Tror Na Foe (troh-nah-fway) - a phrase in Ewe, the language of my father's ancestors from the southeastern portion of Ghana's Volta region. Roughly, it means "to return and find again".

photo : a girl and her mother prepare to take center stage during a break in their tradtional Ewe dance troupe's performance in Anloga at the Hogbetsotso Festival, November, 2006.


Note: Once again, I extend a warm welcome to all those readers who may be new to this site. If you are one of these, I invite you to settle back and spend a little time catching up with where we are now by scrolling all the way down to the first installment and reading your way back up. If you don't have time right now, I'm glad you've joined us anyway - just know that this is entry number 8 in a story that has been unfolding since earlier this year, and eventually, you might want to go back to the first few installments to see where and how it all began. Welcome!

Settling Back In... For A While
After an enjoyable and mostly relaxing Thanksgiving week-end, I slowed down my pace even more for a couple of days, just to finish recovering from jet lag. As I write this, I have to admit I'm still not completely recovered. But I can feel myself bouncing back... and not a minute too soon! The holidays are here, with all the hustle and bustle that entails.

I may not be as regular with the blog as I have been until we arrive at the new year, but rest assured, I'll still be posting new installments, so do keep checking in. The number of days from now until Christmas is quickly slipping away, and like many of you, I've got to take some time now to deal with preparations for the season. And suddenly, there's more to do this year than usual. This recent trip to Ghana and the gift of all this new-found family means our Christmas card list just grew by about 40%!

Although it's great to be back in my own house and in the company again of the family, friends and neighbors I've missed, the truth is, I can't wait to get back to Ghana again. I may get the chance as soon as late February, just in time for Ghana's fiftieth independence day on March 6th!

Parsing Out The Story of That First Ancestor
When my wife Celeste and I had our first meeting with Lawrence Agbemabiese, the cousin with whom I made that preliminary contact, before he said almost anything else, he apologized for slavery. It clearly wasn't something he'd planned to say. Our first meeting was an emotional moment, and I think, suddenly face to face with a long-missing relative whose ancestors had been victimized by the slave trade, the enormity of the realization that some of his ancestors may well have been involved in these crimes hit him right between the eyes.

"They had no idea what they were selling people into, you know," he said. "The slavery then practiced in Africa had a completely different character. It was devoid of any idea of racial inferiority, of course. Or permanence... the idea that once a slave, not only were you a slave for life, but your children too, and their children."

The next time we talked, the conversation kept coming back to two things: 1) what a wonderful, unexpected and near-miraculous thing it was to hear from a long-missing African American relative out of the blue; 2) how strange it is that a member of their family of heriditary chiefs could have ended up being taken as a slave. The unspoken subtext of this conversation could be summarized as, "People from our social strata didn't often get sold; we were the ones who did the selling!" That's a touchy and awkward place from which to begin developing a relationship and unraveling a complex family history... but it wasn't for nothing that slavery was called, "the peculiar institution!"

Right before I left Ghana, Lawrence and I had a lengthy conversation on the phone about what our next steps should be, in terms of striving to reach that much longed-for "Kunte Kinte moment" that will identify for us who that first African ancestor of mine was, and unravel the story of how he came to be a slave.

Our new-found Ghanaian relatives told us that during the latter chapters of the dark days of slavery, many Ewe were, indeed, heavily involved in both slave trading and gun running, cozying up, when it seemed most expedient to their survival, to either their neighbors, the powerful Ashanti empire, or to the British. We had read some of that history too. But we had also learned that earlier on, from the mid 1600's until the mid-1700's, many, many Ewe were taken as slaves.

In addition, I knew from the family lore of my English ancestors in Virginia that they had started buying slaves in the 1660's. And it just so happens that the 1660's were a catastrophic decade for the Anlo-Ewe people - the beginning of a period that saw many of them sold away to the New World. There were costly wars with their Ga neighbors, among others, to the west, as well as with the kingdom of Dahomey and the Oyo empire to the east.

The decision to engage in warfare was a very difficult and weighty matter for the Anlo-Ewe. There was, on the one hand, an ancient and proud warrior tradition, balanced on the other by a powerful belief in the sacredness of human life. That belief is so strong that the Ewe also have an ancient tradition the militaries of the world would do well to study and copy today. After a war was concluded, all veterans were required to move together into a special encampment - a soldiers' village - that was maintained for the exclusive purpose of helping soldiers "decompress" and heal from the stresses and horrors of battle for a time before they were allowed to return to their families and normal life.


The core idea was that being forced into a situation in which one had to break the ultimate taboo - the taking of human life - was so devastating to his immortal soul that he needed to be in a setting where he and the others with whom he had marched in battle could now be prayed over together, and forgiven, as well as publicly thanked for their sacrifice. One has to wonder how much emotional and spiritual suffering might be avoided among veterans and their families around the world if such comprehensive "re-entry" programs existed elsewhere(not to mention such a powerful reluctance to engage in war in the first place)!

Given this aversion to killing, whenever faced with the expansionist drive of aggressive neighbors, the Anlo-Ewe had always preferred the passive path of migration to meeting fire with fire, but by the early 1600's - just in time for the slave trade to start heating up - they found themselves with their backs to the sea; one set of powerful enemies to the east; another to the west. The military leaders who stepped up to the challenge received the full support of the people, and before long, the Anlo-Ewe had pushed back their enemies from the Ga country, Dahomey and Oyo, firming up their hold on the territory east of the Volta River that is still the heart of their homeland today.

Fighting back and winning felt good. And within a very short time, the clans which produced the generals and the chiefs who had carried the day against their enemies became the most powerful and prominent families in the culture. With their rise to prominence, worship of their patron deity, the god of war, began to supplant the ancient worship of the matriarchal deities who had ensured good crops and a blessed home life.

Within a generation, those who remained faithful to the old ways of worship - and to folkways that were more matriarchal than patriarchal - began to suffer oppression at the hands of the leaders of the new order. So now, here comes the question my Ghanaian family and I need to ask. Is this social turmoil, commencing in 1668, the root cause of the chain of events that led to my ancestor being shipped away in chains? Was he a member of the Yewe cult, which championed the old ways, publicly challenging and resisting the new, martial culture? Were prominent cult members sold off as slaves, to serve public notice that dissent would not be tolerated?

Anlo-Ewe culture has kept alive many songs and stories commemorating some of the horrors that occured during the centuries of the slave trade. We haven't found a song or a story that mentions my ancestor yet. But this doesn't mean that one doesn't exist. One of my earlier posts on this blog, filed from Ghana, relates the details of that special day on the 4th of November when clan elders read out for me the known history of our clan, the Tovie. But the list of "begats", as far as we can tell now, doesn't begin until around 1750 - about 50 years too late to include the ancestor we're searching for. The answer may lie, however, with some of the contemporary elders of the Yewe cult. Their oral record, their songs, may hold the key to the largely unsung history of their repression and survival... as well as the key to the fate of some of those who were martyred, one way or the other.

My next trip to Ghana, which I hope will be soon, will include at least a couple of visits to Yewe elders who may be able to help us shed some light on this critical question. Whatever we find will be faithfully reported right here at "Tror Na Foe."

Another "Next Step: The Advent of ADFaR (African Diaspora Family Reunion)
Good work has been done in west Africa by Dr. Kittles and others but, given the limitations placed on that work by funding, the geneaological sampling that's been done has been carried out on diverse groups of people. The end result is that someone of African descent here in the North or South American diaspora might be able to identify an ethnicity and/or a region that has a high probability of being the point of origin for at least one family line. But as anyone who knows who has looked at the statistics regarding who's part of the large and growing database at "Y-Search" or "Mito-Search," the number of individual Africans and people of African descent who have participated so far is very small. Tiny.

