The following article is from Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter and is copyright 2004 by Richard W. Eastman. It is re-published here with the permission of the author. Information about the newsletter is available at http://www.eogn.com <http://www.eogn.com/>. Surprises in the Family Tree Most free African-American and biracial families resulted not from a master and his slave, like Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, but from a white woman and an African man: slave, freed slave or indentured servant. At least, that's the conclusion of Paul Heinegg in his newly-published "Free African Americans of North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia" and "Free African Americans of Maryland and Delaware." In describing Heinegg's book, Dr. Ira B. Berlin, a professor of American history at the University of Maryland and the founding director of the Freedmen and Southern Society Project there, stated, "If any branch of your family has been in America since the 17th or 18th centuries, it's highly likely you will find an African and an American Indian." You can read more about this fascinating story in the New York Times at http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/08/garden/08TREE.html?ex=1074142800&en=245adc23cc09b456&ei=5062 <http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/08/garden/08TREE.html?ex=1074142800&en=245adc23cc09b456&ei=5062>. In addition, you can read about Paul Heinegg's books at http://www.freeafricanamericans.com/. That site includes a lot of information about free Africans in the United States as well as many pictures. ...tim west... Scott Co, TN Coordinator for the TNGenWeb Project