I was surprised when I found out that there my ancestors in Virginia were so 
diverse. My mother shared information about our Pennsylvania mixtures 
(white/Native/African), but she was not aware of our Virginia history. When 
I started digging in Virginia, the family was surprised that our lines were 
so long, and so diverse.  My ancestor, who fled Virginia in 1853 had half 
siblings who were prominent whites, and I believe there was a lot of fear 
for those who were left in Virginia.

Anita


>From: Anita Henderson <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history         
>      <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: This forum-Now All in the Family
>Date: Tue, 3 Jul 2007 22:44:05 EDT
>
>In a message dated 7/3/07 2:55:40 PM, [log in to unmask] writes:
>
>
> > VERY WELL stated Linda. I am quite sure that many others on this list 
>will
> > find their ancestry is as mixed as yours.
> >
> > I am retired from Colonial Williamsburg. as an interpreter of African
> > American History I was often asked how did I feel telling the story of 
>how
> > African-Virginians were treated, "Doesn't it make you angry...hate white
> > people...etc...?"  My response was "My African ancestors were brought 
>here
> > to work uncompensated for my English ancestors who stole the land from 
>my
> > American ancestors, how am I suppose to feel?"
> >
> > Harriott
> >
> >
>Dear Harriott:
>
>I agree with you whole heartedly.   I too have 3 different gene pools in my
>ancestry:   West African, European (English, possibly Scots-Irish and 
>Jewish),
>Native American (Cherokee and Seminole).   I have been fortunate to have 
>made
>contact and meet my white   Eggleston cousins on my maternal side.   I 
>really
>hit the jackpot as they were both CW and geneaology buffs like me, in fact
>one of them   Bryan Baine contacted me first on the internet!   Both Bryan 
>and
>my other cousin, Dr. Robert Eggleston have been very open and gracious in
>sharing their documents, photos and history with me.   Several years back 
>Bryan and
>I gave several joint lectures at Petersburg NBP and at the   national AAGHS
>(Afro-American Geneaological and Historical Society) conference about our
>connected history.   Bryan and Bob are first cousins, third removed from me 
>and our
>common ancestor was William Eggleston (1794-1847) son of Major Joseph
>Eggleston (1754-1811) who was second in command to Light Horse Harry Lee 
>during the
>Rev. War.   William Eggleston had two descendant lines;   his white family 
>in
>the big house and a liason with an unknown black female slave who delivered 
>my
>GGgrandfather Robert Eggleston (1822-1910)---yeah I know, southerners like 
>to
>use the same names over and over, it drives me batty!!    In the midst of 
>our
>joint research and conversation, Bryan asked me if I was mad at him for 
>being
>a descendant of a slave owner.   I replied to him that I was not angry at 
>him
>personally   as he himself was not directly responsible.   I told him I 
>could
>not forget what happened to my ancestors either but hoped by my 
>geneaological
>investigations to understand the contex in which both parts of the family
>lived in.   I think we need to look at history/geneaology within the 
>historical
>context in which it happened and try and not interpret it from a 21st 
>century
>viewpoint...which is a hard nut to crack, I admit.   As an amateur living
>historian with the Atlantic Guard Soldiers' Aid Society, an authentic, 
>civilian
>living history group, I and the rest of AGSAS believe in interpreting 
>history as
>it happened and not putting a modern spin on it.   Sometimes this makes 
>people
>uncomfortable but we prefer not to sugar coat the historical truth just to
>make it more palatable.   We only learn accurately from history if we 
>examine it
>from all sides and not alter it in our historical interpretation.   I think
>this forces the spectator to think more completely about what historical
>event/people we are interpreting and thus gain a more complex understanding 
>of the
>issues of the day.
>
>
>Anita L. Henderson
>Atlantic Guard Soldiers' Aid Society
>Atlantic Guard Soldiers Aid Society
>
>PS:   if you look at your website, I am all over it in the photos ;-)!   I 
>am
>in about 3-4 photos on the revolving photo cartoon on the main page.
>
>
>
>**************************************
>  See what's free at http://www.aol.com.

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