Item
This Work is Spiritual: Finding Willoughby McWhite
Description (Dublin Core)
COVID gave Janice Gilyard the opportunity to dig deeper into genealogy, one of her hobbies. On July 4, 2020, she uncovered details about the remarkable life of her 5x great grandmother, Willoughby McWhite, who was enslaved.
Janice tells about her uncovering of her 5x great grandmother in this way:
So here we go. Yesterday, I called my Grandmother to wish her a Happy 97th Birthday (She was born on the 4th of July and she is the ONLY reason I look forward to the 4th of July). I was already disappointed as I could not visit her in South Carolina because of the current covid crisis. Then I was really upset because I could not find the darn photo of my son holding a fish he had caught to include in a photo collage I was preparing to post on Facebook for her. You see, my grandmother was the first person to take my son fishing and everyone refers to her as the fishing lady.
I finally got around to posting the collage and called my Aunt and asked her to kiss my grandmother on the forehead and tell her it was from me. That is our thing if I can’t visit. Of course we started talking about family and then she started giving me names she hadn’t mentioned before. I’m the family historian for my maternal and paternal lines. I' m like what the heck!!!! I've been talking to you for 25 years and today you give me NEW names? So we kept talking and I decided to bring up my Ancestry account to enter them.
All of a sudden, I saw a note that someone had written for ONE OF MY ANCESTORS. I was already excited that I was adding two additional generations and then BAM!!!!!
I S L O W L Y read a note that someone had shared, looked up the reference and what do I see? One of my favorite shows was listed!!!! The History Detectives (aired on PBS). What was the focus of the segment? A woman’s grandfather had purchased a lot of Civil War memorabilia (They live I in Wichita, Kansas). WHAT was the last item included in the material he purchased? A SLAVE BILL OF SALE! WHERE did they start filming? CHARLESTON, SC! WHO was it for????? WAIT FOR IT…. My 5th GREATGRANDMOTHER!!!!!!!!! Who was one of the featured researchers asked to assist in the research? JOSEPH MCGILL from the SLAVE DWELLING Project! WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN? IN 2012! WHERE was JOSEPH MCGILL when they filmed his segment, Slave Cabins in Florence, SC which I visited over 25 years ago WHEN I FIRST started doing my research!!! WHO else was featured? An Archivist in the same blasted town that my family is from and I’ve met him and talked with him several times about DIFFERENT lines of my family and he helped me so much!!!! Where did my enslaved ancestor live, not far from where we purchased a home in SC several years ago!!!!!
Don’t tell me that we are NOT on a SPIRITUAL QUEST when we do our research. I did not plan to do ANY of this yesterday into the next morning (It is now 3:45 AM AND I feel like I have a rubber band around my head because I should be sleeping but I can’t go to sleep until I finish getting this on paper) !!!!! I am stunned and in shock.
I encourage you to following the pulling and tugging at your spirit and to listen to the still small voice that guides you to do certain things. I personally believe it is God and our Ancestors directing us to find them and tell their stories!
One more thing! Please help other people with their research. I do this all the time and I’m convinced that I’m being helped along the way because I help other people as much as I can.
Following is the link to the show that aired. It is at the very beginning. Thank you for reading. From a proud descendant of a STRONG woman who endured, overcame, and refused to die during the struggle!!! Her name was Willoughby and I honor and celebrate her today with my entire being!
(Other items in the archive include an interview recorded on July 21, 2020).
Contributor (Dublin Core)
Link (Bibliographic Ontology)
Controlled Vocabulary (Dublin Core)
English
Biography
English
Religion
English
Race & Ethnicity
Curator's Tags (Omeka Classic)
Collection (Dublin Core)
Black Voices
Religion
COVID Birthdays
Linked Data (Dublin Core)
Date Submitted (Dublin Core)
Date Modified (Dublin Core)
This item was submitted on July 28, 2020 by Janice Gilyard + Juilee Decker using the form “Share Your Story” on the site “A Journal of the Plague Year”: https://covid-19archive.org/s/archive
Click here to view the collected data.
Queen Willoughby, my 5x Great Grandmother
Planogram (i.e., how I revamped my semester midstream)