My Famous Cousin Pt. 1
More Unsung Black Heroes
I have a cousin that seems to have become an unsung hero amongst black history. He was an athlete, lawyer, actor, singer, and activist. But there's a good chance you never heard of him, I hadn't either before a couple years ago.
ₘy Fₐₘₒᵤₛ Cₒᵤₛᵢₙ
Okay, so here I was minding my business attempting to help my mother find info on her father with Ancestrydotcom.
Even without submitting DNA, an Ancestry subscription can get you access to millions of resources like census data and draft cards; a platform to build sharable family trees; and even share stories of your finding, Snapchat style.
In this deep dive I learned some facts I wasn't supposed to know and how to trace our lineage back to some exact plantations.
So even though my paternal grandfather seems to disappear from any kind of legal documents after 1994 and we still have no idea what he looks like or even if he's alive; I was still able to find his parent's name from his marriage certificate. This opened up a door to connect many other branches.
I was able to go back a few generations to my great great-grandfather Ezekiel Roberson who was born a slave in the same county my grandfather was born. From there I hit a brick wall, however; unsure if his father was another slave or colonizer.
By this point I was obsesseed, memorizing names, trying to read century old tiny cursive, and messaging strangers to no avail. Ancestry may be the best place to find info on people but it wasn't the only one. I was determined to figure out.
Subsequently, I took a dive into Wikipedia to find info on the town that shares one of my family names looking for history of its founding. I discovered that it was named after three brothers that ran the plantation but I couldn't find any tangible proof of their connection with my ancestors.
Since it wasn't officially incorporated until 1872, I moved on to look at the county listed as the birth place of his grandfather instead. And right there in the notable residents, there was a man by the name of William Drew Robeson. I readied my brain to research more illiterate slave owners, but lo and behold, the image was that of a melaninated individual!
The article stated that William was a slave that escaped to New Jersey, founded an all black church, and fought for the union army in the Civil War. Amazing!
Reading the rest of his biography, it was revealed just as passing piece of info that his journey to the north was accompanied by his younger brother, Ezekiel. I froze.
Did they mean my ancestor? Outside of their surname names being off by one letter, everything else seemed to fit like a puzzle piece. There ages were one year apart and they lived in the same place at the same time.
According to a 19th century census, there was only 1,000 or so people in the town at that time. What are the chances there was a second Ezekiel about the same age of my great–great grandfather? Were they just giving out the same names for slaves? It doesn't seem likely but I wouldn't put anything past racism.
I was convinced that it had to be true. It made too much sense but there were still a few hurdles I had to jump before I could confirm. The first being the reality that I stayed up til 2am speculating and researching. By the time I came back to my senses, my household and the world were asleep and there was no one share any of the news with. I had to hold on to all the excitement until the morning and somehow convince my stimulated brain to go to sleep…
Website • IG • Bsky • Merch • FB • YT