My Initial Email to Cousin Elizabeth (2)

By W. F. Twyman, Jr.

By late September 2016, Shelby turned on the afterburners. She had located a Madison County, Virginia Chancery Court Record of high interest. This record from 1845 showed a probate proceeding and in the middle of this probate proceeding involving the Willis, Banks, and Twyman families resided my slave family—Charlotte, Robert, Smith. The Court assigned Charlotte, a mother in her 50s, to the decedent’s daughter, Mary E. Willis and Charlotte’s sons, Robert and Smith, were assigned to the decedent’s widow, Susanna Willis. The decedent, James Willis, had died intestate or without a will. Shelby and I were excited beyond words. We had names of a slave family and a legal document to prove their existence.

Shelby aka Deborah

The high water mark of Shelby’s research came with her submission to me of a Civil War era map of Madison County. The map dutifully recorded by surname each family home and farm, including at least seven different Twyman homes on the map.

And then life intruded….

On Friday, September 22, 2016, my wife received a grave diagnosis: a brain tumor. A mass of 5 centimeters in length occupied one-third of her cranial space. Everything came to a halt.

I lost track of time over the next three weeks. Hundreds of e-mails piled up in my in-box, including one that rested unopened for almost a month:

My name is Victoria and I’m writing today because I see that my mother and I are matching you on Gedmatch in the 5^th ---cousin range (she at 5.4 and me at 5.8).

On my mother’s maternal line, we’re descendants of former slaves of the Locust Dale, Madison County, Virginia community. We recently learned that we’re also descendants of my ancestors’ former slave owners—the Twyman Family.

Do you by chance have roots in Virginia?

I’m finding my family has numerous Twyman-related cousin matches.

After collaborating with folks and studying Madison County history, I was able to narrow down which Twyman is my family’s blood relative and who is the most recent common ancestor I shared with some of our Black and White cousins.

Victoria

After my wife settled in back at home and we had the good prognosis that the tumor was benign, I replied to Victoria and shared my story of growing up on Twyman Road and how my research led me to Shelby and knowledge about my slave ancestors, Robert and Charlotte Twyman. Victoria descended from Anthony Twyman (1779-1858), a great nephew of George Twyman III and grandson of William Buford Twyman, Sr. (1727-1811) If family tree awards were given in the year 2016 for triumph against all odds, Victoria would be on the short list.

“Victoria”

Consider that Victoria did not have the benefit of a known Twyman surname in her past. Victoria only had as evidence 17 inexplicable genetic matches to Twyman descendants. She had an oral history that led nowhere. After sharp investigation, Victoria realized an ancestor, Selena Jane Woodfolk (1884-1980), had purposely shaded what happened in the slave past to cover up shame. This insight led Victoria to wade through two name changes before her destination, her rightful and truthful place as a descendant of the Twyman Family from Madison County. The feeling Victoria must have felt as she pulled back the veil is akin to an orphan discovering one’s birth parents at the end of life. The pull had always been there within Victoria’s heart to make sense of the hole in her past. It is the Hunt for Distant Family that makes us all human, not Black or White or Yellow or Red but human.

Shelby, Victoria and I were shortly joined, at the invitation of Shelby, by “Winthrop” Twyman. A young professor with five children, a demanding job, and church commitments, Winthrop energized our group at just the right moment. Winthrop brought passion (“If I could only make money doing Twyman family research”) with a light pinch of skepticism about the limits of genetic testing.

Winthrop sized up the puzzle before us. He speculated, as a first guess, that the Madison County Twymans owned Charlotte. Isaac Smith Twyman came to mind because of Robert Twyman’s brother’s name, Smith. Perhaps, Isaac fathered both Smith and Robert. Winthrop also observed we were talking about two separate, distinct Twyman families. The Madison County Twymans had given rise to slaveholder James Twyman and The Promised Land. Centuries later, James’ act of emancipation in freeing his slaves still rippled through family memory. The European Twymans had been so incensed that they denied burial of James Twyman, the Great Emancipator, in the family burial plot. These Twymans were different from the Orange County Twymans from which Shelby descended.

And then the Gedmatch matches grew messy. Winthrop didn’t match Shelby, Victoria or me. Winthrop rightly wondered how determinative the results were as we went back further and further into the past. I agreed, of course, but, on the flip side, it made a match from the distant past much more powerful. The odds were stacked against our Twyman ancestor continuing to live in our chromosomes since 1790 when Charlotte was born. But the proof shined like a beacon in our Chromosome 13. Shelby and I were fourth cousins. I took it as a sign the universe wanted us to know one another.