While I was in Ghana last month, Gideon and I did a lot of talking about what a great thing it could be if more individual west Africans were to be sampled and have their results uploaded into a database. Our discussions are still very preliminary, and the project idea is extremely ambitious. After all, at a ballpark price of $100 per test, it would cost $1,000,000 just to get 10,000 people tested! But we are determined to help this idea grow. Stay tuned! We have already met with Ghana's Minister of Health to "pitch" this idea, and we had a great interview on JOY 97, Ghana's most listened-to radio station. People see clearly how such a thing would be a "win/win" for Ghanaians and African Americans both. We're going to keep on pushing this idea, and we'll be letting you know how it goes... as well as how you can help!

An Appeal for Sky Limit School

Once again, I remind readers that Cousin Lawrencia Agbenyefia runs a primary school near Kumasi (see photo above). I carried some supplies to her in November, but you know how restrictive the airline luggage allowances are these days. So, I'd like to enlist your aid on her (and the childrens') behalf. They need math and science texts and workbooks, appropriate for the early elementary grades; educational games, toys and puzzles; age appropriate books for the library; computer CDs and DVDs; etc. Lightly used items will be fine, but brand new is ideal. If you can help, you may send items or checks to her in care of her church at:

Mrs. Lawrencia Agbenyefia

Deeper Christian Life Ministry
P.O. Box 539
Obuasi, Ashanti Region,
Ghana

Many thanks! See you next week!!

Tror Na Foe (troh-nah-fway) is a phrase in Ewe, the language spoken by my father's forbears, who lived in Togo and the southeastern tip of Ghana. It means, roughly, to return and retrieve something which one has lost.

photo:A little girl and her mother take center stage among a group of Ewe traditional dancers at this year's Hogbetsotso Festival in Anloga.

Heritage
(excerpt from Countee Cullen's poem)

What is Africa to me:

Copper sun or scarlet sea,

Jungle star or jungle track,

Strong bronzed men, or regal black

Women from whose loins I sprang

When the birds of Eden sang?

One three centuries removed

From the scenes his fathers loved,
Spicy grove, cinnamon tree,
What is Africa to me?

Note: We've had many new readers join us these last few days. If you are one of these, welcome! I invite you to scroll down to the bottom of these posts (seven of them now) and read from the beginning, just to understand where we are now in this journey of self-discovery, sparked by the DNA-based geneaological detective work which has made the journey possible.

Identity
I sat at my cousin Happy's house, sipping a tall glass of cool water in her very pleasant, middle-class home, chatting with her husband, Victor, about African American perspectives on Africa. "So, honestly, what do you think of Ghana so far?" he asked. I said nice things, but their little sideways glances at each other made it clear they thought I was being too nice; too easily glossing over the every day issues - some little; some not so little - that wear Ghana's citizens down: an economy improving just enough to inspire frustrated expectations; power blackouts; mile after mile of streetlights that don't work; a national rail system that no longer works. Lots and lots of things that don't work, or which work poorly, at best. "I've been to America twice," he said, "And I must say, although I know you have your problems, it seemed like God's own country to me over there. Your climate makes people energetic; everything works... at least as far as I could see. And you see how things are with us over here. So, I'm always a little bemused about it when I see African Americans here in Africa with stars in their eyes, you know, looking to move 'back home'. I suppose, really, at bottom, it's an emotional thing, isn't it?"

"Yes," I said. "That's exactly it. Something extremely precious and important was taken from us, and many of us have a real sense of mission about taking it back, you know... a specific ethnic and national identity. You're Ghanaian, and you're Ewe. Your language; your culture; your sense of shared history with each other is rich and deep. You've lived it and breathed it all your life. You've been able to just take it for granted. And even though this is an impossible question for you to really answer, I'm going to ask it anyway: can you imagine what your life might be like if you'd never had any of that self-knowledge?" He looked me soberly in the eye and shook his head. "Listen," I said, "I get it when Africans here tell me, 'Man, you'd better appreciate what you have back there in the States. People never understand how precious political and social stability are until they lose them'. "And there are all kinds of material blessings many of us enjoy that the rest of the world envies. I know that too," I told him. But there are many human wants and needs that material things can never satisfy.

Later that night, another Ghanaian asked me about this issue of identity, and I told him of a newspaper story I once read about a young man from Atlanta whose father was African American and whose mother was native Hawaiian. He was raised by his dad in an all-black, east side Atlanta housing project. He'd always been accepted by his community as black, but many outsiders looked at his reddish-brown skin; his wavy hair; his nose; his eyes; and thought he must be Latino... or maybe partly Asian. He never worried much about what others thought, and he never had much curiosity about the Polynesian/Hawaiian half of his heritage... until the summer he turned eighteen. All of a sudden, now it mattered. His mother, newly in recovery from years of drug addiction, was suddenly fully available to him for the first time in his life. And he found himself eagerly drinking her in - needing to know her. This led very organically and naturally to a deep desire to know her people, and to meaningfully connect with that side of his heritage.

With his father's full blessing, and his mother's advance work on his behalf, the extended family back in Hawaii prepared a huge welcome for him. Over a hundred people, mostly blood relatives, met him at the airport. Even though he spent only two weeks there among them, he had been so immersed in their love and attention that when he returned to Atlanta, he came back feeling very Hawaiian. It's not that he no longer felt black. There was no "either/or" about his situation. His life had changed in a fundamental way, and now his identity was a case of "both/and". If others couldn't understand that and accept it, he figured that was their problem, not his. He understood now that to know the people from whom you come is to know yourself.

That's how I feel today. In this mysterious, wonderful universe of ours - a world in which light is both wave and particle - I claim the right to proclaim myself African American. There's something ambiguous and "squishy" about the definition for many, I know, but not for me. I know exactly what I mean by it. I mean both fully American and fully African. Out of simple respect, I make a point of never, ever arguing with people's choices about how to define themselves. Your life circumstances and the perspectives which flow from that are your own, so if being an "American of African descent", a "black American", a "Negro" or "colored" or "American" or simply "human" is what suits you best at any given moment, then be that. And know, too, that you have the right to change how you choose to define yourself according to how you feel in any given circumstance, and that when you choose to do so you are being neither weak nor disloyal.

Many different bloodlines meet in me, making me deeply rooted in this American soil. My Cherokee and Creek ancestors had loved and cherished this land for twelve thousand years before my first English forbears turned up here to make their own kind of claim on it. And my African ancestors, whose toil built so much of this country's early wealth; who sacrificed for a brighter future they knew they would never live to see; who willingly shed their blood in every one of this country's major battles, from the struggle for independence from England right up to the present - they paid several times over for my right to this land. This country and every good thing in it, from sea to shining sea, belongs to me. Bought and paid for.

But I've always felt I owed my African ancestors another kind of debt too. They are the ancestors with whom I feel the closest bond, because when I look in the mirror, theirs are the faces I most clearly see. It's the part of my ancestry most clearly visible to others, too, of course, and it's an ancestry that ties me to the land from which they came. So, I have always craved a deep and fluid relationship with that land - as a way to better know both them and myself. When they were wrenched away from their homes, their past was deliberately and cruelly erased. The sacred circle of family and cultural tradition was broken. I had always hoped, from an early age, that one day, I would be able to identify from what parts of Africa they had been torn - to go there, as their living representative, and get to know the places they'd had to leave behind; to look for some meaningful ways to make life a little better for the descendants of the kinfolk from whom they'd gone missing. Those who have been following this blog know that DNA-based geneaology data has made it possible for our family to go further than this - to identify some people in a very specific place who are blood kin on my father's line.

And so, on November 2nd, I went to Ghana to seek them out. And in a parallel experience to the young man from Atlanta whose story I told that night in Ghana, I came back to my home in Minnesota feeling very African.

