In 150 Years Later: Broken Ties
Mended, I wrote the following about how I learned that a man named Pleasant (Pleas) Barr (1814-1889) of Tippah
County (Ripley), Mississippi was the father of my mother’s paternal
grandfather, William “Bill” Reed
(1846-1937) of Tate County (Senatobia), Mississippi. Grandpa Bill’s death
certificate provided his name. He, his sister Mary, and others came to northern
Mississippi in 1866, from Abbeville, South Carolina, shortly after gaining their
freedom. Grandpa Bill Reed told stories to his children and grandchildren about
his experiences as a slave in South Carolina. Many of those stories are in the
book. Here’s one account:
After discovering Pleasant Barr, I called
Cousin Ike and expressed ecstatically, “I found out Grandpa Bill’s father’s
name! It was Pleas Barr!”
The name jarred his memory. He immediately
shared, “Yeah, that’s right! Boy, you
are sure digging up some history! Grandpa Bill told us that his father was
named Pleas, and that’s where Uncle Pleas’ name came from.”
“So he talked about his father,” I questioned.
“Oh yeah, all the time! He told us that his
father was sold away, and they never saw him again. He used to talk about the
day it happened. He said that they loaded his father on a wagon, and as the
wagon was leaving the place, Grandpa just stood there and watched until the
wagon was out of sight. It crossed some creek near the place where they were
at, and it went down into a valley, and went off into the sunset. His father
was gone but not forgotten. He talked about that so often because he always
wondered where they took him. He was a young boy at the time.”
I was floored by this vivid account but
saddened by what it gave an account of.
“What about his mother? Did he talk about her,
too,” I asked with grave curiosity.
Bewildered, he stated, “You know, he didn’t
talk about his mother much. He talked about an older sister that took care of
him, but I don’t recall much of anything ever being said about his mother. I
don’t know what may have happened to her.”
Apparently, Uncle Jimmy Reed also did not know
much about Grandpa Bill’s mother since the words “not known” were written on
his death certificate.
Cousin Ike’s account sent chills through me
like water flowing down the mighty Mississippi River. He continued, “Grandpa sure
did love his father though. I remember him telling us how he was such a
fun-loving man who would always joke around with the other slaves there on the
place. You know that was really hard on him to be separated from his father
like that, never to see him again and never knowing where his father was at. He
would always say that he watched his father being taken away, off into the
sunset.” (Chapter 3, “Gone But Not
Forgotten,” pp. 44-45)
In 150
Years Later: Broken Ties Mended, I chronicled how years of connecting
the dots through oral history, genealogy research, and slave ancestral genealogy research
enabled me to reconstruct Grandpa Bill Reed’s family story and family tree –
one that got broken in 1859 in Abbeville, South Carolina. That year, his father
was sold away and taken to Ripley, Mississippi, and William Barr Jr. took his
mother, Isabella Barr, his paternal grandmother, Fanny Barr, and his father’s
sister, Sue Barr Beckley (born c. 1812), her husband Jacob Sr., and their twelve
children to Pontotoc County, Mississippi. Barr had sold Grandpa Bill and his
sister to his first cousin, Lemuel Reid, there in Abbeville. Grandpa Bill never
laid eyes on them again, but he told his family about them, particularly his
father, Pleas, and his first cousin, Cannon Beckley, with whom he had a
brother-like relationship. I told the story of this discovery and presented a
great amount of documentation.
Although
the preponderance of evidence was quite abundant, I would sometimes ask myself,
“What if?” Sometimes, the truth is
not always what the paper records indicate. What if I misinterpreted my
research findings? What if I had missed something? What if I saw something that
really wasn’t there? What if I drew the wrong conclusions? These were usually just
quick thoughts because the amount of genealogical records and oral history I
presented in the book left my shadow of doubt at a very low 5%.
Now we
have autosomal DNA testing (AncestryDNA, 23andMe, or Family Tree DNA) to not
only learn about what is in our DNA and who our biological relatives are, but
we can also prove some of our research through DNA matches. We can also connect
with family branches of our family tree that we never knew existed. We can add
more narrative to our ancestors’ stories. This is what makes autosomal DNA and
genetic genealogy very exciting for me. As descendants of enslaved people of African descent in
America, African Americans will undoubtedly have numerous DNA matches to people
whose ancestors were forcibly separated from their loved ones during slavery.
