If she was an indentured servant she would have had additional service and been whipped for bastardy if the father had also been white.  The big "crime" here is the pregnancy which harmed society and deprived her master of some of her labor.  Hence the punishment of more time added to her indenture.



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-----Original message-----

From: Steve Corneliussen <[log in to unmask]>

To: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>

Sent: Tue, Mar 20, 2012 15:20:29 GMT+00:00

Subject: [VA-HIST] N.Y. Times, Va. genealogy, PBS series



Some in this forum might be interested in an article prominently placed in

today's New York Times, "Family Tree’s Startling Roots."

(http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/20/arts/television/wanda-sykes-finds-ancestors-thanks-to-henry-louis-gates-jr.html)



Here's how it begins:

QUOTE

Thirty-nine lashes “well laid” on her bare back and an extension of her

indentured servitude was Elizabeth Banks’s punishment for “fornication &

Bastardy with a negroe slave,” according to a stark June 20, 1683, court

document from York County, Va. Through the alchemy of celebrity and

genealogy, that record and others led to the recent discovery that Banks, a

free white woman despite her servitude, was the paternal ninth

great-grandmother of Wanda Sykes, the ribald comedian and actress.



More than an intriguing boldface-name connection, it is a rare find even in

a genealogy-crazed era in which Internet sites like ancestry.com, with more

than 14 million users, and the popular NBC program “Who Do You Think You

Are?” play on that fascination. Because slavery meant that their black

ancestors were considered property and not people, most African-Americans

are able to trace their roots in this country only back to the first quarter

of the 19th century.



“This is an extraordinary case and the only such case that I know of in

which it is possible to trace a black family rooted in freedom from the late

17th century to the present,” said the historian Ira Berlin, a professor at

the University of Maryland known for his work on slavery and

African-American history.

UNQUOTE



The article also

* Reports that "Ms. Sykes’s family history was professionally researched for

a segment of 'Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates Jr.,' a new series

that has its debut Sunday on PBS."

* Quote Gates: “The bottom line is that Wanda Sykes has the longest

continuously documented family tree of any African-American we have ever

researched.”

* Notes that among "the subjects whose pasts are summoned this season on

'Finding Your Roots' are Barbara Walters (who learns her original family

surname), Harry Connick Jr., Samuel L. Jackson, Margaret Cho, Kevin Bacon,

Representative John Lewis of Georgia, Branford Marsalis, Robert Downey Jr.

and Dr. Sanjay Gupta. The episode with Ms. Sykes is set for May."



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