Shonda Rhimes Reacts to Family History in Finding Your Roots | Ancestry

i feel like i don't know anything this is insane [Music] television producer shonda rhimes grew up in chicago knowing that her father's roots lay in the deep south but beyond that this part of her family tree was a complete mystery we began to untangle that mystery in the 1900 census which indicates that shonda's great-great-grandparents anna watson and barrell love were born in mississippi over a decade before the end of the civil war so they were slaves they were slaves you've just met your great-great-grandparents wow it's fascinating to think about what their lives must have been like and and who they must have been that's incredible to learn more we turn to the 1870 census the first sentence taken after the end of the civil war we found anna watson in monroe county mississippi and uncovered a wealth of detail regarding her life including the name and age of her mother matilda watson black age 55 occupation keeping house annie watson black age 17. that 17 year old is most likely your great great grandmother anna watson and anna is living with her mother 55 year old matilda watson she would be my great great grandmother great great great great great great grandmother that's amazing with these names in hand we began to search through the records of monroe county in the years before the civil war and soon focused on the 1860 slave schedules for two brothers asa and rufus watson in these schedules the brothers list their enslaved human property not by name only by age color and gender but these scant details offered our best hope of glimpsing shonda's ancestors would you please turn the page i'm scared do you see possible matches for annie and matilda yes eight-year-old female 38 year old female yeah that could be your great-great-great-grandmother matilda and an eight-year-old girl which is a match for your great-great-grandmother annie wow i'm a little bit speechless i didn't think we were going to go back into slavery at all i mean right now this feels unimaginable like i sit here and i think what this must have been like and i can make things up in my head but i can't actually imagine what it would be like to not even have a name to not even be important enough to have been assigned a name yeah yeah what's even stranger is that and this is crazy but for my entire childhood matilda was the name i was gonna name my child no yeah so i can't believe it [Music] it's amazing i know it feels very um circular universe or something i don't know uncovering lost stories can be an act of restoration not only of our ancestors resilience but of the resilience of the entire human community to see more incredible stories click here

Channel: Ancestry

Views: 208,905

Rating: 4.9313631 out of 5

Keywords: ancestrydna, ancestry, finding your roots, family tree now, surname, family tree, ancestors, family search, dna discovery, dna tests, dna test kits, dna analysis, ancestry com, family connections, ancestry.com, family history, heritage, ethnic heritage, history, family, adoption stories, relatives, family members, shonda rhimes, emmys 2021

Id: hJ0j71APnbQ

Length: 4min 0sec (240 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 20 2021