  My journey into genealogy has been, officially, only three years long. That's at least when I began engaging in formal research. But my interest in my family history, Black history, preservation, research and collecting has been lifelong. My roots sprawl across the Tidewater region, the DMV, Lowcountry and Upcountry South Carolina, Southern Georgia, Florida and the islands of Cape Verde. I hope to be able to use this platform to document that process and all of the stories and research I've been able to compile.   This first post will be brief but before I end it, something serendipitous happened today. As mentioned before, today is my great grandfather's birthday. He was born in the small town of Hertford, North Carolina and spent most of his life living in Virg...