{"id":5153,"date":"2004-01-08T16:32:00","date_gmt":"2004-01-08T16:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/multiracial.com\/?p=5153"},"modified":"2021-06-14T03:45:20","modified_gmt":"2021-06-14T03:45:20","slug":"surprises-in-the-family-tree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/2004\/01\/08\/surprises-in-the-family-tree\/","title":{"rendered":"Surprises in the Family Tree"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mitchell Owens writing for the New York Times on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2004\/01\/08\/garden\/08TREE.html\">Surprises in the Family Tree<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>JOHN ARCHER first appears in Northampton County, Va., in the mid-17th century. He started a family that prospered, fought in the Revolutionary War and built a mansion. Generations later, Archer&#8217;s blood trickled down to me. It mingled in my veins with DNA from a gravedigger in 17th-century W\u00fcrttemberg, Germany; from an Appalachian clan with a recessive gene that turns their skins indigo blue; and from a rich young widow in Jamestown, Va., whose fickle heart led to America&#8217;s first breach-of-promise suit, in 1623.<\/p>\n<p>I have been researching my past for two decades, since I was in high school, so finding a new ancestor is hardly startling. Learning about John Archer three years ago, however, was startling. He was black, a slave or indentured servant freed around 1677. I am white. That&#8217;s what it says on my birth certificate. Now I know better, thanks to Paul Heinegg.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mitchell Owens writing for the New York Times on Surprises in the Family Tree: JOHN ARCHER first appears in Northampton County, Va., in the mid-17th century. He started a family that prospered, fought in&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7988,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[63,141],"tags":[121],"class_list":["post-5153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-d-powells-view","category-news-clips","tag-biracial-and-multiracial"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p89tuq-1l7","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/AD-Powell.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5153"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7369,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5153\/revisions\/7369"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multiracial.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}