Man 1: When you know where you came from and you know your roots and you know your family history, gosh man I just feel like there's nothing I can't accomplish right now.

♪♪ Woman 1: All my life I’ve wondered who was great-grandfather and now I know him, I know his name.

Woman 2: I found a long line of John Searcys.

Man 2: Are you kidding me?

No way.

Woman 3: I can feel my Irish roots.

Man 3: I’m going to be a genealogy guy.

Two days ago you could have bet any amount of money that I would have never had said that.

Man 4: Their blood is in me, their genes are in me.

Woman 4: I’m starting to get this feeling of belonging.

- I’m something more than I thought maybe I was before.

Woman 3: I just feel myself coming alive here.

Woman 5: Knowing about my great-grandma, she's like my friend now.

Before she was just decoration on the wall.

♪♪ - Hi everybody I’m Lise Simms.

Each week on our show we bring you the story of someone who wants to get in touch with an ancestor or perhaps an entire generation of their family tree.

And we get to help them do just that.

However today we are going to teach you how to do your very own Generations Project.

And here to help me do that is my executive producer and my boss, Kendall Wilcox.

I’m so glad you're here.

We're going to hear it from the horse’s mouth.

- Thank you very much.

- I didn't call you a horse just then.

Why are we doing this today, Kendall?

- We're doing this today because we've found as we've been producing the various seasons of Generations Project that number one, we're having an overwhelming positive response online from viewers coming on thanking us for doing this and sort of showing them what can be done in terms of digging into the genealogy and family history.

And then the question is, well, how can I do my own Generations Project?

We can only have so many people on the air, right?

- Unfortunately, so it's a gift.

People want to know how to do it.

And we're going to teach them to do just that.

- Exactly.

Lise: I want to talk on a slightly different topic about this is a rebranding of what we think of as genealogy and family history.

When I think of that, I have to say that's my uncle with these charts.

Kendall: Sepia tones.

- It's numbers and names, I don't really care.

Kendall: And a sea of names, dates, and so on.

Um, and we're out to change that mentality, completely.

- Now when I think of a Generations Project, I sort of have my own view of what it is.

And for me if I were to describe it, I always say it's actively participating with your ancestors in a way that brings them to life-- Kendall: Exactly.

- and shifts who are you right now.

Kendall: Exactly.

- How would you describe it?

- Well it's like we saw.

You know in the opening clips this montage of people, uh, sort of getting to the crux of the experience for them as they're doing their own Generations Project.

You hear over and over, It's changed my life.

I’ve been told on shoots that, man, I’ve been going through therapy for years, this is the best therapy I’ve ever had in my life, seriously.

- Exactly.

- And that is what we're finding is, is what the Generations Project is about.

And what doing a Generations Project in your own life is all about.

It's this focused approach to doing your genealogy, family history that helps you answer your life's most pressing questions, and engage in, in your history and your background in, in ways you could never have imagined.

We just want to help a new generation.

Lise: A fresh approach.

You used a word that I think is important, we're gonna get back to that.

That is, it engages you-- Kendall: Exactly.

- but it starts with five very simple steps that we've created.

So, let's take a look at that list.

Kendall: Let's do it.

♪♪ Lise: What is a Generations Project?

It's finding answers to your life's most pressing questions by engaging with your ancestors.

And how do you do it?

There are five simple steps.

It starts with finding your why.

Why do you want to change your life?

Why do you want to change right now?

Who do you want to become?

Knowing your why will keep you focused through the rest of your journey.

And once you know your why, it's time to populate the tree by putting names and dates on your pedigree.

♪♪ Next, mix it with history by combining both family and social histories to paint the story of your ancestor's lives.

[vintage car horn] [dog barks] [train horn] [boat horn] Then, find ways to relive their experiences by walking in their shoes, which will bring those stories to life like you never could have imagined.

[horse neighs] [twangy ragtime] [crowd shouting] [trumpet fanfare] [fighter planes] [trumpet blares] ♪♪ Finally, your project isn't complete until you share it and watch it ripple.

Recording your answers to your why and sharing them with others can't help but ripple across countless lives, changing them for good.

And that's how you do your own Generations Project.

♪♪ Fun, simple.

Kendall: That's the Generations Project.

- And it all starts with the why.

Let's talk about that and why it's important to start there.

Kendall: Find the why.

We chose those words carefully.

Go on a journey of thinking and trying to understand and grapple with yourself, what is the most pressing question or issue that I would like to address right now in my life?