The book I'm writing will have much more detail on this phenomenon, but for now, just to document and demystify it a little, here's my thumbnail version of what it's like to find yourself...

Turning African in Four Easy Steps

Geneaology - Going to Africa for the first time, not as a tourist, but as a member of a family who are eagerly awaiting you, is all about immersion. I brought a camera and a tape recorder, but hundreds of photos went untaken; hours of video and voice recordings went unmade, because I kept having to put these tools down or give them to someone else's keeping. I could never be the observer for more than a minute or two. I had to BE there - a full participant - in everything. So that was step number one - getting comfortable with finding myself thrown into the deep, deep end of a very deep pool. And if this happens to you, as your level of comfort and familiarity rise, you'll find yourself turning African... because on some deep level, that's exactly who and what you are. Had I been a tourist, I would have stood out like a sore thumb everywhere I went. But seventy-five percent of my waking hours, I was with at least one family member; often with several. It didn't matter whether or not passers -by thought I looked Ghanaian;"blended in" with my surroundings. The fierce love of my new-found family radiated an attitude clearly tangible to anybody who came our way - and it said, "He's one of us... and that's all you need to know."

Climatology - I had always known my body felt more comfortable in the tropics than in a cold climate, but when I moved to Minnesota, my wife, who is a native said, "Quit whining. Just learn to dress for it." I did. And until now, I'd always bought the logic that, by comparison, there's little you can do to make relentless sun and heat more bearable, beyond light-weight clothing and a good hat, maybe. In Africa, with the time to be a traveler, not just a vacationer, I quickly learned that this isn't true at all. Here's what you do:

• Drink lots more water. Seems obvious, I know, but good, potable water is available everywhere you turn in Ghana, even if only from the ubiquitous little plastic bags that every other street vendor sells. Stop frequently, buy some, and drink up.
• Relax, and listen to the more subtle things your body's trying to tell you. Your body knows, long before your brain, that it's time to... 1) slow down all movement and conserve energy; 2) seek shade without consciously thinking about it - like a sunflower just naturally seeks the sun; 3) eat fewer meals, eat less at each meal, and take your cues from what the locals eat - hot and spicy food keeps better, and, paradoxically, it cools you when you eat it... as do all those huge mounds of fresh, luscious, local fruit.
• Start "seeing" the coconut man. His wholesome offering will give you both the liquid refreshment you need and boost your blood sugar too. And here he comes, right on time. Pay him a good price, and then let him chop the coconut fresh for you. Let him lopp off the top, so you can drink the cooling juice released by the blows of his machete. It's a healthy snack and a show, for one cheap price. Stop and have this pleasure often.

Funkology - Defining "funk" can be such an arcane and esoteric thing that I almost don't want to go there. The readers of this blog are a very multi-national, multi-cultural bunch, so not all of you are familiar with the term. If you are, cool - you know what it means to you. If you're not, just think of it as another way of saying "soul." By this I mean...

• The joy of discovering all the many little things you know without knowing how you know... like somehow knowing how to play your proper part in a ceremony offering libations to the ancestors without having been coached beforehand... like learning to move fluidly and without fear, as do the Africans around you, across eight lanes of insane traffic... like knowing how to move on the dance floor, even if this particular dance is not familiar... like knowing which mango off the tree is the very one, perfect and ripe, that was meant just for you... like quickly developing an ear for languages you've never studied, such that you move from being the butt of a joke within your earshot (a joke about awkward foreigners) to being in on the joke - even if everybody knows you didn't really get it all.
• "Snap"ology. Ghanaians finish a handshake with "the snap." You let your middle finger hook onto your friend's and linger there for a beat as your hands withdraw, and then, hands separate now, but close enough to still touch, a loud finger pop puts the exclamation point on a proper greeting. For the first two weeks, most Ghanaians I met assumed from my body language as I offered my hand that I wouldn't know "the snap", so it wasn't offered. Just a western-style shake. But by my third week, my body language must have thoroughly changed, because I got "the snap" without hesitation, everywhere I went. Something subtle in the way I move through the world had changed. I met some women at a cafe who had whiled away a little time by guessing, among themselves, where I was from. "We were sure you were diasporan," one said, "But no one thought, 'U.S.' The bet here was Jamaican."

Geography - (sorry; no clean way to add an "ology" to this one) But this one's big. I keep talking about the land because somehow every subject - identity, history, ethnicity, geneaology, politics, economics, and even spirituality - keeps leading back to it. When I was a boy, one of my peak experiences in terms of the development of my idea about who I am came when my grandmother took me out in the North Carolina countryside to meet some cousins who still owned and farmed a major chunk of land on which that part of our family had once been slaves. A cousin about her age took me out with him and we walked that land in silence. That walk was a graduate-level course in African American History and an intense lecture on our family history and identity all rolled into one, sublime hour. Yet during that hour, neither of us said more than five words to the other. There was no need. Our silent, walking meditation imparted a deeper, richer knowledge than language can carry. The day's lesson was, and is, deeply inscribed on my very heart and soul.

So, imagine the depth of my emotion when, forty years later and five thousand miles away, I find myself reliving this powerful, life-altering experience with yet another relative - another man who had been a total stranger up until today; up until... this very moment when we rise from his porch, and he bids me keep pace by his side as we walk his land in silence. This is land worked by his father before him, and by his grandfather's father before him, and Uncle Wakachie says, "You say you think you may buy land around here. Why? You already have this. Build your house here, or over there. Whatever you like."

And we walk the land in silence, in this powerful meditation sacred to fathers and sons; to uncles and nephews everywhere in the world. And I know in my heart that even though I am deeply rooted in the soil of the land where I was born, I have deep roots here as well. And all of it belongs to me - both there and here. And there is no contradiction between these two things. None. We walk this land in silence, but each footfall speaks whole volumes of rich meaning. With each footstep we say, "This... this is mine."

Enough said, for now. See you next week! Be well.

Tror Na Foe (troh-nah-fway) A phrase in
Ewe, the language of my father's ancestors from Togo and the south-
eastern corner of Ghana, meaning "to return and find again."



(Photo: earnest young students at cousin Lawrencia's school near Kumasi)









The Long Good-Bye
A couple of posts ago, I wrote about the profound experience since I arrived here almost three weeks ago, of finding that these long-missing relatives of mine and I have been able to so clearly recognize each other as family.

As I prepare to come back to my other home in the States a couple of days from now, I've got so much to say about all this that it's going to take me several weeks worth of feverish blogging to even begin to tell it all. For starters tonight, I sit here humbled and truly overwhelmed by the farewell party the family threw me this evening. I have so much, and many of them have so little - at least materially - so I couldn't help but be overwhelmed with gratefulness at the lavish send-off they'd prepared. There were mountains of great home-cooking (let me bear witness that my cousins can throw down in the kitchen!) - enough to feed about thirty relatives who'd gathered at the old family compound in Accra, as well as a large troupe of local drummers and dancers. And to top it all off, there was a table full of gifts for me, and for my wife back home.

(see photos below)




After an evening full of praying, singing, drumming and dancing and speeches, no doubt I should feel tired, but I don't. That's probably because so much has happened here these past three weeks that I'm experiencing "event horizon lag" - much more serious and harder to shake than jet lag. My mind just hasn't been able to adequately wrap itself around certain things that happened earlier in this journey until a few days afterwards. And new information keeps flooding my senses and my consciousness much faster than I can absorb it, every waking moment of every day. That's just how it is. So, my mind is constantly racing; running on adrenaline. And as I prepare to leave, I find myself missing these wonderful people already; missing my daily mound of fresh tropical fruit; my nearly daily "fix" of nkontomire and shitoh; the ocean breeze; the rain forests; the northern savannah; classic highlife, reggae and Ghanaian pop on the radio, even the bad Nigerian movies. But most of all, of course, it's the people I'll miss.

