ROOTS

Roots: The Saga of an American Family written by Alex Haley (1976), and the subsequent television program did what some Americans of African descent would like to do:  trace accurate genealogical links beyond enslavement back to a specific family, lineage, and location in Africa.  Such a feat would reaffirm identity, enhance self-esteem, and ennoble African roots.  

Mr. Haley traced his ancestry to Kunta Kinte, his great-great-great-great-grandfather, who was born about 1750, in Jufure in The Gambia.  Kunta Kinte was caught by slave catchers, sold to slave traders, and transported in 1767 to one of the 13 colonies that would become the United States of America.

Today, in the US, Professor Gates’s television show, “Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.” uses historical records and DNA analysis to identify the lineage of his guests.  A guest of European ancestry might learn that his or her ancestors lived in a particular village in Germany where the family had a recorded 200-year history. The first member of the family arrived in New York on July 28, 1779.

For guests of Asian origin, the same tools might reveal a family history going back one hundred and fifty years to a village in Fujian, China, for example. 

But for Americans of African ancestry, the brick wall of enslavement makes tracing the genealogical roots back to Africa impossible. DNA analysis might suggest that an African American guest has roots in modern-day Angola, Benin, The Gambia, Nigeria, Togo, Congo, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Mali, or Mauritania – all places which did not have written records until recently.  This combination of no written records and enslavement ends all efforts to trace lineage back to African roots.

BRANCHES

Since the end of European colonial rule of Africa in the 1960s, there has been a steady flow of young Africans to the United States, the countries of the erstwhile colonizers, the Middle East, as well as other African countries in search of opportunities.   These are the latest branches of the African Family Tree, the new Overseas Africans.

A small proportion of these new Overseas Africans ultimately settles in their destination countries.  Like all other citizens, the Overseas Africans will leave footprints in their adopted countries – point and date of entry, obtaining a driver’s license, employment, getting bank accounts, voting, starting a family, buying a house, or taking part in a census.  These footprints will tell the story of the new Overseas Africans in their adopted countries.   In 2095, a great, great, granddaughter will use these data points to trace her family tree.

But despite the improved record keeping, the new Overseas Africans will still encounter difficulties tracing their lineage within African countries. 

Although this will not make up for the lack of information about Africans who were taken from Africa in the time of slavery, it will be a small improvement.

To overcome this challenge, more Overseas Africans might consider doing what some of them already do: bequeath to their posterity genealogical information about the African side of their ancestry so that their future generations will be able to trace their roots back to Africa with accuracy.

Both Mr. Haley’ and Professor Gates empower their subjects by attempting to trace African origins, African roots.    In future, the opposite might happen:  Africans in Africa might wish to trace branches of their family trees long settled in Minnesota in the USA, Ottawa in Canada, Liverpool in England, Bonn in Germany, Lyons in France, Belo Horizonte in Brazil, Guangzhou in China, or in Sydney in Australia.  Among other things, this will be a way of asserting African voluntary presence in a global community.   

TREES  

Conveniently, free templates for Family Trees are readily available.  Anyone who has access to a computer and internet can download any of the templates, fill in the information, and pass copies to members of the family overseas and in Africa.  Some may want to construct their own family trees perhaps because of the complexity which arises from such realities as polygamy which is part of the tradition in many African countries, or, in our time, single parenthood.  The Family Trees do not have to be passed on to the government.  They are simply held within families in the expectation that they might empower a great-great-great-granddaughter in 2095.