Not later.

Maybe you've carried it with you for years.

But now you have an opportunity.

What do you want to answer right now?

And what could make a big difference in your life right now?

Find that, zero in on it, focus in, and then you can begin your journey and everything you do from then on throughout the journey, all the research experiences is to answer that question, get back to your why.

Why am I doing this?

What do I need in my life?

Lise: Is it-- um, I would think that it isn't always easy to find the why.

And sometimes it is an evolving process as you go through the journey.

Kendall: Because there's all sorts of whys as well.

You say-- if I walk up to you, What's your-- What's your why?

Why do you want to do this?

Some people say, [snaps] I have this question it's been bothering me for years.

Lise: Right.

- But not everybody does.

Because it, it could cover a range of areas of your life and your-- sort of who you-- wh-what you think about yourself.

There's meaning.

What is the meaning of my life?

My purpose in my life.

My identity within my family-- - My hopes and dreams.

Kendall: my hopes.

Where I’m going, where I’ve come from.

So many people find their whys in wanting to overcome some really difficult aw-- even awful immediate family experiences-- Lise: Interesting you should say that.

- they want to push further.

- In fact, we had a guest in our first season, Lumina Infinite Gershfield.

Kendall: Love Lumina.

- Love Lumina.

But she had a very compelling why.

Kendall: She did, she's a very introspective person.

- Let's take a look at that.

Kendall: Let's do it.

[dog barking] Lumena: My role in my family is instigator.

I think I’m the one who stirs everybody up and gets them all together and gets them to acknowledge each other and when I made these paintings of my family, it was a direct effort to stimulate interaction and it was a reason for us to be in the same space.

Everyone asks me why we look so sad together and it's because I think it's the first time we're ever on the same plane and we're not that comfortable.

♪♪ Lise: Lumina Infinite Gershfield was born in 1978 in Hollywood, California.

Due to both the lifestyle choices and medical conditions of her parents, Lumina was taken to live with a surrogate family in Trout Lake, Washington at the age of six.

For the following decade, Lumina would spend her school semesters living with her surrogate family on a Washington farm.

And her summers with her birth parents in bohemian Southern California.

In her own words, it was like traveling from Kansas to Oz.

Lumina is now facing a critical decision.

She's trying to decide whether to continue to pursue a relationship with her biological family, or accept the fact that it may be in her best interest to walk away and create a family of her own definition.

Lumina: I wanna know if family is worth the struggle that it is.

And I want to know from the people who already had families and who started this whole, this whole thing.

♪♪ - And there you have it, a reason why.

- We love Lumina.

Yeah, that's a big why.

- Exactly.

In fact, we brought Lumina with us via video chat so that we can talk to her more about her process in finding why.

- Exactly.

- Lumina are you-- Hi Lumina.

- You look good.

- [through screen] Thank you.

Kendall: Hi.

Lise: Thank you for joining us.

We want to more about your personal process in finding your why.

And you really took a very honest approach.

Tell us about it.

- [through screen] Well I'd say there was three parts.

Um, number one, I had team of people asking me questions.

Number two, I, was-- I allowed myself to be very honest about my questions.

Some of them were scary questions but I still asked them.

And number three, I would say um, it changed as I went, my why changed, and I was open to letting the why evolve.

So, I wasn't stuck with one.

Kendall: Exactly.

Lumina: [through screen] I just let it go.

- But you were so honest in-- I mean why we love you so much is you were so honest in your process of getting to that why.

You were honest with yourself, with other people, allowing them to sort of probe you.

I know our producers were on the phone with you for hours asking you to go, Oh let's go a step deeper.

But what really matters to you right now, Lumina?

What do you care about right now?

And, and you of course were willing to open up and go there.

To-- and by doing that, it maximized your Generations Project experience.

- [through screen] I agree.

And I think actually, it was probably years of therapy that made it possible for me to be really honest about my why.

And I think that might be necessary for some people to really uncover the things that they're searching for, and to find a really compelling motivation, they're gonna have to dig into maybe some dark or scary parts of their past or their parents' past.

And so, um, holding onto the concept of being as honest as possible and that it will yield the most results, I think would be a good-- - And the other point from you is that you illustrate that it's a process.

I mean sometimes we find people, and they say here is my why.

It's really clear, I’ve been carrying it with me for ten years, I want an answer now.

Uh, and then with others, more typically we have a lot of life questions that could be, you know, weighing on us and it-- and you illustrate the fact that it is a process, but once you do find it, it gives major focus to your work.

