Using Multiple Sources to Find Your Family’s “Kunta Kinte” with Jerome Spears

Research at the National Archives and Beyond

As a Family Historian and DNA Data Manager, Jerome has had the opportunity to use his family’s oral history, coupled with an extensive collection of DNA results, a well-maintained family tree and modern research resources/tools to bridge the gap between African-American persons on this side of the Atlantic Ocean with their distant cousins (in Africa). All available resources have to be brought to bear (including using: Sibling Summation techniques, various DNA testing company’s data holdings, GEDmatch and DNA Painter to successfully find distant DNA matches in Nigeria and Senegal using these methods. Finding your family’s Kunta Kinte is rewarding and will provide a source of interest and pride for your family. The use of small (single digit) centimorgan (cM) values/results will certainly play a critical part in the successful analysis directly because of the distance you must travel back in time to make the necessary connections to the most recent common ancestors (MRCA)s – to validate [ if consolidated with other research methods ] your concluding findings. Jerome Spears, has many years of general family history and genealogical research going back to 2009. His undergraduate and graduate degrees in Geography have served him well. He has positioned his ancestors within the historical context of place and time in order to uncover and reveal some remarkable family history discoveries. Jerome was honored in 2016 with the Afro-American Historical & Genealogical Society (AAHGS) - Elizabeth Clark-Lewis Genealogy Award for his original African American research. He has also presented at the AAHGS annual national-level conferences.