Genealogy helps woman journey through the past Joe Scott Of the Suburban Journals updated: 10/26/2004 10:03 AM A few words from a newly discovered cousin convinced Margaret Durham that she should go to Africa. "He said, ‘Come home, sister, and we will walk through the bones of our ancestors,'" recalled Durham, a Florissant resident. Those words also gave her the title of her book, "The Bones of My Ancestors," the story of her genealogical search. It also is a blueprint for how Afric an-Americans can trace their heritage. Durham teaches a genealogical class for African-Americans at St. Louis Community College branches at Florissant Valley and Forest Park. The course will be offered again this spring. She tells her students to start out as any genealogist does, with the oral history of their oldest living relatives. "I started remembering family stories, and I remembered that my grandmother had told me we were Yao — the African tribe Yao," Durham said. Soon she learned her grandmother was born in Africa. "I found out that my great-grandfather, Rev. Landon Cheek, was the first black missionary to be sent from St. Louis to African," she said. When she met some African cousins in St. Louis, they and others living in Africa persuaded Durham to visit her ancestor's native land. Her great-grandfather Cheek served in the same country, then called Nyasaland, as the famed missionary, David Livingston. "I always wondered why he went to Africa," she said. Now she realizes that an African-American in the early 1900s went seeking freedom and opportunity. Of course, when Cheek went to Africa, Nyasaland was a British colony. He found much of the same racism on the part of the British, she said. "He spoke out for civil rights there," she said. In Africa, Cheek met and married Rachel, a daughter of a tribal chief. A relative of Rachel's was the Rev. John Chilembwe. Durham has a photo of her great-grandfather and Chilembwe. Nyasaland now is the nation of Malawi due in part to Chilembwe. He led a rebellion against the British colonialists. However, Chilembwe was captured and killed by the colonists. He is considered a hero in Malawi, where his picture appears on currency. "So I'm related to a national hero," Durham said. "One thing I tell students is that it's not impossible to trace your roots because of slavery," Durham said. "We were considered property — and valuable property. There's names in court records, probate records. "The problem is that most African-Americans don't know about those records," she said. Most African-Americans did not appear in the census until 1870, but that census can be very valuable, she said. She found her ancestors, the Cheek family, in the will of a slave owner whose name was Cheek. "Some slave owners kept plantation books and listed births, deaths and where they got their slaves from," Durham said. "Maybe they said they were from West Africa or were Ashanti." Durham was able to find the slave owner's home in North Carolina, a mansion named Shady Oak. However, the Cheeks moved to Clanton, Miss., with Durham's ancestors as their slaves. She noted there also are Southern Claims Commission records, in which people were reimbursed for food and property seized during Gen. William Sherman's march south. Ellis Island records are a good resource, too, she said. "It's not true that all blacks came to America as slaves," she said. "Some came to America as Free Blacks."