Written in the Blood

September/October 2006 Edition

By Chris Rabb
Contributor
ColorLines Magazine 

My genealogical quest to untangle ancestry and heritage.

IN JUST OVER TWO YEARS OF DNA TESTING, I may have become the most genetically well-documented Black person to date.

I have cajoled and convinced relatives to assist me in this quest by swabbing the inside of their cheeks in furtherance of the family good. After more than a decade of intensive research in the tradition of our family's elder genealogists going back three generations, I've been able to identify 10 distinct African lineages coursing through my body. I've been able to uncover what for so many descendants of enslaved Africans is a tragically elusive piece of our family history. What I initially thought was a potential means by which government agencies and eugenicists could harvest and misuse people's genetic code, I eventually saw as a powerful tool to delve deeper into the cultural diversity of my African ancestry.

But I quickly realized that the more intently I sought to learn about my Black ancestors, the more I would have to research the white people who owned them. A notable subset of the slave owners were also my ancestors. Many white people-mainstream journalists in particular-ask me how I used this technology to identify the prominent white ancestors in my pedigree. The answer is, I didn't. It was neither my goal, nor my interest.

While I was growing up, my complexion and features constantly reminded me of this fact, a reality I only came to peace with it when I learned the distinction between ancestry and heritage. Before this epiphany, the idea of white male ancestors who owned and raped my Black female ancestors filled me with so much rage and frustration that I nearly lost the will to learn more.

Genes, however, don't tell the whole story. Often, they only illuminate the corners of this planet from which our ancestors hail. The larger narrative is what our forbearers chose to do in those corners and how that, generations later, produced us and the socio-political circumstances into which we were born. Once I drew the line between what I was (my ancestry, which I cannot control) and who I was (the heritage I choose to embrace), whatever I uncovered in my genealogical journey had little impact on my racial identity. And racial identity, not to be confused with race-the biological term-is an incendiary and malleable artifice of our own making. What we loosely and provocatively call race, so often conflated with color, culture and consciousness, changes with the passing of each historical moment and each footstep toward or away from those earthly corners from which our ancestors migrated.

When my circuitous research finally revealed the identity of the first slave-owner who was also an ancestor of mine, I cringed and wishing it wasn't so. When that painful experience repeated itself for the second, third, fourth and fifth time, I had to consciously choose to process these genealogical realities in a way that did not psychically relegate me to being a man who descends from multiple rapists. That's when my epiphany came: How can I be ashamed for acts I did not commit? How can I take responsibility for the choices an ancestor-any ancestor-made decades, generations or centuries before I was even born? For that matter, how could I take pride in something I had nothing to do with?

I descend from 2 Black parents, 4 Black grandparents, 8 Black great grandparents and 16 Black great-great grandparents. Of my 32 great-greatgreat grandparents, at least 5 ancestors were white, slave-owning men who had relations with enslaved Black female forbearers. But for me, Ewondo, Tikar, Bamileke of Cameroon, Mende, Kru and Temne of Sierra Leone and Liberia, Ga of Ghana, Yoruba of Nigeria, Berber of Morocco and Pakistani, are a select sampling of my ancestral ethnicities that have influenced the heritage I own.

When I visited the site of the antebellum Rabb plantation from where my surname comes, I longed to know about my great-greatgreat grandparents who were kidnapped from points unknown and despaired that it might be impossible to find the names, language, beliefs and even just that small piece of the world they called home. I always knew my ancestors had a place in history. Now, thanks to science, I know where those places are, not just in history, but on a world map and amidst the tangled, blood-drenched, but resilient roots of my ever-expanding family tree.

Chris Rabb's forthcoming book
about his family and genealogy
is called Rivers to the Soul.

Comments

[harold bergsma]

I found the information facinating and informative. Our genetic heritage is certainly more complex and exciting that I ever imagined. Pakistani genes? How interesting! I have just finished a novel,coming out after Christmas, One Way to Pakistan, Authorhouse, ISBN 1-4259-7422-8 (dj) or 1-425-7421-x(sc) a story of abduction, rape and a little hope. It is the story of a young American-Filipina woman who goes to Pakistan and disappears. The implications of your genetic research apply here so strongly. We are a wonder of complexity. Best wishes. Harold Bergsma www.haroldbergsma.com

[Nubianem]

One of the major facts about Americans' heritage that many Africans (in North and West Africa) are very well aware of is the one-third of American whites (usually brown hair and brown eyes) who are of African origins and who has an African in their ancestry.

How can that be? Let's say it is no more mysterious as someone Black having a Pakistani ancestor. After all, Pakistan and India and the Andaman islands were the very first places that Africans migrated after leaving Africa, and for thousands of years after that, Ethiopia, Somalia, Egypt, East Africa sent settlers to both Pakistan and India as well as the Black Sea (Senusret; see "Susu Economics: The History of Pan-African Trade, Commerce, Money and Wealth," pub. by http://www.AuthorHouse.com also see http://sexhistorynsoul.proboards102.com )

As recently as the 1940's, communities of Blacks lived in parts of Armenia. These Blacks are said to be descendents of Senusret's Egyptian soldiers who settled the Black Sea region and parts of the Georgia, Armenia region about 2000 B.C.

As far as Pakistan is concerned, there are both Black Negro people there of historical African origins 2000 B.C. to the 1800's. One of these groups is also found in India and is called 'Sidis.' They are of Ethiopian origins.

There are also descendents of protohistoric African Negroid people in India and some who live on the Andaman islands and have been there for over 60,000 years.

India's Black 'Untouchables' or Dalits and 'Tribals," include an element of 'Indo-Negroid' people of African type who number about 300 million people. See "A History of Racism and Terrorism, Rebellion and Overcoming," published by http://www.Xlibris.com also see http://www.claritypress.com "The Black Untouchables of India," by VT Rajshekar, Runoko Rashidi and YN Kly

http://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/runoko.html

So, it is not surprising that any Black in the US may have Pakistani or East Indian or even Chinese ancestry. After all, many of our ancestors were either Black Africoid or Black Asiatic both of the Pan-Negro racial group - A DISTINCT RACE AND THE TERM 'RACE' DOES APPLY TO US.

The ability to trace our ancestry through genetic testing is a very welcoming development. Somehow, the original intent of using DNA to criminally castigate people may backfire and actually help more people establish global alliances and fight those whose intentions are to criminalize whole populations in order to implement neo-slavery on others.

Finally, the European population of the US are at least one-third of African ancestry dating to the past five hundred years.

There are two African strains in white Americans. One is Black Almohad (Black Moorish) from the region of Nigeria to Morocco. The second is West African.

An article from Scientific American magazine some years ago showed that African/Black people have about 95 percent of a particular chromosome that is of African origins. Europeans have 75 percent of the African chromosome and Asians have 60 percent of the African chromosomes.

The findings also showed that Africans had 5 percent of a chromosome 'alu' found in equal amounts in Asians and Europeans, and that the South Indians and Austrics, Indo-Negroids and Melanesian had about 90 percent of the African chromosome 'alu 7.'

So, an African-American who has a white parent and a Black parent will have a predomination of Black genes.

The Black/African genes from the Black parent

The Black/African genes from the White parent.

The child comes out genetically Black even after many generations.

In other words, an albino who is fairskinned and 'yellow' haired still has black genes. The only gene they lack is the skin, hair and eye color gene.

People of European and East Asian origins are in the same predicament. Their skin color changed over thousands of years, but the original type for their respective groups (Kong-San and Bantu as the 'Father' of East Asians and American Indians, and East Africans as the 'Father' of East Indians and Europeans - in fact, the ancestors of fairskinned Europeans were first Africans who migrated to India and later into Europe where they became trapped by the ICE AGE AND CHANGED DUE TO CLIMATIC CONDITIONS.

So, As an African-American, even if one of my ancestors may have been of another race, the insult of slavery, rape and slave breeding prevents me from claiming any European with the type of pride and lack of historical knowledge that some people have claimed the slavemasters.

In fact, it is the Europeans and others who should claim their African ancestry.

"A History of Racism and Terrorism, Rebellion and Overcoming," pub. by http://www.Xlibris.com

"Susu Economics," http://www.AuthorHouse.com

http://sexhistorynsoul.proboards102.com

http://sexyloveromancepoems.blogstream.com

[littlepurplecow]

Wow... what a journey. I'm sure an emotional one. Thank you for sharing it with us. Your children get the true reward.

[Chris Rabb]

Ennis, you're going to have to read my (forthcoming) book to find out about the Pakistani connection! ; )

Kitch, thanx for the kudos and blogging about my essay, etc.

Lark, thanx for your encouragement as well. I'm writing a book because to the extent my journey has meaning or can benefit others' searches, then I feel compelled to share -- and on multiple, simultaneous levels (thus, the book, essays, podcasts, e-mails, conversations, etc.). ; )

Lastly, Aaron, I recommend using http://www.AfricanAncestry.com if you think your DNA testing may reveal, well, African ancestry. That's the only firm I can recommend at this point. And, yes, I have made up a "cute name for my race".

Now, given all the genealogical and genetic research I've done over the years, I like to tell folks that I'm mixed: I'm part Negro and part Colored. ; )

[Ennis]

Chris - Pakistani? What part of your heritage was that? That's a bit unusual given that the rest of your genetic make up is either African or European.

[Kitch]

Great article, Chris!

[Lark]

I loved reading this, Chris. beautiful writing, and tough research. Thanks for sharing it so generously.

[aaron]

What a fun genetic adventure. Can I get those tests for my family? Chris, have you made up a cute name for what your race is, a la "cablasian?"