On my moms side of the family.
In 2018, a distant family member reached out to my aunt of Facebook. He claimed he was a historian and that we were his distant cousins. Turns out we knew friends of a friend, of a relative. His side of the family were looking for distant fam as part of this project he was working on. So they weren't exactly strangers. He invited us fo a family reunion, in NC. A couple of us went, just to see what this was about.
They put on a presentation about our history. Long story short, we came from two Nigerian prisoners of war, from a mandika tribe or something. He had receipts, names of ships, DNA tests, and even names of friends of the family who turned out to be distant relatives.(those bros were illegally shipped to America after importing slaves to America, was illegal. So I have a stronger case for reparations than most of yall)
My Nigerian ancestor, Pompey, was split and sold off to another plantation shortly after arriving to SC. Our historican couldn't find any paper trails after this until the 1900s. He had to connect the dots using word of mouth and slave master shipping materials. But way he found us is that both sides of our family never really kept out of touch, unknowingly. The family "friends" were really our 3rd cousins. The other plantation was in the town over. We were separated by around 100 years.
When we got home, a couple of my family got DNA tests which confirmed most of the historian said. We even so many of that other side on our family tree. The test also explained why Pompey's trail went dark. Either one Pompey's children or his grandchildren started pawgin. Its why a large chunk of my moms side is yellowboned. Why my great grandmother claimed her family where never slaves. Why a family of 12 Blacks owned a house and weren't sharecoppers in the early 1900s, in the deep south. Why she hated cacs. Why 1/3 of her siblings could past for white. Why she looks like Mariah Carey. Why her family "looked Indian" (that side of family have zero native blood, i have the highest with 2% from my father)
