In Black and White: Cross-Cultural Genealogy

This was the question that my husband's cousin had once posed. She had done a Google search and discovered that there had been extras in some episodes of the Andy Griffith Show...but that was it. So, I decided to do a search for myself and this is what I found. Larry Cebula wrote a post on his Northwest History blog entitled, Why come there ain't no black people in Mayberry? While Cebula mixes satire with real history, a family history visit to Mount Airy, North Carolina might present some...let's say... interesting ...encounters.  (Explanation to follow.) The aforementioned post contains a link to a series of photos which point out African American extras from the Andy Griffith Show.... seen, but not heard .   During the course of conversation, I had relayed to our cousin that on our last visit, we had inquired of an Historical Society member at the Mount Airy Museum of Regional History how we could locate the grave sites of those family members whose death certifi

Those Places Thursday  is a Geneabloggers writing prompt that encourages us to think back to the places where our ancestors lived, worked or spent time. I am looking forward to a mini-getaway coming up for us in the early part of next week when we will go back to Mount Airy, NC for our third visit. This time, however, will be different than the last two times.  First we visited the town as curious tourists... ...Yes, this is the home of Mayberry RFD and the Andy Griffith Show... The second visit took us to the Mount Airy Museum of Regional History , to Mount Airy Public Library  to print microfilmed obituaries, and sent us on a goose-chase to try to discover the whereabouts of African-American cemeteries. Since that last visit we were blessed with making a connection with living cousins... the great grand niece of my grandfather-in-law! That would make her and her sister our second cousins once removed... ...and her mother (who is still living) is our second cousin! This b

Day 9 already?!? Where did the time go? I have been so wrapped up with the demands of the day job lately that writing has been a struggle....but, I have 1,081 words written so far! Please participate in the Family History Writing polls... There are still so many questions, and I am finding that the farther I go with this the more questions I have: VOICE : I have contemplated this point for the best part of the month. Who do I want to be the narrator? Should it be myself? Or perhaps it should be my husband's grandfather Hezekiah, since he is the generation in between the beginning and the end... Or could it be an outsider looking in who narrates the story? Each of these preclude a different... GENRE : If I narrate the story it becomes a memoir...not necessarily my memoir, but a family history memoir...my journey to find the truth about the family. If Hezekiah Carter narrates the story, it might be a family history narrative. But, if an outsider looking in narrates the story, i