This episode featuring author Andrew Lawler will explore a lesser-known chapter of American history where enslaved people aligned with the British crown during the American Revolution. 
At the start of the American Revolution, Black men took up arms to achieve freedom--by fighting for King George III. Hear how the people owned by patriots nearly squelched the Revolution in its cradle. 

Andrew Lawler is a journalist who has written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, National Geographic, Smithsonian, and many other publications. His latest book--which the Times calls "absorbing"--is A Perfect Frenzy: A Royal Governor, His Black Allies, and the Crisis that Spurred the American Revolution. For more, see www.andrewlawler.com

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You can find Ancestor’s Footprints on Spreaker.com, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, Amazon Music, and many other platforms. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

When Your Ancestors Choose You- Finding Binky

This episode will explore what it means to carry the memory of your ancestors, the challenges of researching enslaved families, the emotional weight of the records, and the moment when genealogy becomes more than research, when it becomes a calling.

Michael A. Willis is an award-winning author, speaker, consultant, blogger, and instructor with more than twenty-five years of experience as a genealogist. He specializes in Louisiana research, particularly in East Baton Rouge, East and West Feliciana, Orleans, and Terrebonne Parishes. In October 2025, Michael received the International Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society Book Award for Finding Binkey, a work that documents his search for his fifth great-grandmother through oral history, documentary evidence, and DNA, while also teaching valuable lessons for those researching African American families.

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You can find Ancestor’s Footprints on Spreaker.com, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, Amazon Music, and many other platforms. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

This episode Celia: Justice After Death, explores the life and legacy of Celia, an enslaved, pregnant teenager and mother in pre–Civil War Missouri who resisted sexual exploitation and was executed in 1855 after defending herself against her enslaver. Her case exposes the stark injustice embedded in Missouri’s antebellum legal system—a system that denied enslaved women legal protection from sexual violence while simultaneously holding them fully accountable under the law. Through the voices of Celia’s descendants, this conversation connects Celia’s lived experience to her 2024 gubernatorial pardon and to ongoing family-led efforts through the Celia Newsom Legacy Foundation to advance truth-telling, reconciliation, and awareness of modern human trafficking. Celia’s story is not only history—it is an enduring call to justice. 

Adriene Holder is the third great-granddaughter of Celia and Robert Newsom and a Board Member of the Celia Newsom Legacy Foundation, where she co-chairs the Family Heritage Committee and helps lead descendant-driven efforts to preserve Celia’s legacy through genealogy, oral history, and historical documentation. Through her legal advocacy and descendant leadership, Adriene is committed to advancing justice, preserving historical truth, and ensuring that Celia’s legacy continues to inform efforts to confront inequity and uphold human dignity today. 

Pamela Westbrooks-Hodge is the second great-granddaughter of Celia and Robert Newsom and the founding President of the Celia Newsom Legacy Foundation. She leads descendant-driven efforts to preserve Celia’s legacy and advance education, reconciliation, and justice.   Pamela is deeply committed to connecting historical truth with present-day systems change, ensuring that stories like Celia’s inform a more just and equitable future.

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You can find Ancestor’s Footprints on Spreaker.com, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, Amazon Music, and many other platforms. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

In today’s episode, titled DNA, Genealogy, and the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, we will discuss how DNA and historical research are helping identify victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre — one of the most devastating acts of racial violence in American history. Through genealogy, genetic testing, and community participation, families and researchers are working together to restore names and identities to individuals whose stories were never fully told. This work reminds us that genealogy is not only about building family trees — it is also about justice, memory, and recognition.

Lisa Fanning, an Indiana native who is a genealogist, genetic genealogist, and family historian. For more than 30 years, she has traced her own family’s roots across the American South and Midwest, developing a deep passion for reconstructing complex family histories. Lisa has contributed to major projects such as the DNA Doe Project and the Tulsa Race Massacre DNA Identification Project. She serves on the Board of the National Genealogical Society and on the leadership team of MAAGI, the Midwestern African American Genealogy Institute. She has presented nationally and internationally, including for PBS and the United Nations. Today she joins us to talk about her work helping identify victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre and how DNA is helping restore identities more than one hundred years later.

- Check out information on the burials/surnames/and locations on the City of Tulsa’s webpage at www.cityoftulsa.org/1921Graves   
- Tell us their family story about the Tulsa Race Massacre at www.tulsa1921DNA.org  

 If you have experience in African American genealogy research and are interested in volunteering some of your time to the project, please email us at [email protected]

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You can find Ancestor’s Footprints on Spreaker.com, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, Amazon Music, and many other platforms. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

"Our Claiborne Parish: A Family History Research Project of Communal Kinship” traces the evolution of a family-led inquiry into a community-centered preservation model.Tracing six generations in Claiborne Parish, Louisiana, her work has become a living portal of kinship—where paternal lines like Calloway, Bennett, Bugg(s) and Robinson converge with maternal families including Walston, Taylor, and Levingston. Across generations of forced displacement, this convergence reveals documented milestones that shaped American history. At its core, this work is a call to steward descendancy itself—affirming each generation’s responsibility to amplify ancestral voices and safeguard the integrity of their stories. Stewarded by Regina "Califa" Calloway Project Motto: "Steward Your History"

A visionary Woman of Faith, Ms. Regina “Califa” Calloway hails from Oakland, California, Louisiana reared and African rooted.Transcending three decades of leadership in Arts, Heritage, and Cultural Pedagogy, Ms. Calloway is the Founder and Creative Director of nzoCALIFA Presents LLC, Heritage-based Educational Consulting Agency grounded in kinship, cultural memory, and collective repair.  nzoCALIFAncestry is the agency’s genealogical platform, expanding access to family history research while empowering communal stewardship, ushering ancestral memory to incite healing and transformation.