On How We Know What We Know
Cousin Gideon Agbemabiese and I are in the middle of preparing a proposal for both the government of Ghana and private sources to fund an organization whose purpose will be to promote and pay for Ghanaians to voluntarily take DNA tests, adding them to a database that will enable many other African American and African families to find each other as our family has done. In the process of talking to a couple of physicians here about it, Gideon met with some skepticism on their part. "This seems like such a one in a million shot to find each other like this. How can you be sure? What additional evidence do you have that you are related, other than a DNA "match" that's actually one marker removed from being exact?"

Well, first of all, a one marker variation on that twelve marker Y-chromosome test means that, in all probability, these Agbemabieses and I share a common male ancestor somewhere within the last seven to twelve generations. A small mutation in a single marker would be expected in a family separated by two to three hundred years. Think of this, just for a little perspective on the issue: only recently have most U.S. counties moved from the old nine marker paternity test to one using twelve markers. An exact match on that old nine marker test used to be considered strong enough evidence for the courts to establish biological paternity! In and of itself, that test result might mean little. But it means everything within the context of answering the question of whether or not a particular man who admits to a sexual relationship with a woman is the father of her child. It's corroborating and relevant facts that make a DNA match truly meaningful.

Well, I know this: that first African ancestor on my father's side arrived in Virginia during the window of time between 1660, when the English settlers who are also related to me by blood began buying slaves, and 1704, when their branch of the family emigrated to North Carolina. I've read the family documents, and these things are there in black and white. We know that significant numbers of the slaves shipped to the ports of Baltimore and Portsmouth during those years (including George Washington's slaves) were from modern day Ghana, Togo, and Benin, including all of Ewe country. And we know that from 1668 to 1704, there was a major social upheaval in Anlo (the specific sub-group of the Ewes to which the Agbemabieses belong) which resulted in large numbers of Ewes being sold away into slavery. These are among the historical bits of "evidence" we possess.

We've been searching for that perfect "smoking gun" bit of evidence ... that fragment of an Ewe story or song that will result in the "Kunte Kinte" moment for which we've been longing - a powerful and ironclad way to identify that first African ancestor of mine, and the circumstances of his entrapment and his fall into bondage. We're going to keep on searching.


Until then, some may choose to dismiss what we have found so far in each others' presence as unscientific and subjective. We don't care (please see post number 4 of this blog). My acceptance into this family here in Ghana has been profound, unambiguous and unconditional. A big part of the reason for this has been my strong and universally acclaimed resemblance to one prominent family member in particular: Chubi, the first son of now deceased family patriarch, John Kofi Agbemabiese, Sr. John Kofi had been his mother's only son. She admonished him to have many children to compensate for this. Seldom does a son fulfill a mother's wish more completely. John Kofi went on to have forty one children with seven wives.




Walking In Chubi's Shadow
After a while, this resemblance to Chubi started getting a little spooky for me. Everywhere my cousins took me, with no prompting, relatives and family friends would say, "Oh, my God, it's Chubi. He's his very image. If you darkened him up some, and put them next to each other, anybody would say they are twins." "Oh, see, he walks like Chubi... ahh, that sounds like Chubi talking." Chubi, Chubi, Chubi. And yet, ominously, it slowly dawned on me that nobody ever seemed to really want to talk about Chubi. Until Uncle Wakachie broke the ice when Gideon took me around to meet him. Ever notice how old folks, staring mortality in the face, just seem to stop caring about certain social conventions? They'll say things some people wish they wouldn't; spill the beans about family secrets - just because they see no point in them anymore. "Ah," he said, with obvious disgust, "Chubi is a destroyer." He explained how when John Kofi died, the family looked forward to enjoying the considerable legacy he had built - successful businesses and many real estate holdings all over the country. But Chubi and a couple of the other older brothers had held fast to their assertion that the managment of their father's wealth was their concern, not the family's as a whole. And they sold their father's considerable legacy away, piece by piece, leaving precious little to show for it.


Now, Chubi lives in virtual exile, somewhere deep in the Cote D'Ivoire. And he doesn't exactly go out of his way to stay in touch. So, you'll understand what I mean when I say it's difficult to walk around in this man's shadow. He's a character - charismatic, bright, creative... and apparently, still well-loved by many, despite everything. But all these attributes, although they can be real positives, are also, famously, the attributes of the Devil too. My relatives here understand that I'm not Chubi, and they are enjoying the process of sorting out just exactly who I am. But I can never feel completely free from the grim realization, even if the feeling is as subtle sometimes as a light evening breeze, that the person of whom I most remind them just happens to be the prince of darkness.


Like Language in A Dog's Ear
When I listen to my relatives converse in Ewe, my ear picks out the words I know, and it's like conversations in any language must sound to a dog. Yackety, yackety, yak... bad doggie... yackety, yak... go, yack, yack... your kennel, now! Except for me, in this place, my excellent ears (just ask my daughter-in-law, Erika, how good they are!) easily pick out the murmuring at the corners of a room - each little sideshow to the main conversation. And invariably, I hear, "Murmur, murmur, murmur, Chubi, murmur, Chubi, murmur, Chubi."

At my glorious going away party tonight, I thought, when I got up to dance, that the excited chatter, laughter and tittering that suddenly exploded around me was due to my embarrasing lack of fluidity on the dance floor. But, for once, my feet didn't fail me, and my ears, which have never failed me yet, quickly sorted out their collective reaction. It wasn't that I was dancing so badly. It's that... I dance like Chubi.

Enter, Uncle Emmanuel
Last week, at his carpentry workshop up in Kumasi, I met Uncle Emmanuel, and suddenly, it was my turn to be amazed. Here before me stood a man who could easily have been one of my grandfather's brothers. The physical resemblance was powerful and strong. But here's where another disturbingly dog-like part of my nature, a part I have always kept secret up until this very moment, comes strongly into play. I am possessed of an unusually strong sense of smell. I never mention this special gift of mine to people because it's just too damned wierd. But I'm sure it's part of the reason for the deep bond that exists between me and our family dog, Julie, who's half blood hound.


So, this wonderful man who feels so utterly familiar - like the experience of suddenly discovering a favorite old thing you thought had long been lost, at the bottom of a forgotten trunk somewhere - invites me to enter his shop and sit by his side. And I find myself exploding with emotion. It's because - unmistakeably - this man has my grandfather's smell. If you've ever loved somebody, you know that everyone has their own disticnt smell. And sitting with this old man, my nose was working in overdrive. The experience was so powerful because I realized at once how much I've missed that smell since he's been gone. And I hadn't smelled it since the last time I saw him in 1991. Well... that's not really true. The last time I saw him was in his bed at a nursing home in Oxford, North Carolina. I'd gone with my wife, Celeste, to see him for what I feared was the last time. It was. Dementia had robbed him of his ability to connect with us, and his stay in the nursing home had completely erased his smell.


(photo: Cousin David with Uncle Emmanuel at his shop)





So that means it's been since 1989, the last time I visited him at his home in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. It's a complex, layered smell. Fresh sweat, mixed with the smell of stale sweat, the dust and dirt on his shirt; the old cigar smoke mixed with some that's fairly new, floating on a mixed bouqet of cheap schnapps and some pretty decent whiskey. Not a lot of either. Just a hint. This is a rock solid and sober man; a good man, but very complicated. There is a smell carried on the sweat that is the result of one's physical labor; a much more subtle smell that results from each person's unique body chemistry. Mental and spiritual effort makes you sweat too. And in my grandfather's case, it occurs to me that the biggest daily psychic strain on his being came from from how hard it is to be a man who doesn't suffer fools gladly... in a world full of fools. Emmanuel must inhabit that same inner space, I thought. So maybe this unique smell shared by these two men who never met is, at least in part, the result of the constant effort it takes when you're a hard, fiery, and sometimes difficult man, to stay cool, and patient and kind.



