Reunion Book: Answers Americans Quest For African Roots

“Who am I? And where did I come from?” Everyone asks this. If you haven’t asked yourself this question yet, just wait, you will.

Several of my relatives asked and answered that question about my African American and First American mother’s family. Various aunts, uncles and cousins successfully traced our African American family roots to the 1700s in Virginia, and created a family tree.

The American branch of our family started with the newly married son of a chief, ‘The Prince,’ and his bride Fatima. According to family folklore, these newlyweds were honeymooning in the bush, near their home village in Africa. To their misfortune, they were abducted. They eventually found themselves on a ship. At the end of their Atlantic journey they arrived in Virginia. They started the American side of our family.

It was great knowing that our family started in the seaside city of Virginia, which acted as the Ellis Island for African-Americans. But ‘The Prince’ and Fatima were born in Africa. I wanted to know where in Africa they came from. And by extension where I came from? What made us what I am? Did I get my love of banking and math from them? What about my love of education? Was it cultural? My flair with color, pattern and texture; my ability to turn the mundane into something beautiful, did it come from them? My ability to broker deals with the best of them, was that inherited too, along with my intelligence and my curiosity? The giving of respect equally to girl or boys who worked hard and learned well, was that passed down too?

Armed with these thoughts, I turned to Africa Ancestry.com. I hoped the private genetic heritage company could reveal what the names of ‘The Prince’ and Fatima could not, which is what African ethnic group they were from.

The standard procedure at AfricanAnecstry.com is to look at the set of genes from one common ancestor who lived ten generations earlier. From that analysis, they might be able to tell your ethnic ancestry.

AfricanAncestry.com staff crossed checks my family’s particular African ancestor’s genes. They used a few DNA samples from both my living male and female relatives. AfricanAncestry.com was able to match my family’s African American genotype common markers to genotype common markers in a specific West African ethnic group. These markers revealed that ten generations ago one of my ancestors was an Igbo. I was elated with the news. Could ‘The Prince’ and Fatima be Igbo? I certainly hoped so.

With further research I learned that many African ethnic groups have very similar phenotypes or markers. DNA evidence turned out to be just one piece of the family genealogy puzzle. I knew the other piece of would be found in historical records. After a much research, I learned that the majority of Africans that landed in Virginia in the 1700-1800s were Igbos. What a relief to know that the scientific and the historical data matched!

The historical records said Igbos arrived in Virginia and my family genotype was Igbo. I was elated. Everything pointed to Igbo ancestors. For the first time, I, instead of thinking of all of Africa as a potential home, I could focus on one place, one people and one history.

Excited, I wanted to share Igbo history and culture with the children in the family. I especially wanted to give my tween girls, then 8 and 12 years old, Igbo dolls, which would show them what Igbos looked like in the 1700s and today.

I wanted to give them children’s books which described Igbo culture, religion, world view, beliefs and history from the 15-18th centuries until modern times. I wanted them to have the ability to compare what had happened to each branch of the family in Africa and the Americas and Caribbean since the separation.

I looked, and looked, and looked for books and dolls. I was unsuccessful. So I researched and learned a great deal about Igbo culture. And I reacquainted myself with the African Diaspora.

And I discovered the fascinating cutting edge genotype DNA research. I became enamored with this thought: what if I could find all of ‘The Prince’ and Fatima’s village relatives, many of which were now likely scattered around the world? What a fabulous world-wide family I could have.

And from this thought the germ of the tale of Reunion began. That somehow, African Diaspora relatives had overcome time and space. And I was ‘connected’ with relatives from all over the world. Relatives that I could laugh and dine with, pray with, work with and love. Relatives who would share their families’ journeys to Mexico City, Havana, Bogotá, Paris, London and Lagos- which are the new home towns of the new world Igbo Diaspora. Thus the new series, Reunion, was born. Dolls are sure to follow.

Welcome.