The best contribution Winthrop made to our Hunt for Distant Family came in his discovery of a Madison County Twyman Bible from 1789. The Madison Twymans had kept a bible with careful notation of the birthdates of Blacks and Whites. I reviewed the bible entries and felt the thrill of reading handwritten notes from the 1790s. I will never get over the feeling. I saw row after row of Twymans being born, becoming married, and dying. The Family Record for Births of Blacks still could be read despite the ravages of over two centuries. Coffee stains, burn marks, ripped pages---despite all of these imperfections, the names of slaves could still be read through time. “Ginny”, born on November 25, 1790, entered the world in the same year as my Charlotte. I saw two Charlottes, one born on November 2, 1803 and the other in October 1820. (Sam believed good masters dutifully recorded slave names and births and bad masters did not. Records from an Old English Episcopal Prayer Book showed George Twyman III recorded List of “Negro” servants born = forty three in all from _________ ___ to 15^th Sept 1798.” Obtain permission to publish from the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society. No names or birthdates are memorialized for posterity.)

According to the 1870 U.S. Census, my Charlotte ancestor was born in 1790. This clue meant that she did not match the Charlotte born on November 2, 1803 or in October 1820. Only the rare slave knew his or her birth date. It stood to reason that the Madison Charlottes would have known their respective birth date, cherished this knowledge and shared this precious information, perhaps with pride, with a census taker. A 1790 birth date for my Charlotte means her birth was not recorded in the Madison Bible. She was not owned by the Madison Twymans at birth.

I also didn’t see a birth date for my Robert Twyman or Smith Twyman in the Madison Bible. Their absence provides further circumstantial evidence that Robert and Smith Twyman were not owned at birth by the Madison County Twymans.

With each insight and brain storm, I kept thinking about how good, and right, this felt. We were one genetic family coming together to find one another.

_____

56,000 years ago, a man lived in Africa. I don’t know the man’s name, his dreams, passions, sorrows, heartaches in life or even know how he died. And yet, I know something intimate about the man. I know his Y Chromosome. I am his direct descendant in an unbroken line of men for about 2240 generations!

Every male at birth receives a Y Chromosome and X Chromosome. Because of the laws of genetics, the Y Chromosome is only passed down from father to son. My distant male ancestor at birth received a slight indentation or marker impressed on his Y Chromosome. Think of it as a birthmark or mutation. All of his male descendants would carry this marker coined E-M132 down through the ages to me. My father and I bear this E-M132 marker on our Y Chromosome. Reverse engineering the inheritance of E-M132 produces the following genetic trail: Me>>>My Dad>>>Grandfather James>>>GreatGrandfather Scott>>>GreatGreatGrandfather Robert>>>?

It is a genetic law of nature that the father of Robert Twyman must have carried E-M123 on his Y Chromosome. Simple, yes? But life is never simple. If Robert were a mulatto and his mother Charlotte, a slave, then Robert’s father must have been a white Twyman. Something didn’t add up. The highest rates of E-M132 are found in the Fulbe (Cameroon), Dogon (Mali), and Hausa (Nigeria) peoples. Shelby’s 97% European ancestry and lack of discernible Sub-Saharan African ancestry seemed inconsistent with a Fulbe, Dogon or Hausa ancestor in her family tree. Was it possible that Shelby’s Twyman male ancestor who impregnated Charlotte was himself a member of the uncommon E-M132 paternal haplogroup? Had the Twymans in 1790 been passing for white?

Neither Shelby, Victoria or Winthrop could explain why Robert’s father would have possessed the E-M132 marker. I sought out two known European direct male Twyman descendants of George Twyman I and asked for their paternal marker. Neither gentleman carried the E-M132 paternal haplogroup marker. I consulted with an E-M132 expert on a Family Tree group devoted to the E-M132 community. (Curiously, the group formed because a white Phelps sought fellowship after discovering his paternal haplogroup E-M132.) The expert, Melvin Currie, explained the rarity in the extreme of a white family carrying the E-M132 paternal marker, although it happened to the Phelps Family in Albemarle County. Currie assured me I should go with the probable, not the fantastic.

Without warning, another tragedy struck our working group. I opened up my e-mail early Thanksgiving morning and read the devastating news—Shelby’s husband had died of a heart attack! The news from Shelby shocked, and saddened, me. Shelby reminded us to hug our loved ones as one never knew how much time one had. The news stayed with me for a long time.

Months later, I returned to my family tree. We all had performed a great service running down various leads and examining primary and secondary documents. A decision needed to be made. I reached out to Shelby, Winthrop and Victoria and set forth a standard of defendable probability. I reviewed all of the assembled evidence. First, my paternal greatgreatgrandfather, Robert Twyman, carried the E-M132 marker on his Y Chromosome and inherited E-M132 from his father just as I inherited the E-M132 marker from my father. Second, male European Twymans did not carry the E-M132 marker. Third, Robert’s father may have been of Hausa, Fulbe or Dogon descent but he did not bear European ancestry. Fourth, the logical forbearer in Shelby’s line as our most recent common ancestor was Samuel Twyman. He came of age at the right time to have fathered Charlotte in 1790. Samuel and Charlotte were connected by the Twyman surname and the same geographic area of Albemarle and surrounding counties. Finally, Samuel explains why I am related to other Twyman distant cousins on Ancestry.com and Gedmatch.com. I had my answer, although I remained open to any evidence that a sibling of Samuel had fathered Charlotte.