"I Would Know You By Your Feet"
When Gideon and I visited Uncle Wakachie, he imparted a piece of information that filled in another huge piece of this identity puzzle for me. At some point in a long, rambling converstaion we were having, he stopped, glanced down at my feet and smiled. "Even if I had not yet seen your face," he said, "I would know you by your feet." This is a very important tidbit of information, because I have, arguably, the ugliest pair of feet I have ever seen on anybody, anywhere. All the years my kids, Malaika and Amahl, were growing up, anytime they had occasion to gaze upon these famously ugly feet, they'd let me know how deeply thankful they are that this was one particular feature they did not inherit from me. They both got their mother's beautiful, perfect feet.

But now, I have seen for myself that these feet have a long history. And I've let them free to be themselves here. I've got several pairs of unworn socks to take home. These feet have darkened up under the African sun almost as much as the rest of me because I've let them come out to play... in sandals or bare in the sand. They feel easy and free here because, for once, they are among their own kind.


When Malaika and Amahl have their own kids, everything about them will seem utterly perfect to me. But my heart will feel a special, secret joy if, when I first kiss those little newborn feet, at least one pair of them looks like the feet I looked down at when Wakashie and I walked the family farm together at the end of our first meeting.


More about that next time, when I bring you the installment called, "Turning African In Four Easy Steps."



Peace,

David

Tror Na Foe (troh-na-fway) - a phrase in the Ewe Language spoken by my father's forbears from Anlo-Ewe state in south- eastern Ghana, which means, roughly, "to return and find again."

(photo: from left, Gideon Agbemabiese, Madam Desawu Agbemabiese, daughter Agnes Ablayo Agbemabiese, and two of Madam Desewu's grand-children, in the old family compound at Tegbi)

The American Cousin
[First, a note: Normally, I try to file each new installment of this blog on Friday. Last week, it was late due to difficulties with high speed internet access. But this week, it comes a couple of days early because the connection I've got at my wonderful hotel, The Mahogany (HIGHLY recommended) is so great. I don't know when I can count on another connection this strong, so I figured I'd better get this installment out there now, while the gettin's good!]

At the place where I last left you, I'd said I felt rather like a kid tossed into the deep end of a very deep pool. And I promised I'd explain what I meant.

It's been such a full, intense week that I feel like I've been here for a month. After one night in Accra, cousin Gideon, a banker, picked me up in the company car of choice for a trip like the one we were about to take - a rugged, double-cab, four wheel drive truck, emblazoned with the First Ghana Building Society logo, an asset which would help us pass more smoothly through the police check points on the way east to the old ancestral village.

He revealed that although he has visited the old village a few times over the years, it's always been a quick day visit; up in the morning and back to Accra or Kumasi by evening. People have been buzzing about the imminent arrival of "the American cousin" for weeks. And without anyone actually saying it out loud, there's been a strong feeling in people's hearts that this auspicious moment - this surprising visit from a long-missing part of their family - would be a perfect time to re-cement ties between the urban segment of the family and thr rural, who don't see each other all that often.

The trip there was my first glimpse of rural west Africa. I had been mentally prepared for the poverty I'd see, but the depth and the extent of that poverty was harsher up close than I had even expected. On the other hand, I've seen rural poverty in southern Mexico; in China; in Peru - and there's a difference in the "feel" of a poor community that is buoyed both by pride in its culture and a genuine hope for a better future, compared to one in which those spiritual elements are harder to find. Anlo-Ewe country is of that first type - poor, but energized by a hopefulness about the future and a profound spirituality; the ragged edge of their poverty softened by a culture that stresses and upholds ancient values of communal effort and sharing.

Just outside the old family compound in the heart of the village of Tegbi, there's a small, family-owned, tin-roofed convenience store/snack bar called, "The Groovy Spot." As soon as Gideon pulled the truck up next to it, several clan members suddenly appeared and crossed the road to greet us. Introductions were skillfully managed by Gideon in English and Ewe as we were ushered in through the gate into the compound.

"We have heard of you, cousin, and we are very glad to meet you," said Mr. Dzisam. "We welcome you home." The men spoke among themselves in Ewe for a moment, and then excused themselves, saying they'd be back in a few minutes. Kwaku, Agnes and a couple of others helped get white plastic chairs set up for everyone. Madam Desawu chatted with us and made us comfortable. She kept looking at me and smiling as she talked with Gideon in Ewe. "It's like a miracle," she kept saying. She came over and pressed my face between her hands. They were calloused country woman's hands, but somehow, as soft and comforting as a warm blanket on a cold night. There were tears in her eyes, and I'm sure there were tears in mine too.

She returned to her cooking in the outdoor kitchen where she'd been when we first entered, and Gideon and I waited with Kwaku under the giant, nearly century old mango trees by the west compound wall.

Soon, the men returned with other members of the clan. There were eighteen of us there now. Everyone took their seats and the meeting began. Mr. Dzisam made introductions all around, and Kwadzo, aided by Eric, performed a proper libation ceremony with some flavored shnapps Gideon and I had bought in Anloga for the occasion, asking the ancestors to enjoy this auspicious moment with us and to bless it. Kwaku ran out to The Groovy Spot for soft drinks while others spontaneously offered up prayers of thanksgiving. While Kwaku handed out soft drinks to the women and children, the men passed the bottle of schnapps, each reverentially pouring a little onto the ground for the ancestors and taking a sip before passing it on.

Then, for nearly an hour, Mr. Dzisam read from a notebook the entire known geneaology of our clan. Gideon and I haven't figured it out yet, but we're dedicated to searching the oral record of diverse clan elders for clues about known historical events that can help us date some of these "begats." What we've got looks like it probably gets us back to the late eighteenth century, but that's too late to identify an ancestor who was probably snatched from their midst no later than the early eighteenth century. Our later meeting with Wakashie filled in some gaps for us, but didn't provide "the smoking gun" we were looking for either. I'm still holding out hope for that "Kunta Kinte moment" someday.

Science

That moment may come, and it may not. If it never does, what am I left with here? If you've been with me since the start of this journey, you know the concerns I had before leaving home about paying due respect to the science involved in this kind of search. Before you can make any real sense of a DNA match or near-match, you've got to be able to construct a reliable record of "begats" to positively identify a missing ancestor and see where they fit into the family tree you're attempting to flesh out. Anlo-Ewe culture is known to have a rich oral record regarding the traumatic years of slavery. And as I've explained before, the branch of the family from which this ancestor of mine appears to have sprung is prominent now and was very prominent then. The chance that there may be some specific stories somewhere out there about him are reasonably good.

In the meantime, here I sat under these ancient mango trees, and on and off - for hours - all eyes were on me. It was the women most of all. Of course. In every culture on earth, they are the keepers of the family tree - the ones who do the begetting, and the ones who keep the records of all "the begats," whether they're written down in the family bible or not written at all except in memory, carefully kept and preserved.

In the rural south I remember, if a young man in the extended family was alleged to have gotten some young woman from the neighborhood pregnant, at some point, the women in his family needed to see this baby and pass judgement. Only five percent of the examination was about easily observable physical things. "Well, he's got our nose... and hands like Big John's... and our color." It's a thousand, subtle little things that go into that judgement, most of which the women who pass that baby around the parlor couldn't really explain to you if their lives depended on it. But somehow, they just know. If great-grandma snorts and says, with certitude, "Now, you know this child ain't none of ours," that's probably all she wrote. It's not a callous or casual rejection. Every little baby needs and deserves love. It's just that, if somebody who can't even hold up his own head yet is about to be given all your unconditional love, the keys to the family treasure, a whole lifetime of everyone's blood, sweat and tears, and a license to break everyone's heart the way only a family member can, they'd better damned well be right about this.

