Pattersons Offer Family Past to
Blacks Studying Roots

RUTH STEARNS-PATTERSON is offering her family story as a way for a white family to provide beneficial information to blacks doing "root searches" into their ancestry.

After she and husband Robert read my Jan. 9 family research article, they offered to provide access to their family records as a way to respond to my call for whites to help blacks dig past 1870, the first year blacks were listed by name in U.S. Census records, in order to help decipher wills of plantation owners and other slave property records.

The Pattersons said they've been motivated to do something since they attended last year's Black History Month celebration at the Mormon Temple where more than 600 people heard noted black genealogist Electra Price speak. At the same gathering, Frank Dorman presented a summary of his book, "Twenty Families of Color In Massachusetts," which traced thousands of descendants of just 20 black soldiers and sailors who fought in the Civil War.

Bob Patterson, 55, a soft-spoken and sincere Bank of America data processing executive, calmly carried a large box filled with family keepsakes into the dining room of his Castro Valley home and began a slow methodical search for documents, photos and other memorabilia he felt could provide a thread of information to help some black family find a lost relative.

He gave me a copy of a will of a relative filed in Conway County, Ark., dated March 6, 1838. I started reading it aloud, but my voice tailed off when I got to the second provision which read:

"I give and bequeath unto my beloved daughter and her heirs the following property, to-wit three slaves viz (a Latin word meaning "that is to say"') my negro woman Dolly, 37 years of age, and my girl Mary 2 or 3 years of age, children of the aforesaid Dolly and their increase to my aforesaid daughter and her bodily heirs forever. And also one boy mare, one sorrel horse, one 2-year-old colt, one half of my entire stock of hogs, sheep, cattle, farming utensils, blacksmith tools, household and kitchen furniture as her portion of my estate in the name of God Amen."

The Pattersons wept as they spoke of how they hoped other whites would do the same. He told me he would assist me in putting similar information on my Web site, which will provide anonymity in making

Ruth Sterns-Patterson and her husband Robert "Bob" Patterson in their Castro Valley home.

these threads of information available. We then began to calculate that if Dolly was 37 in 1838, she would have likely been born around 1801. In 1801, Thomas Jefferson was inaugurated president and records show there were 2,464 free inhabitants and 623 slaves in Washington, D.C then.

If a person had only the first name "Dolly" and knew she once lived in Arkansas during that period, it could possibly be the missing link to someone's mother or grandmother. We also know that daughter Mary would have been about 32 in 1870.

Just as we were focusing on Molly, we read another provision of the will which said the plantation owner gave the following to his other daughter and her bodily heirs: "Three slaves, one a woman named Chylo, my boy Andrew 8 or 9 years of age and girl named Ailse, 6 or 7 years of age and their increase to my aforesaid daughter and bodily heirs forever."

The word "forever" gives a lasting first impression of permanent shame. Forever meant the intent to have everlasting ownership of the body, soul and minds of the slaves, even the increase of their thoughts and dreams.

The transactional nature of the transfer of ownership mentioned in the same category with the pigs, cattle and farm tools shows how dehumanizing and ugly slavery is.

The will points out why whites and blacks are inextricably bound to each other's ancestral searches. Provision 3 says "the Slaves aforesaid are in no case to be sold but to decend (their misspelling) in perpetuity to the heirs of my said daughter."

Ruth Stearns-Patterson, 53, born in Falls Church, Va., is also transplanted southerner who lived in New Orleans, La. She's a former teacher and mother of six who wants to become a genealogist. She told of a relative who is painstakingly researching every slave that had been a part of her family's plantation. This information will be published and some efforts will be made to make restitution.

As we were discussing the "one drop of black blood" premise that determined racial classifications, she pointed out that some whites anxiously guard their birth certificates.

"A lot of us have black blood and a lot of blacks have some white blood in them and we might all be related," said Ruth. "We need to tell every truth we can."

When we swapped stories about her Cajun ties, the confederate flags and the amount of slavery permitted and sanctioned under the American flag, Bob said his only regret was that he didn't take family history discussions seriously enough when he was younger so he could have more information to provide now.

At this year's black history celebration, the Pattersons expect to see an equal number of blacks and whites in attendance. "We've got to repair the cruelties we've done to one another," she said.

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