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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