I have worked diligently searching my family's history for over ten years. I joined Ancestry
in 2006 and began a more serious search. On my father's side of the
family his roots were in Milledgeville,
Georgia. I knew that there was woman who had four children by William
Steele. There were stories of her being Native American, a mulatto, or a
slave. We thought her name was Mandy. I took a DNA test and found out
that I have no Native American blood, so
the next question was—is she a slave or was she free? By finding the
four children I found her real name Sarah or Sallie Keen in the 1870 and
1880 census.
The
next mystery to tackle was whether she was a slave or a free person of
color. There on the 1860 census, listed as free people of color, was a
family of Brooks. All of the family’s first
names matched, and there was an additional child that I never knew
existed. Where the name Brooks came from I do not know, but I guess
after the Civil War they took on their father's last name of Steele.
For
many African Americans looking for their ancestors it should be noted
that that the first name and middle name of all family members is very
important. This can be the key to identifying the
family in situations where there was a surname change, as was the case
with my family. I even found out that Sarah’s mother changed her last
name three times. Jane Mitchell, Brooks or Gilbert was a free person of
color—a washer woman that lived to be 116
years of age. She had two newspaper articles written about her as the
oldest person in the county!
Theresa Steele Page
http://ancestry-stickynotes.tumblr.com/post/42280301517/overcoming-surname-changes
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