I attended a family reunion on Saturday. The descendants of my maternal line great-grandparents meet every year in the North Alabama county where our ancestors first settled in the 1840s. We’re a typical white Southern family and most years the conversations and ambience are pleasant and friendly but nothing extraordinary. This year was a bit different, because a distant but undeniable relative of ours had been in the news most of the week: Dr. Henry Louis Gates
Several years ago I had my mitochondrial DNA tested at a well known lab. Mitochondrial DNA passes from mother to child and mutates very slowly, if at all, so that distant relationships between people who are descended from the same woman can be identified. The lab sends me emails every time someone matches my DNA , and a couple of years after my results came in I got a message one morning notifying me of a match. I checked the lab’s website to find out more and saw Dr. Gates’ name and Harvard email address. Being something of an historian myself (high school history teacher) I recognized his name immediately and, intrigued, sent him an email mentioning my white Southern family and asking about his maternal line ancestry. Dr. Gates referred me to a genealogist who was tracing his family, and we had some interesting email discussions. We were not able to identify a specific common ancestor, but since Dr. Gates’ maternal line was from Virginia and my maternal line also appears to have connections in the Old Dominion, the possibility is strong that our common forebear was a white woman (the DNA has been identified as European in origin) who had at least one daughter by a black man. Because Dr. Gates and I match exactly in both parts of the mitochondrial DNA tested by the lab, it is probable that this white woman lived about 200-300 years ago in colonial Virginia. We may never know her name or the circumstances of her life, but she or someone like her definitely existed and played a part in Dr. Gates’ and my history.
It was very fascinating and quite ironic since this part of my family line was Southern and formerly slave-owning. I mentioned Dr. Gates’ connection to us to some of my cousins when I met them from time to time, but it was never a matter of general discussion until Saturday. As I said above, my mother’s family is pretty typical: mostly middle class, fairly prosperous small businessmen, teachers, and some who are preachers in the denomination to which most of us belong. Most are typical Alabama Republicans. I’m sure I’m the only Obama voter among them. We don’t discuss politics much , and I like these people and they like me even though our political views are mutually incomprehensible. The reunion had just started when one of the cousins, a now retired preacher in his late sixties, made a typical "birther" comment to his brother-in-law which I ignored out of politeness and the interests of good fellowship. (Though I was surprised, I expected better of him.) Later one of my cousins to whom I had mentioned Dr. Gates’ connection asked me if that was the same man as the one who was in the news. When I confirmed it there was some laughter and quite a bit of surprised questioning over this unexpected relative.
We’re a white Southern family, but we are not rednecks. I have never heard a racial epithet from any of these cousins and would never expect to. Most have attended local colleges or business schools and are fairly well travelled. Some have made mission trips to Eastern Europe. But they are still products of their culture, and that culture is still very segregated.
Many white people in the South and elsewhere lead lives very separate from and are thus very ignorant of the lives of minorities. The idea of having a blood kinship with an African-American is either never considered or consciously ignored most of the time in a way that could not be possible with African-Americans. I’m sure Dr. Gates’ mother’s family would not be at all surprised to hear that they have white relatives. That’s part of the history of our region and people, and everyone needs to acknowledge it.
At my family reunion I spent quite a bit of time telling my relatives about Dr. Gates’ accomplishments and dispelling some of the stereotypes which had arisen from the news coverage of his arrest. I doubt that I changed too many pre-conceptions, but on Saturday at least one family did do some thinking about race, and that can’t be all bad. As DNA testing becomes more common, more families like mine are going to become aware of unexpected branches on their family tree. And that's a good thing too.