That's another kind of science. And I'm pleased to be able to tell you that having gone through something like this process in the courtyard of that compound under those towering mango trees, not as a helpless baby, but as a full grown man, I have been duly examined (as in having been thoroughly looked up and down) and cross-examined (as in prodded to see what's in my heart), and the extended family has unequivocally recognized me as one of their own.

And if that's good enough for them, it's good enough for me.

I'll be back with you from some corner of this wonderful country next week. Oh... and if you or a loved one happens to be coming soon, I've got two words for you. Mahogany Lodge - at #9 Kakramadu Link, East Cantonments, Accra. +233 21 761162.

Peace. Be well.

David

Tror Na Foe (troh-nah-fway) A phrase in Ewe, the language spoken by our father's ancestors, who lived in southeastern Ghana, which means, roughly, "to return and find again."

"It's Like A Miracle,"

... exclaims cousin Madam Desewu (center) at a meeting of the Tovie (toh-vee-uh) clan on Saturday, November 4, in the ancestral village at Tegbi. With her are Gideon Agbemabiese and her daughter, Agnes Ablayo Agbemabiese.

The American Cousin

Before heading out to the airport with my son, Amahl, I had the usual pre-trip butterflies I always seem to get before I leave for somewhere. It's about anticipating whatever lies ahead; it's about fretting over what I might have forgotten or left undone in the last minute rushing around. Organization is not my strong suit, so there's always last minute rushing around, no matter how carefully I try to plan. But these butterflies were of a whole other order. I was about to fulfill a dream I'd harbored since I was a kid - the dream of finding and meeting our long-missing kinfolk in Africa.

The older and riper a dream becomes, the higher are the stakes if the reality can never quite live up to all the hope and emotion you've invested in it. How would I be received? How should they receive someone whose ancestor went missing from their fold between two hundred ten and two hundred forty years ago? That's a very long time. And much, much water, as they say, has gone over the dam since then... on my side of the Atlantic, as well as theirs. So given that, how are they supposed to feel about me? And for my part, I've always harbored a big romance about how I would feel if I ever found them. But in a few hours time, there we'd be, face to face for the first time, for real. Would the gulf created by time and culture turn out to be too wide and too deep to breach? Or would that sense of connection I have so deeply desired rise up and become a tangible thing? Would I feel, in their presence, like I was home?

The trip to Amsterdam, my stopover destination, was not an auspicious beginning. It wasn't a disaster... just kind of drag, like a long flight can be when there's not much conversation to be had, despite all of us back there in coach jammed together like sardines. A sourness hung in all that dead coach cabin air that was so oppressive, I couldn't wait to get off that plane.

But once in line for the flight to Ghana, things got much better. Ghanaians happy to be going home were talking animatedly, and allowed me to float in and out of a half-dozen different conversations as the line slowly snaked its way through security. I talked to ex-pat African Americans on their way home, missionaries; African Americans, like me, on their first trip to Africa. Once on the plane the lively hub-bub of the airport gate became more like a party. Tired of the usual airline swill, I'd ordered the "Hindu Vegetarian" meal this time, and it was great.

Two and a half hours out of Amsterdam, our plane cleared the coast of southern France, and all of a sudden, the butterflies returned. I knew that the next major land mass I'd see below would be Africa.

But as we approached the African coast, our arrival was anti-climatic. Algeria was covered in dense clouds... and the moon was rising; dusk already rolling in. Then, just in time to enjoy the view for a while before darkness fell, the clouds parted and, from 35,000 feet we could finally gape at the almost unimaginable vastness of the Sahara. That first clear view was the only moment of silence during the entire trip. A Ghanaian stretching himself in the aisle leaned over to look out the window just ahead of mine. "Mama Africa," he said with a smile. I smiled too, grateful that this most pleasant flight had given me what I felt must be a little taste of being in Ghana already... like the experience of dangling your feet in the pool for a beat before slipping fully into the water.

Shortly after the plane landed to the sound of loud applause from the passengers in coach, that pool analogy turned out to be profoundly apt. Because within just a few hours, I'd find myself feeling like a kid tossed into the deep end of a pool - the deep, deep end of a very deep pool.

Come back and visit me at this blog in a few days and I promise, I'll explain.

Tror Na Foe (troh-nah-fway): a phrase in Ewe, the language spoken by the people from which my family on my father's side descends, in southeastern Ghana. It means, roughly, "to go back and retrieve something that one has lost."


Sankofa
This image is an ancient version of the Sankofa Bird, a mythical being from the cultures of the Akan-speaking peoples of central Ghana, who moves forward while looking behind, mindful that confidently and creatively moving ahead into the future requires a keen knowledge of and respect for one's past.

From the Akan words San ko - (to go back) fa - (to get).







A note to readers: If you're new to this site, you might want to scroll all the way to the bottom and read these posts from there to the top, just to follow the story in the right sequence!

After A Two Hundred Forty Year Absence, A Family Begins to Re-Connect!
At the point in this story where I left off last week, Lawrence Agbemabiese and I had begun to correspond. We were excited to know that our DNA results showed us to be only a one-step variation away from an exact match with one another. But that result raises many more questions than it can begin to answer. It signifies that we probably share a common male ancestor somewhere within the last seven to twelve generations. It could mean that we share, for instance, the same eight or nine-times-great grandfather, and that the one-step variation in our DNA is the result of a small mutation that has crept in over time. It could mean that his eight or nine-times-great grandfather was brother to my corresponding direct ancestor... or cousin on the paternal side.

In most cases, there would be no likely way to ever answer these questions. We'd find ourselves stuck at yet more geneaological dead end... except for one potentially very important detail of family history revealed in Lawrence's first letter to me.

"Our Dad, John, was the son of George Agbemabiese, an Anlo Chief whose title was Haxormene II of Tegbi. This is a small coastal town on the southeastern coast of Ghana."

With that all-important nugget of information, our chances of finding the answers to these questions - and much, much more - suddenly increased a thousand percent. Why? Because the family's status as hereditary chiefs goes way back. Sadly, when a farmer or a fisherman out doing their work, or a soldier caught up on the losing side of a war went missing, their families mourned them, but no record remains about the details of how they became victims of the trade in slaves. But when a member of a royal family went missing, that was news. The west African tradition of court poet, clan historian and praise singer - widely known as the "griot" in the former French colonies - means that the details of how this particular African ancestor of mine became a victim just might known. The story of why and under what circumstances he was seized and sold away just might be part of the carefully preserved oral record of our people back home. Somebody may know his story. Somebody may know his name.

So, as I prepare to leave for Ghana next week, you'd best believe I am well-armed with a digital voice recorder and camera, ready to record as many hours of interviews with clan elders as it takes to see if enough precious nuggets of oral history survive to help us answer our questions.

Lawrence and I Get The Chance to Meet
As good fortune would have it, my wife and I already had plans to visit friends in Paris this past summer, and Lawrence, as I mentioned last week, is a Program Officer at the United Nations Environmental Programs offices there. Naturally, we seized the opportunity to meet. In the first installment of this blog, I published the photo my wife, Celeste, took when we stepped off the train into Paris and Lawrence stepped up to meet us for the first time. It was an electric and emotional moment I will never forget.

And it only got better. As soon as Lawrence dropped us at our hotel, he put plans into motion for us to spend some quality time with him and his family while we were there.

He and his wonderful wife Caroline told us later that she tried to cool down his excitement and enthusiasm a little. "Don't get your hopes up so high," she cautioned. "We can't be so sure about all this just yet." "Look; it's science," Lawrence had countered. "There's no doubt. The connection may be distant, but we're related." Still, Caroline had decided she'd wait until she could personally lay eyes on me; talk with me; be with me a while, before she'd be convinced. "I know your family well," she'd said. "I will know if he's really one of you or not."

