linked descendants - BitterSweet

Research & Finding Documents

DNA Proved that my Great-Great Grandmother was Fathered by her Enslaver

"DNA doesn’t lie," genealogist Charlotte Bocage explains her essay in The Searcher (Summer 2003, Vol 60, No 3, pp. 63-65, a publication of the Southern California Genealogical Society). "I am…

Charlotte BocageSeptember 8, 2023

Healing, Repair & Action

Healing Histories: Can Enslaver Descendants Tell Their Ancestral Stories Without Causing Further Harm?

— By Leslie Stainton Not long ago, a colleague suggested I stop writing about my enslaving ancestors because, as he put it, “no one wants to hear the story of…

Leslie StaintonMarch 9, 2023

Healing, Repair & Action

A Third Way to Be a Confederate Descendant?

--By BitterSweet Editors "What if, when people picture folks with Confederate heritage, they imagine people — Black, White, and multiracial — who hold a special commitment to destroying White supremacy?"…

BitterSweet EditorsJanuary 21, 2023

Slavery & Its Legacies

History Comes ‘Round Midnight

In the beginning, the history wanted me more than I wanted the history. It came for me as a brown grandchild kept secret from her racist great grandmother, as nightmares…

Karen BrananSeptember 3, 2021

Healing, Repair & Action

You Owe Me What was Always Mine

"You owe me what was always mine" is the title of Briayna Cuffie's latest blog post on reparations4slavery.com. She is speaking to enslavers whose family records, letters, journals, photos, plantation…

BitterSweet EditorsFebruary 15, 2021

History, Culture, People, Places & Events

The Gwynn’s Island Project Reconnects the Descendants of Black Island Families to their Roots

Maria S. Montgomery & Allison Thomas Maria Montgomery found me on Ancestry.com in 2016. Our family trees overlap because my ancestors enslaved hers. We are “linked descendants”—cousins regardless of whether…

Allison ThomasJanuary 19, 2021

Research & Finding Documents

Healing Historic Harms Through Research — Sharon Leslie Morgan

Sharon Leslie Morgan moved to Noxubee County, Mississippi to research her ancestors’ history. Morgan’s great-great-grandmother, Betty Warfe Gavin, was enslaved there, and gave birth to 17 children. The father of…

Sharon Leslie MorganJanuary 4, 2021

Linked Descendants

“There was Nothing We Could Do About it”

Violet Craig Turner (1828-1906) When I was a child, Uncle George's stories and the serious inflection in his voice always commanded my attention. He frequently told me about…

Antoinette BroussardOctober 23, 2020

Linked Descendants

Unexpected Outbursts

Dedicated to Susan Hutchison, Co-Founder, Coming to the Table Written by Pam Smith and Ann Neel Publication facilitated by Prinny Anderson As all of us in Coming To The Table…

BitterSweet EditorsFebruary 26, 2017

Slavery & Its Legacies

Our Caribbean Kin

“Transcolonial kinship narratives seek to transform exploitative and dehumanizing social relations that characterized the European invasion of the Americas, and Eurocentric understandings of history, knowledge, power, citizenship, and humanity.” (Reyes-Santos,…

Alaí Reyes-SantosJanuary 19, 2017