Lise: I hate to push us forward, because I could talk to Lumina all day, but I do want to say Lumina, thank you for being a fearless, courageous teacher for all of us, and for digging deep because your story is amazing for all of us.

Thank you.

Kendall: We love you, Lumina.

- [through screen] Thank you.

Bye.

Lise: Bye.

Kendall: Bye.

Lise: We push onward to the next step-- Kendall: We do, yeah.

- which is populating the tree.

Kendall: Once you find your why, then you have to start the work.

Lise: Which is really about finding the names and dates which is really the part that I never was interested in-- Kendall: Right, right.

- so intrigue me.

Kendall: A lot of people think that way.

They think, Oh this is where we get into those names and dates on a pedigree chart which just seems like sort of tedious clerical work.

Lise: But you have mentioned it as the hunt to me.

Almost like a detective.

- Exactly.

You do, you get to become a detective because you're, you know, you’re searching for specific information about these individuals.

And sometimes you find gaps.

You're always going to find gaps.

Lise: Sure.

- And it's the hunt for those-- to fill those gaps can be invigorating.

Lise: Intriguing.

- You're a detective.

- When you start this hunt, we always say start close to home.

I’m stunned every single time how people have a font of information at their fingertips that they never knew existed.

Kendall: Because they never bothered to ask.

Because they never started a Generations Project.

They never had a why-- Lise: Exactly.

- right, to begin, once you find that why, you go, well I need answers now, boom, to get your answers you got to populate and start close to home because there's so much ready-- available, information available.

Lise: You're leading me in perfectly because we had a wonderful guest, Katie Newbold.

Kendall: Exactly.

- Who had an amazing why.

She needed some medical answers about cancer that were directly related to her own health.

Kendall: And it was important to her right now in her life.

A very unique sort of why-- Lise: Exactly.

- which led her to start close to home-- Lise: With her grandmother.

- going to her grandma.

Lise: Which we're going to see right here.

- Grandma Barbara.

♪♪ [door squeaks] Katie: Hi Grandma!

Man 5: Hi Grandma.

- Hi.

Barbara: How are you?

- We’re all here.

Barbara: Let me give you a hug.

Katie: Hi.

Are your brothers still alive?

Barbara: Nope, they’re all gone.

- They’re all-- Okay.

When did your brother Ted die?

- ‘Kay, there you go.

- [laughs] Grandma has the answers.

- [laughs] That’s so I can keep track of them.

Okay, Ted, born in 1918 and died in 2005.

Katie: I didn’t know he had cancer too.

Barbara: Yep.

And then Uncle Hal died at age 85 and a 1/2, but he had prostate cancer at about age 66.

And the third one’s Don, and he died at about age 74.

And he developed colon cancer at about age 60.

And then Laurie died of ovarian cancer.

And Aunt Darlene’s the one that’s had lots of skin cancers.

- And all three of you have had breast cancer?

- Yep.

- Grandma!

[laughs] - Guess what, Katie!

Both: [laughing] - Your whole family!

- The whole family.

- How come I didn’t know all this?

While I was talking to my grandma, we calculated that there were 13 different cases of, uh, cancer that weren’t genetic, I guess you could say, and then six that were from the environment, from the sun most likely.

So 19 different cancers.

It makes me realize that it’s a part of my family.

It’s amazing how you can live so close to someone and not know such a huge thing about them.

And just to sit there with my grandma now, it’s amazing.

Lise: Katie Newbold, look at you just populate that tree.

[laughter] - I’m so good at it, huh?

Lise: You are so g-- - Grandma did all the work.

Lise: You’re so good at it.

- That’s why you start close to home.

Katie: [laughing] Yeah.

- Well, speaking of which, you’re so good at-- you’re still populating your tree close to home.

I wanna hear about that.

Katie: Exactly.

Yeah, it’s been a lot of fun.

I’ve realized how easy it is to talk to the people around me, people that I’m... relatives.

People I’m close to.

Lise: Mm-hm.

- And so a couple months ago, I stopped my-- by my grandma and grandpa’s house and just started talking to them about my grandparents’ siblings realizing that I, I don’t really even know their names.

I don’t know their last names.

Lise: Ah.

- And so what my grandpa ended up doing is inviting his two sisters to our family night that we have once a month with the Newbold family.

And so they came, we got to know them, they talked more about their parents, and it was a great way for me to populate the tree.

