Feeling Free in South Africa, Part 1

About a decade ago, I got an email from 23 & Me that blew me away. I was genetically related to Nelson Mandela on my mother’s side of the family. Mama’s side of our family had a lot of griots (AKA oral storytellers) who spilled a great deal of tea.

Miscegenation was rampant in our family, whose roots were in Dinwiddie, Virginia. I’m not sure what attracted former enslavers and employers to my maternal ancestors, but it damn sure caused a lot of confusion. No one ever mentioned rape, but that could never be excluded.

Some of my male cousins were lynched. Another was found in a river up North. Others passed, never to be heard from again until their descendants showed up on 23 & Me as my distant cousins, presumably white with olive complexions.

Our oldest traceable ancestor was Grandma Emeline Jones, born in 1820. It is from her that I inherited the “birthing” genes that culminated in me and my cousin, Sheryl, becoming ob-gyn physicians. Grandma Emeline was an enslaved midwife, as was her daughter, Grandma Mariah Jones Perkins Parker, whose father was also her enslaver and whose great-granddaughter was my mother.

I often wondered what part of Africa Grandma Emeline came from, and then 23 & Me finally provided the answer. I had traveled to West Africa twice (for pleasure) and East Africa once (to bring home…