So, the die was cast. If I felt like family when she met me, she'd willingly accept me as such. But if I didn't, she wasn't buying into this one bit.

When Lawrence and his sons, Marc and Carl, picked us up at the train station near their suburban Paris home, the boys and I couldn't stop stealing furtive glances at each other and smiling. Lawrence urged them to think of me as an uncle and to go ahead and refer to me as such. But I think they were waiting for their mother's unambiguous stamp of approval as much as I was to make this status official.

We needn't have worried. It only took a couple of minutes for Caroline to become convinced. Standing next to each other in person, no one would have trouble believing Lawrence and I are cousins. And Caroline was immediately and emotionally struck by how very much I resemble one of Lawrence's older brothers, one of the offspring of Lawrence's father by his first wife. But the "resemblance" goes much deeper than that. It's the way we walk; the way we talk; the sound of our voices; what we talk about; the way we talk about what we talk about. These are the things that convinced her. "Be prepared when that side of the family first sees you back home," she said. "It's going to be emotional. I'm telling you, they will cry."

She and Lawrence threw us a great party in their back yard with a few of Lawrence's colleagues from the U.N. and a couple of close family friends. We ate well and had big fun, and Caroline kept turning the music up until somebody said, "Hey, somebody's gonna call the police!" but Caroline just didn't care. A woman after my own heart. Besides, it wasn't that late. And it WAS Saturday night. And having felt the wonderful, lively vibe of the neighborhood, I've got to believe the neighbors were enjoying it as much as we did. I can't prove that, but nobody ever did call the police, and a good time was had by all.

Onward!
I told Lawrence and family when we left that my goal was to make it to Ghana in November. And the ancestors MUST be urging us on and blessing this whole enterprise, because sure enough, on November 1st, I'm bound for Accra! Look for new posts from Ghana over the next several weeks as I push on with my quest to interview elders and see if we can parse out the story of our first ancestor to arrive in the "new world" from this line of the family. Cousin Gideon Agbemabiese is meeting me at the airport and helping me dive into this quest with both feet. Look for new photos and video too, as I visit Anloga for the annual Hogbetsotso Festival (more about that later), and walk about the family's ancestral town of Tegbi for the first time. Stay tuned!

And please don't forget, if you're so inclined, to help me collect and send school supplies to cousin Lawrencia's school near Kumasi.

The address:
Mrs. Lawrencia Agbenyefia
Deeper Christian Life Ministry
P.O. Box 539
Obuasi, Ashanti Region
Ghana

Tror Na Foe
(troh- na- fway) Is a phrase in the Ewe language (the people from whom our family sprang in the southeastern corner of Ghana) which means, roughly, "to come back and retrieve something that one has lost."


May The Circle Be Unbroken
Since I began sharing the story of how we have managed to find and connect with one of the African families from whom our ancestors were separated during slavery, many people have peppered me with questions about we did it.

That's me (left), with cousin Lawrence Agbemabiese and family in Paris,

summer, 2006. Left to right, son Marc, Lawrence, wife Caroline, son Carl.

(photo, Celeste Grant)

In last week's inaugural installment of this blog, I promised to use the next two installments to write about how it all came together, and what it felt like for members of our families to meet, face to face, for the first time.

Finding One Another
Celeste and I have two adult children, Malaika and Amahl, and they teamed up to give us DNA kits from the National Genographic Project for Christmas last year. "Yep, it's the gift that keeps on giving," our daughter said with a smile. She knew that the information the test results would yield will ultimately mean just as much to her and her brother and their children as they do to Celeste and I.

What they are about at National Genographic is collecting as diverse a sampling of human DNA as they can, in an effort to map out in detail the history of humankind's dispersion from its African cradle, so that we may begin to understand more than we ever have before about, in their own words, "who we are, where we came from, and how we relate as members of one extended family."

You can connect with this worthy effort at http://www.nationalgeographic.com/genographic


The kit includes some excellent printed information on genetics and the story of how humankind spread out to cover the planet in ancient times, as well as a great National Geographic documentary on DVD about the genesis of project leader Dr. Spencer Wells' and his colleagues' groundbreaking work in this area.

Participating is a simple process. You use the soft, serrated swab and the sterile lab vials provided by the kit to collect cells from the inside of your cheeks; you pop both vials into the mailer pouch, and send it off to them. Their labs use those cells to isolate a good sample of your DNA (the X-Chromosome, if you're a woman; the Y-Chromosome if you're a male). The tests take weeks, but eventually, they'll get back to you via mail, or e-mail (your choice). If you've had your X-Chromosome tested, the information they share with you about your genetic heritage will pertain only to your female line - and this is very important to understand - which means strictly mother to daughter to mother to daughter, on back into deep antiquity. In other words, none of the genetic heritage of any female ancestor's father ever comes into play. Same thing with your Y-Chromosome. It's strictly your paternal line - father to son, to father to son - all the way back. The results that return tell you to which "haplogroup", or specific branch of the human family tree, you belong.

For me, there were some surprises right away. Like many African Americans, some of my ancestry is European. That's one of the legacies of what they used to call, "the peculiar institution." Slave-owning men had endless, easy access to the women they owned as slaves, and this resulted in the births of huge numbers of so-called "mulatto" children. We own a photograph of the four Sams in our family: brother, father, grandfather; great-grandfather. Now, great-grandfather Sam is a very light-skinned man. So I had always assumed, given the history of slavery, that even though there was no oral history to back this up, he must have been the son, or at least the grandson of our family's slave master, or perhaps, overseer. I thought it pretty likely that when I got my DNA results back, the story they told would really be about his European ancestors, whoever they were, all the way back.

Surprise! The sample came back listing me as a member of the large African haplogroup E3(a). This is the haplogroup to which most west Africans belong. Great-grandfather Sam's father was a veteran of the civil war, and when I found the records of his unit, I found him clearly listed - twice - as black. Census and other records back then made a clear distinction between "black" and "mulatto," even though the decision about which of these catagories you'd fit into was based on the highly subjective judgement of whatever white person was doing the counting! But what this means is that my great-great grandmother, the woman he married and with whom he had his children, must have been very, very light skinned, indeed. The story of her father and mother remain a mystery for now. But the DNA results now clearly showed that my great-great grandfather and his father before him, going back to that first African ancestor brought here in chains, are connected to each other in a line leading straight back to Africa.

Now, for most of us African Americans, this is where we hit a huge dead end. Your sample shows you're E3(a)... but now, what?

The lab which sub-contracted with National Genographic to perform the isolation and identification of my DNA sample was Family Tree DNA, http://www.familytreedna.com in Houston, Texas. They'll get in touch with you after your results are in, and ask if you would like to - 1) have them perform additional testing, based on the tissue sample they already have from you (ie; if you're male, upgrading the standard twelve marker Y-Chromosome test to include more genetic markers, or adding an X-Chromosome test to examine your mother's line; 2) join, at no charge, the large and growing international databases managed by organizations called Y-Search and Mito-Search ("mito" is a reference to mitochondrial DNA, which is another way of describing the heritage carried by the female X-Chromosome).

It's a great offer. You sign up; you upload the results of your sample, and instantly, you have a tool for comparing your DNA to samples from tens of thousands of participants worldwide. You will almost certainly find at least several people who match you exactly, or who are one or two "markers" distant. In the case of the Y-Chromosome, an exact match on the standard twelve marker test means that, in all probability, you and the match you've found share a common male ancestor somewhere within the last three to seven generations. In the case of a person who's got a one-marker variation from your sample (ie; say, at the eleventh alelle of your DNA strand, he's a 27, and you're a 28), that common male ancestor probably lived in the last seven to twelve generations.

