Finding Roots - The Beginning

Finding those family members who have paved away for my existence have been a continued quest of enlightening myself and others to the strength of a people who endured under the horrible conditions of slavery.

There was a tinge of interest in genealogy when my 4^th grade black teacher, Mr. Thomas asked the class to provide the names of our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc.  I can say after these years that the family history turned in for this project was very incomplete; which is an understatement!!

In the 1970’s, my brother, Lister Steve Harris, was stationed in Fort Richardson, Alaska while in the army.  He sent my mother, Carrie B. Harris, a beautiful white bound bible that contained colorful paintings depicting different biblical stories. My sister, Dorothy “Jean” Harris documented the date of March 2, 1972 that it was received by my mother.

In turn, I started to update the section in the middle of the bible labeled as genealogy,I was about 14 years old at that time. I was able to add our personal information, but had to ask my parents about their sides of the family. I knew that they were from Tuskegee, Macon County, Alabama and their parents.  Mom was born to Harry and Hannah Thomas Cariller and his mother was Johnnie Cariller. Hannah’s parents were Orange and Peggy Thomas.  Dad’s father James Harris, Sr and his namesake, was married to Hattie Bryant. Hattie died June 15, 1930, the date my dad gave me at the time.  Years later when I was able to retrieve a copy of her death certificate, the date matched exactly.  Until this day, I do believe my father was traumatized after losing his mother at age 11. His father was a strict beyond strict disciplinarian.  Religion was not a part of Dad’s life.

The tree for each one of my parents did not extend very far.  On my paternal side, my father was able to give me the name of his grandfather, “Bama” Harris.  Yes, this was the stumps I had to work with. No branches or leaves.  Years would pass by and my interest got into full swing. Back in 1994 during the infancy of the internet, I felt it would be a great place to research.  However, not that much data was available.  Finding a few articles on the Tuskegee Airmen was not enough.

Time passed by and in the later part of the 1990’s, the internet was taking a positive turn to bring genealogy online!  The first web-based genealogy sites that drew my interest was Afrigeneas and Christine’s Genealogy Website.  Afrigeneas was just a mailing list but I found someone has begun to transcribe mortality schedules for various counties in Alabama!  I was excited by the prospect of what data could be gleaned from these records.  These schedules listed the people who died within the county in a 10 year period. They eventually added Macon County.  I could not relate to any of the names listed.  But I did file this collection away for further research.