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You can find Ancestor’s Footprints on Spreaker.com, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, Amazon Music, and many other platforms. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

Gather at the Table: The Healing Journey of a Daughter of Slavery and a Son of the Slave Trade is the chronicle of a shared journey toward racial reconciliation. Informed by genealogy, it deals with race, social justice and healing from the traumatic wounds of slavery. Over a three year period, the authors traveled through 27 states, visiting ancestral towns, courthouses, cemeteries, plantations, antebellum mansions, and historic sites. 

Bernice Alexander Bennett welcomes Sharon Leslie Morgan and Thomas Norman Dewolf to share this compelling journey with us. Sharon Morgan is a marketing communications consultant and a nationally recognized pioneer in multicultural marketing. An avid genealogist, she is the webmaster for OurBlackAncestry.com and is a founder of the Black Public Relations Society.  Thomas Norman DeWolf, author of Inheriting the Trade, is featured in the Emmy-nominated documentary film Traces of the Trade, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and on the acclaimed PBS series POV. DeWolf speaks regularly about healing from the legacy of slavery and racism at conferences and colleges throughout the United States. 

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You can find Ancestor’s Footprints on Spreaker.com, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, Amazon Music, and many other platforms. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

Building Justice Through Ancestry: Archives, DNA and the New Infrastructure for Liberation

This episode will focus on how genealogy and ancestry research can serve as tools for justice and liberation, particularly for Black and Brown communities across the diaspora. Christopher Smothers, a historian and genealogist, will share the importance of accessing public records and archives to reclaim names, land, and historical memory. He highlightes the role of DNA evidence in supporting claims for recognition, restitution, and reparative justice. In addition, he will emphasize the need to build infrastructure for genealogical research, including training archivists in culturally competent access and forming partnerships with government agencies. He also touched on the challenges of privacy concerns when accessing certain records. The conversation will also explore ways to integrate genealogical skills into educational settings and the potential for using ancestry research in public policy to address wealth distribution and systemic racism. Smothers expressed hope for the future of this work, emphasizing the need to make ancestry research more pragmatic and tangible for achieving justice.

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You can find Ancestor’s Footprints on Spreaker.com, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, Amazon Music, and many other platforms. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

This episode includes AI-generated content.

Becoming a Good Relative shares remedies for the debilitating shame that can overtake white Americans when we face our peoples’ colonial past and our current complicity with systemic white supremacy. It offers a unique methodology, supported by African American and Indigenous Elders. To counteract cultural appropriation, the book includes stories of reclaiming European ancestral memory. The appendices contain historical notes, questions for reflection, practical skills and rituals, and recommendations for further reading. This memoir offers practical strategies for wealth redistribution as well as spiritual teachings on mutual liberation. In addition, it encourages Americans of modest income levels to engage in reparative actions and giving. 

HILARY GIOVALE is a mother, writer, and community organizer. A ninth-generation American settler, she is descended from Celtic, Germanic, Nordic, and Indigenous peoples of Ancient Europe. As an active reparationist, her work is guided by intuition, love, and relationships.

https://www.goodrelative.com/book

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You can find Ancestor’s Footprints on Spreaker.com, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, Amazon Music, and many other platforms. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

Kathy Lynn Marshall, author of "Finding Grammie' Secrets," shares her journey to uncover the untold story of her great-grandmother, Ella Roy, known as Grammy Carter. Born in 1866 in Alexandria, Virginia, Grammie was remembered for her elegance and caring nature but remained silent about her past, leaving generations curious about her experiences and wealth. When Kathy's mother received a medical diagnosis, they embarked on a race against time to discover Grammy's secrets, leading to a deeper understanding of her life and legacy. Kathy emphasizes her role as a genealogical detective, bringing forgotten women and African Americans into the historical narrative through speculative non-fiction and empowering others to reclaim their heritage.

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You can find Ancestor’s Footprints on Spreaker.com, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, Amazon Music, and many other platforms. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

America's Forgotten Patriots of the Northern Theater shines a light on the overlooked heroes who fought for independence in the shadows of the Revolutionary War’s northern campaigns. From the rugged battlefields of Saratoga to the icy marches through New England, this compelling narrative uncovers the lives of the diverse and courageous individuals—American men, women and children of African and Indigenous descent who served in the Continental Army and in local militias—whose sacrifices were critical to the American cause but were left out of traditional histories. Drawing on rare documents, firsthand accounts, and recent scholarship, this book restores these patriots to their rightful place in the story of America’s fight for liberty and freedom. Meticulously researched and powerfully told, it is a vital contribution to Revolutionary War literature that challenges what we think we know about the struggle for independence.

Ric Murphy is a historian, educator, author, and filmmaker. His most recent work is the Arrival of the First Africans in English America, which received the 2020 Phyllis Wheatley Award and became an award-winning documentary.  He is the founder and President General of the Society of the First African Families of English America, and is a scholar on the history and relationships of Americans of African, European, and Indigenous descent during America’s colonial and antebellum periods.  Through his works he has contributed immensely to the research, documentation, and preservation of African American history and culture from the arrival of the first documented Africans in English America in 1619 through the colonial period to the American Revolutionary War, and beyond. Murphy’s work and commentary have been cited by journalists and historians in major national media outlets and used in broader discussions of African American genealogy, historical commemoration, and military service. He has written numerous books, and served as editor of the book series, the recently released Forgotten Patriots of the Northern Theater

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You can find Ancestor’s Footprints on Spreaker.com, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, Amazon Music, and many other platforms. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode.