Finding My "Mamacita"

I forgot to mention one thing about our visit to the lake house on Monday: Travalon’s buddy’s uncle is in the hospital, but when the family went to visit him, the staff had trouble locating him. He had come in by helicopter without any ID on him, and this hospital assigns people like that the default name “[herb] Doe” so that this guy was still under the name Thyme Doe. They were surprised about this, and then one of them (the buddy’s mom?) said, “What if they had assigned him the herb Dill?” So this system doesn’t seem that well thought out, unless they avoid that particular herb…

As my regular readers know, about six years ago I learned that I have Sub-Saharan African on my mother’s side, and more recently the website has refined it to being from Nigeria. This explains why Ma Hat could trace the family tree to men on the plantation, but not their wives. I had created a rudimentary family tree on the website, and just today I got an email that they had found a match for me. Someone had created a family tree that even includes me, although they think I am two days younger than I actually am. But what really fascinated me is how far this genealogy went back. There was a woman, we’ll call her “Lucinda,” who is my great-great-grandmother, and I remember years ago seeing a photo of her and thinking, “She has incredibly dark eyes for someone of British heritage!” Lucinda was descended from the people who lived on this plantation, so I was excited to see ancestors beyond her. There was a point where the women trailed off, but were any of these people slaves? I am so fascinated. I sent a message to the woman who created this family tree – we’ll see if she has any insights! I’d love to find the woman who came over in chains from Nigeria! True confession: in Cuba I bought a tiny black doll dressed in traditional West African clothes, and I call her “Mamacita.” She represents this mysterious ancestor of mine, since I don’t know anything about her. But Mamacita was a real person, and I suddenly feel closer to knowing who she really was.

Famous Hat