The problem for African American geneaology researchers is that the overwhelming majority of these database participants, so far, have their roots primarily in Europe, the near east, and the Indian sub-continent. If your heritage is strongly linked to these parts of the world, you're in luck. But if it's connections with a sub-Saharan African heritage you're searching for, the going gets tough. Very tough.

The original homes of the vast majority of the slaves brought to these shores were in west and central Africa, and so far, the number of African participants in the big DNA databases from these areas is very, very small. That's no surprise. These are parts of the world saddled with great poverty, and participation in such studies requires 1) money;2) some free time; 3) ready access to a computer, and an e-mail address. Thousands of Africans have been sampled for DNA, but as members of groups for the purpose of academic study, not as individuals. Dr. Kittles of Howard University and his company, African Ancestry.com, http://www.africanancestry.com have been sampling in west Africa for years, searching for and identifying patterns of DNA markers that can help African American geneaology researchers find a specific ethnicity ("tribe") to whom they are related, or at least narrow down their ancestral origins to a tightly-defined geographic area. The ability to get that close to nailing down the specifics of our African heritage has been a deeply cherished dream for so many of us!

But it's at this point that my story diverges from most others. In my case, there was, indeed, an African whose sample is a very close match to mine - that one west African in a million who had participated in the National Genographic Project (at the urging, it turned out, of a fellow scientist at the U.N. offices in Paris) and had then taken the next step of signing on with Y-Search.

Y-Search issues code numbers so that if someone in the database desires to contact a user who proves to be a match, or near match, a user's real identity remains hidden unless he or she chooses to reveal it - a protection for the privacy of everybody involved. Particpants are asked to list a "country of origin" for the most distant ancestor they know of. Many African Americans choose to list a country of origin in Africa based on some nugget of family oral history that's been passed down in their families. Sometimes that information will turn out to have a basis in fact; but more often, not. So, it was with great initial caution that I reached out to someone on my one-marker variation list who identified his country of origin as Ghana.

"... At first glance," my e-note read, "It certainly appears that we may, in the not very distant past, share a common male ancestor... Were you born in Ghana, or are you, like me, a U.S.- born descendant of African slaves?"

"What a nice surprise! Yep, I am from Ghana," his note began, and suddenly, we found ourselves launched on a voyage of discovery that has already yielded new knowledge and surprises far beyond any expectations I ever had about what might come of taking that initial cheek swab!

Coming Up Next Week

The story of how that respondent, Lawrence Agbemabiese, and I developed a profound connection through internet correspondence, and before long, had our first meeting, face to face. I'll also talk about beginning to parse out the story of who that first common ancestor may have been, and how we have begun the process of connecting our families on both sides of the Atlantic.

And speaking of that growing connection, here's a post-script

Cousin Lawrencia Agbenyefia (his sister) runs a primary school near Kumasi. I have offered to take some supplies to her, but you know how restrictive the airline luggage allowances are these days. So, I'd like to enlist your aid on her (and the childrens') behalf. She says they need math and science texts and workbooks, appropriate for the early elementary grades; educational games, toys and puzzles; age appropriate books for the library; computer CDs and DVDs; etc. Lightly used items will be fine, but brand new is ideal. If you can help, you may send items in care of her church at:

Mrs. Lawrencia Agbenyefia

Deeper Christian Ministry

P.O. Box 539

Obuasi, Ashanti Region,

Ghana

Many thanks! See you next week!!

Tror Na Foe

(troh- na- fway) Is a phrase in the Ewe language (the people from whom our family sprang in the southeastern corner of Ghana) which means, roughly, "to come back and retrieve something that one has lost."

The Universe Is Made of Stories

"The universe is made

of stories, not of atoms"

Muriel Rukeyser

First meeting between cousin Lawrence Agbemabiese

and I (left) at Gare du Nord, Paris, summer, 2006

(photo, Celeste Grant)

I have always been a lover and collector of stories, ever since I was a kid. No one who knew me back then was the least bit surprised when I became a serious young actor - that's one kind of professional storyteller; nor when as an adult, I became a writer, another time-honored way to turn storytelling into one's living.

As a screenwriter and playwright, I've always loved the challenge of bringing other peoples' stories to life. With the creation of the brand new blog you are now reading, I relish the opportunity, for once, to share one of my own. This is the story of how my family, separated by slavery between Africa, the Americas and the Caribbean; lost to one another for over two hundred fifty years, is in the midst now of reaching out across the historical and cultural divide to reclaim itself from the Great Trans-Atlantic Lost & Found. Through a stroke of Grace and great good luck, we have found not just the specific people from which one branch of our family arose in Africa; we have found a specific family with whom we have blood ties. They're in Ghana. And I'm getting ready, as I write this, to make my first trip - the first of many, many, I'm sure. It's been an incredible journey so far, but the truth is, it's really only just beginning. And I'm inviting you to come along this journey and walk it with me.

A Longing In Our Hearts

The old folks in our family always knew that I was deeply interested in their stories - their personal reminiscences of the teens, twenties, thirties, and forties, for sure - but especially the stories that had been passed down to them from the days of slavery. The stories were full of intriguing and often edifying glimpses of these ancestors. Tales about their grit and determination in the face of the terrible reality through which they lived were always inspirational food for the mind and spirit. And every time I was able to piece together some of the details of lives yet one more generation back; then another... it felt like a huge victory. My window on the past kept getting bigger; the vision through that window a little bit clearer. But like the vast majority of other African Americans, that window on the past never let me see any farther than the shores of this country. Only rarely did the stories passed down to me give more than a tantalizing hint about our family's origins in Africa.

In fact, throughout African American history, it's only been that extremely rare, once in a million story that takes family researchers where we really long to go - back to a solid connection with a specific place in Africa. The Africans from whom we are descended were not born "darkies", "niggers", "jigaboos" nor "spooks." Neither were they "Negroes" nor "coloreds," nor ignorant savages by anybody's definition of the word. They did not come "from nothing" as the ideology that propped up slavery insisted. They were, in fact, people from diverse cultures with rich, complex histories. Many of these cultures were urban and highly sophisticated. They were Ibo, Yoruba, Hausa and Fulani; they were Mande, Wolof, Fula, and Ewe and Balanta. They were farmers, and traders and fishermen; soldiers, tax collectors and royal courtiers; troubadors, priests and magicians.

On these shores, each was reduced to something less than human - a chattel slave. But in each of our families, that first African ancestor to arrive here was somebody, from someplace. He or she had a name. Many of us have nourished in our hearts a profound longing to speak those names if we could but know them - to let their recitation help us properly remember and honor our dead; to let their recitation help us, our children, and their children remember who we are... keep faith with the past as we march forward into whatever future we will make for ourselves.

Suddenly, Everything Changes

But now, DNA-based geneaological research is making it possible to fill huge gaps in our collective knowledge that were previously an almost impossible dream. I'll talk about how our family is using this new knowledge to make the connections we are now exploring, and provide you with links to people who are doing interesting and vital work in this area. I'll spend the next three weeks catching you up with what's happened on this journey so far, and how we've arrived at where we are. And then, starting in the first week of November, as I begin in earnest to write a book about all of this, I invite you to keep up with me through this blog while I make my first trip to Ghana. Look for photos and video as I attend the annual Hogbetsotso Festival near our family's ancestral village, and then visit with clan elders (griots) to see if we can piece together enough information to identify that first ancestor on my father's side to come to this country as a captive. I'll introduce you to my long-missing family as I meet them - cousin Gideon, at the ancestral village in Tegbi; cousin Lawrencia at the school she runs in Kumasi... and cousin Lawrence, whose picture appears on this page, once he arrives in Accra a few days later on business for the U.N.

Stay tuned. I'm pleased to know you, and glad to have you with me on this journey.