None of my Twyman cousins disagreed with my conclusion. Winthrop noted matter-of-factly that it all seemed reasonable.

I had been traveling a hard road for over fifty years in search of a hole in my past, my missing ancestors. And now my path, buttressed by my genes and blessed by my genetic cousins, came into clear view. I had been searching a long time. All of the curiosity and intuition and faith had borne fruit. I wanted to know every last, damned ancestor I had through my Twyman line. I wanted to know for me. I wanted to know for all of my deceased Twyman uncles and aunts and cousins who never knew the truth in their lifetimes. I fell into truth finding mode. I began traveling backwards in time using other family trees as my eyes and ears. George Twyman III came into view as my direct ancestor. I went further back in time to 1661 when George Twyman I, the Immigrant, drew his first breath in Kent, England. The knowledge exhilarated me. These people were a part of me, my genetic puzzle. And then the speed picked up with each new discovery, each new revelation. I found Lees in my family. Colonel Richard Lee I appeared as an ancestor. According to Wikipedia, Colonel Lee I died in 1664 as the wealthiest man in Virginia. “Hey, did you know that one of your ancestors ranked as the wealthiest man in Virginia when he died?” “Dad, that’s fake news! Fake news!” I shook my head. I continued running backwards in time and found Peter Montague, one of the earliest immigrants to Virginia in 1621. Wow! I grew up in Virginia and had a reverence for Virginia history. And before I knew it, I found myself staring at an ancestral picture of King Henry VIII! The rogue king fathered one of my distant, distant ancestors in England. Of course, everyone living is related to royalty somewhere. This lineage is not noteworthy for most readers. What made it special to me? I hadn’t known of ancestors pre-dating slavery for nearly all of my life. I was more than a descendant of slaves and had the paper trail to prove it.

George Twyman IV

Along the way, I gained inspiration from Jim, or as I imagined him, The Old Man in the Cave. Think of a Zen-like figure cloistered away in the deepest recesses of Ancestry.com constructing day-by-day a behemoth of a family tree (over 10,000 names). Jim emerged from his cave on occasion to play music but the music remained always an interlude, a recharging of batteries, before a dutiful return to the cavernous abyss of family reconstruction. A distant Twyman cousin, Jim urged me to embrace President George Washington as a remote second cousin, to marvel at the long line of royalty in our genetic past. He wore the truth well. Jim opened my eyes to a new awareness about my ancestors, that our roots spread throughout Europe. A limitation had been lifted from my mind. Acceptance of genetic ancestors from the First Families of Virginia and European Royals should be unremarkable, and acknowledged. For most readers, this bears no comment. For African-Americans, it is revolutionary to claim white ancestors as a simple matter of pietas. My former literary agent feared how acknowledging a blood relation to prominent whites would be received. Just last evening, I brought up our distant second cousin relation to George Washington. My older son said he would deny any relationship to President Washington, genetics be damned! The imagined African King as ancestor appeals more to my son’s Hunt for Black Identity.

President George Washington

And then my daughter weighed in—“Dad, family are people who cared for you. Family are people who loved you. Did you know these people? They’re not family if you didn’t know them. What difference do they make in my life?” When I attempted to hang up pictures of Col. Richard Lee I and free black Richard Holloway, Sr. (my wife’s prominent antebellum ancestor), my daughter went nuclear as only teenagers can. “Did these people own slaves?” I said, yes, but they are important for other reasons. “No, they must come down. I will not have pictures of slaveholders in my home.” My daughter would not listen to reason as she tore into my waning ancestral pride. “No one cares about your family history research. I don’t care. Mom doesn’t care. My older brother doesn’t care. Arggghhhh!!!”

All in all, it comes down to openness to new experiences and perspectives on culture and consciousness. One can harbor resentment about the past and, in doing so, become constrained by the past. An impoverishment of spirit sets in rendering one blind to acceptance of genetic family across the color line. Sam rightly called me blessed as I came to know my namesake cousins in America. Few black descendants of slaves are so fortunate. As a result, most African-Americans are rootless. To overcompensate, children learn to dream of fantastical African kings and queens, to celebrate faux African holidays like Kwanza (dreamed up in 1966 in Long Beach, California), and to pretend one is of 100% West African ancestry. Not knowing one’s full and accurate genetic ancestry breeds a lifelong Hunt for Black Identity, an insular endeavor that separates Black Americans from our genetic cousins on the other side of the color line, our countrymen.

Disowning non-black ancestors contributes to a deep-seated resentment lying at the heart of much that separates Black Americans from White Americans. These conversations and recriminations take place behind closed doors and are never aired for public scrutiny and consumption. A public mask of racial solidarity is reserved for the public square. As a welcoming soul, I have found resentment over slavery and conformism to be akin to repression.

Cousin Anthony Jerome Twyman and Family

[To be continued….]