DNA now
has my shadow of doubt at ZERO percent with Grandpa Bill Reed’s family roots.
When his father was sold and taken to Ripley, Mississippi, Grandpa Pleas Barr continued
on with his life as best as he knew how. He remarried to a widowed lady named Amanda
Young, and they had one child together, Elijah Barr, who was born about 1866/1867. I can’t help but wonder
if Grandpa Pleas told Elijah about his children back in Abbeville, South
Carolina. Sadly, before he died in/around 1889, Grandpa Pleas never learned that
Grandpa Bill Reed and Aunt Mary Pratt had left South Carolina shortly after
slavery and were just sixty miles away from him, over near Senatobia,
Mississippi. They were so close but still so far.
Uncle Elijah
Barr eventually moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where he married Lula Winston on March
16, 1908. Before Elijah died in 1918, he and Lula had two children: Frances
Barr Evans (1909-1991) and Rev. James Matthew Barr (1913-198?). His
descendants, via his daughter Frances, were finally found last year after I
clicked on a “Shaky Leaf” family tree hint in ancestry.com. That “Shaky Leaf”
led me to a family tree uploaded by Ivy of California, indicating that the same
Elijah Barr was her great great grandfather! Soon afterwards, another descendant,
a great great grandson named Keith of Chicago, shared pictures! One of them
included this old picture of Elijah’s widow, Lula, and their two children.
Elijah Barr’s widow, Lula Winston Barr, and their two children,
Frances & James Barr. Shortly after Elijah’s death, she and her children
moved to Chicago, Illinois. Shared by Keith
Evans
Subsequently,
I also learned that another descendant, a great great granddaughter of Elijah,
had taken the 23andMe DNA test. Lo and behold, Jessica was among our DNA
matches, matching me, my mother, my aunt, and their paternal first cousin Armintha
on overlapping segments on chromosomes 3 and 4. To add, and not shown here, she also matches my mother's paternal first cousin's grandson, Dr. Leroy Frazier, at 23 cM.
As
mentioned earlier, William Barr Jr. took Sue Barr Beckley and her husband Jacob
and their twelve children to Pontotoc County, Mississippi. The preponderance of
evidence led me to conclude that she was Grandpa Pleas Barr’s sister and both
of them were children of Lewis Barr (born c. 1780) and Fanny Barr (born c.
1790). To date, at least six descendants of Sue have taken an autosomal DNA
test, and they are DNA matches.
(1) In AncestryDNA, wa7860 shares 42 cM over 2 segments with my mother. Sue
is his 4th-great grandmother via her son, Cannon Beckley (1840-1903). He and my mother are third
cousins three times removed.
(2) In AncestryDNA, kismo7185 shares 30 cM over 2 segments with my mother. Sue
is her 3rd-great grandmother via her son, Cannon Beckley (1840-1903). She and my mother are third
cousins twice removed.
(3) In AncestryDNA, M.G. shares 28 cM over 4 segments with my mother. Sue
is her great great grandmother via her son, Cannon Beckley (1840-1903). She and my mother are third
cousins once removed.
(4) In AncestryDNA, OnreaR shares 30 cM over 2 segments with my mother. Sue
is her 3rd-great grandmother via her son, Cannon Beckley (1840-1903). She and my mother are third
cousins twice removed.
(5) In AncestryDNA, J.R. shares 8.5 cM with my mother. Sue is his 3rd-great
grandmother via her son, Cannon Beckley (1840-1903). He and my mother are third cousins twice
removed.
(6) In 23andMe, Arlene shares 21 cM with my uncle and my aunt on
overlapping segments. Sue is her 3rd-great grandmother via her son, Clay Beckley (1846-1903). They
are third cousins twice removed. Arlene also shares DNA with Jessica at 25 cM. They are fifth cousins.
Since Ancestry.com
has refused to provide their millions of DNA customers with a chromosome
browser, like 23andMe and Family Tree DNA have done, and since three of the seven
haven’t uploaded their raw data files to GEDmatch.com, I am unable to do more
DNA triangulations. But there’s no doubt in my mind that this is DNA from Lewis & Fanny Barr, our Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA), that is shared
among them. The family was broken during
slavery, but the DNA wasn’t.
