Roots of Cypress: An Afro-Diasporic Familial Tapestry

Today is the Fourth of July and an ancestral anniversary.  I have a general sense of indifference to the American Independence Day as my ancestors were not free and still are not free and there is no true independence on stolen land. However, today is the 121st birthday of my great great grandmother Bessie Lee Fulton.  Bessie was born on July 4, 1904 somewhere in Ohio, to James Van Fulton and Mamie E. Dantzler, the youngest of two daughters (her older sister being Ollie Bell Fulton). At some point, the Fultons moved to Spartanburg, South Carolina not far from Kings Mountain, North Carolina, where James was born and raised.  Bessie (second row, first on the left) with her first grade class, possibly Spartanburg SC, ca. 1910 Bessie spent her early childhood in South Carolina before moving to West Philadelphia as a teenager with her family in the late 1910s. It was in Philadelphia where she would meet her husband, Frederick Morris Young. They got married on Septe...

Today is the 81st birthday of my late grandfather, William Henry "Butch" Young Jr. My grandfather died 10 years before I was born but he still had a massive impact on me in my journey as an artist, historian, and community member. Butch as a child in South Philly, ca. early 1950s My grandfather was born in the twilight of World War II and he was initially raised in South Philly at 502 Cantrell Street, the house my great grandfather and his grandmother Louise Moore-Jackson, resided at since migrating to Philadelphia from Allendale, South Carolina in the mid-1920s. He was the second youngest of four children and the only boy, his two older sisters being Edith ("Snoota", 1941-1979) and Phyllis ("Chubby", 1942-2022) and his younger sister Sherry (1952-1984). As a youth he was known for his love of animals, and was described as taking in stray cats ans dogs frequently.  Butch and his family moved over to North Philly in the 1950s to the ...

Another ancestral anniversary today! It's the 101st birthday of my great grandfather Lawrence Santos Jr. His story is pretty interesting. Finding my great grandfather was a culmination of years of curiosity, oral history, research and genetic testing. When I was about 6 or 7 years old, my paternal grandmother Victoria, informed me that my biological great grandfather was "a darkskin man who was Portuguese and Puerto Rican". At the time, I didn't quite understand what she meant, but I accepted it as fact. My grandmother was raised by a man named Marvin Smith and her mother Elizabeth Lee Young. My grandmother was the oldest and Elizabeth had 8 more children after her. My grandma claimed to have met her biological father in the 90s. But that was all I knew of him for the longest. Over the course of my childhood, I just assumed I was African American, Afro-Puerto Rican and maybe Portugese but the latter always was a mystery to me. I didn't understand how Blackness and...

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...