"Finding Your Roots" on PBS
My husband and I recently discovered this show, which has been on for awhile (we are watching past seasons now). It is similar to the show on NBC (?) "Who Do You Think You Are?". Both are shows which explore the genealogy of various famous people (mostly movie/TV personalities) The latter, WDYTYA?, follows on individual though out the entire show, going to various locations and the like. Most of the people are white, though they have followed a Chinese-American (I can't remember her name, she's a morning TV show host) and Alfre Woodard. However, FYR is hosted by Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and it follows three individuals at a time, but what is even more interesting and unique about the show is it's use of DNA and it's exploring the roots of various ethnic groups, including African-Americans.
Last night's show was Maya Rudolph (Jewish and African-American), Keenan Ivory Wayans, and Shonda Rhimes. It was very interesting. You can see it here: http://www.pbs.org/weta/finding-your-roots/ (this goes to the Oklahoma PBS, so if it doesn't show, search your local PBS station website).
I am very interested in genealogy, and have been exploring various things. The Jewish side is very difficult because most of the records about Jews were destroyed in WWII, no matter what country served as an origin for Jews. I am also helping out one of my best friend's sister who are African-American. As I am sure some of you may be aware, it is VERY difficult to go way back because of slavery. There is a thing called the "1870 wall". 1870 was the first US census in which all African-Americans were recorded with a first and last name, prior to that many AA folk either were listed by first name only, or no name at all.
If you are interested in genealogy, I highly recommend this program!
= new reply since forum marked as read
Is it because of all the people running around claiming to be 1/300th Cherokee just because they have high cheekbones? 
Heck, but judging by all of the info this series and other similar ones have uncovered, that could actually be true!
Re: the white pages trick, do you mean the ACTUAL white pages as in the phone book? I'm sorry I'm a bit dense on this but I've never heard this before! Or is this the name of a certain part of collected old census data? And wouldn't "mulatto" have been considered "colored" back then?
The first is many NA nations relied on oral history and those who had written histories didn't keep records like the "white man" did/does. Second, many records were destroyed when NA were attacked and subjugated. Also, there are many different NA nations and each had different ways of communicating historical records, so many were simply lost over time. The Cherokee Nation probable has some of the best records because of the "Dawes Registry." You are right about many people claiming NA ancestry, many cling to the "Cherokee princess" myth. Interestingly enough, I think Maya Rudolph was one of those who thought there was NA blood in her family too and DNA showed a big, fat goose egg (zero)! LOL!
Yep, I am talking about the phonebook white pages! Crazy, huh?! Some of the old white pages would designate if the person/business was "Negro/Negro-owned", usually with an asterisk. I never knew that and found that out in my searches. Ancestry.com has a variety of databases, including some phonebooks, newspapers (I can find more at newspapers.com), and military (fold3.com) records (both of the previous sites are associated with Ancestry but require additional registration).
The terminology, at least in my searches, depends some on where the census was taken. "Mulatto" was basically white/black, and, in at least one form I found, white/Indian (the term used as opposed to NA). However, some census takers simply used N, C, or B. I haven't found any information why some made the distinction and others did not.
Were taken as slaves. I can trace our Cherokee ancestry because that was in my father's life time. He was afraid of one grandmother and her mother in particular because of B Movie Westerns. 
Where it gets messy - we know a great of his was a Slave - Seminole - but she was absorbed in the 1870 census. She's also in the slave narratives from the FDR admin.
It gets even more messy in my dad's mothers family - when the 1870 and 1880 and 1890 census list is great grandfather as white with a Cherokee wife (Mississippi). Their daughter marries a black man - and they move to Alabama and voila - they are now black. This is around the time he got written out of the Confederate Army even though he was in hip deep with Longstreet.
to dine with him and get to know him. I think he's one of the "coolest dudes in school," myself! 
I will never forget you describing her as a "black mother" because that's exactly what she became the second she had you and your brother. It's a shame it takes bravery to love who the hell you want to in this world.
*sigh*
I'm wondering though, can just regular people get in touch with these shows and get their ancestry mapped? Or do I need to be some "celebrity?"
The young man who first called me bi-racial was a 10 yr old African American fellow classmate and a good friend even to this day 40 + years later. He says he'd known as soon as he saw me. It was the first thing he ever said to me during a middle school basketball game. I laughed when he said it, and we just became fast friends after that.
When I figured out the genealogy, he laughed again but refrained from reminding me he'd called it many years before.
Nobody ever bullied me.
I'm looking forward to viewing all of them!
I was born in Nigeria and emigrated here when I was a kid. I was fascinated while growing up about the mixture of particularly AAs and how many prominent families came about, and how some were proud of the mix of white and others defiantly kept their families as black as possible, as well as who was acceptable and not acceptable in each group based on ancestry. The reasons got too much to handle because I was just an African and it became too confusing and didn't mean that much to me, until the stories of slavery and colonialism.
One of my ancestors was stolen when he was about 9. My great-great-great-etcetera grandmother went insane and never recovered from the loss. His story is passed on so we never forget the one we lost. I hope he survived the trip to somewhere in the colonies and produced many kids no matter how much suffering they endured. I hope beyond hope that one day DNA will reunite our family. It could happen 
Then came stories while growing up of my family's migration from the Middle East, on my dad's side, and a disease in the family called Moren's ulcer that proved that at one time we were people of the Sahara, on my mom's side. So the movement to sub-Sahara Africa is plausible, my grandmothers are distant cousins as well as the immediate family being Muslim at one point living in northern Nigeria. Then another story of the Chinaman ancestor but I believe thru some research that he might have been Filipino. Then before my dad died last month, I found out that we were in Kenya.
So many stories of migration that are hundreds or perhaps thousands of years old, all remembered by grios in the family. Before I thought I didn't need DNA to find more about who I am but it would be incredible to find out where we've been since time immemorial.