- And again, I wanna remind everybody so often there’s a lot of information at your fingertips you don’t know is right there.

Kendall: Already done for you.

- Exactly.

The second half of, of populating tree, though, is turning to records which could be the census, birth certificates, death certificates.

Kendall: ‘Cause once you’ve, you’ve, you know, used the resources close to your, close to home, uh, then you start to have those gaps, or you need to be able to push back further, and that’s where you have to reach out to those vital records that are out there, um-- Lise: To fill in those gaps.

- Exactly!

Lise: So Katie, how did you use records to support your process?

Kendall: Or you’ve continued, yeah.

Katie: Yeah, um, my Grandma Lindsay, she has recently been cleaning out the basement and getting rid of a lot of family books, a lot of items-- - Gotta be careful.

- Yeah, so a lot of them she gave to me.

But one thing I actually found in the trash can, and it was my great grandpa’s wallet.

Kendall: Mm.

- And so I opened it up, and it had all kinds of stuff in there that talked about him.

Fishing licenses, a bank receipt saying he deposited six dollars in his bank account, um-- - And you didn't even know how tall he was, right?

Katie: Yeah.

So, it had a little thing that said he was 5’7”.

I didn’t even know that, and so my grandma, honestly, I mean, she knows him and so she thinks, well-- Lise: Who cares?

- Yeah, it’s not a big deal.

But to me, that was great to find out about him.

- It’s a, it’s a little way again of starting close to home but pushing out into, okay, those are, those are records.

Those are actual records in there that have some vital information on them.

Lise: Well, it strikes me a-as bringing it to life for you, too.

Suddenly you knew how tall he was.

You knew what he did in his spare time.

You know how much he put into a bank.

Suddenly the story has a full, full figure.

Kendall: It starts to.

It starts to.

Lise: Exactly.

- ‘Cause we’re still just populating that tree.

Lise: Exactly.

- Getting names, information, dates-- Lise: Well, I wanna give our viewers an opportunity to learn a little bit more about, uh, record finding, particularly the census records, and we have a package that we put together for that, so let’s watch that.

It’s really good.

Kendall: [chuckles] ♪♪ Lise: Talking with family members will help you start filling in your family tree.

But there will probably be some holes, and you may not even be sure it’s all correct.

That’s okay.

We’ll fill in the gaps using the US census, which is also available online.

First, some background.

A census can tell us qutie a bit about someone.

Their name, their age, and even their family members’ names and ages.

Sometimes, you can even find out what they did for a living.

Since 1790, the United States has compiled a census every decade.

But those before 1850 usually aren’t specific enough to help you populate the tree.

And you can’t see the ones after 1930 due to privacy laws.

Oh, and the 1890 census was destroyed by fire.

So, if you have ancestors who lived between 1850 and 1930, and chances are you do, you are going to want to use the US census.

[whirrr] So, let’s get started.

First, pick which ancestor you’d like to research.

Now, let’s look for him in the 1920 census.

Fill out the search fields with as much information as you have.

It’s more than likely that several people will turn up in search results.

Use what you know about your ancestor such as age, birthplace, or names of family members to narrow down your choices.

Now click on a name to see a detailed list of information.

The census taker may have made some slight errors.

It’s okay!

After you’ve looked at several, you’ll be able to weed out the mistakes.

But be sure to copy any new information into your family tree.

Using this technique, you can keep filling in your family tree until you hit the 1850 barrier, but you’ll be in a good position to push back even further using other records.

And with that, you are well on your way to completing your Generations Project.

Kendall, we use census records a lot.

That’s not it.

That’s not the only place to go, right?

Kendall: Oh absolutely.

Oh, there’s, there’s so many other kinds of records.

Of course there’s marriage records, birth records, death records, etc.

So many different kinds of vital records.

You can even go down to county directories.

There’s all sorts of resources out there.

- The next step is one of my favorite steps.

I get very excited about this.

Kendall: Right on.

- It’s called mix it with history.

Kendall: It’s the fun one.

- It is the fun one!

- The other one was fun too.

- Well, you taught me that.

- Exactly.

- This is, to me, a point when people dig deeper, and suddenly the story shifts for them.

It becomes very personal.

- It’s what you just said.

It’s story.

It takes it from names and dates on, on a tree-- which is valuable-- uh, but then you start to envelop them.

You put sort of meat on the bone as it were, um, to tell-- to wrap them up in stories.

And that-- in stories is where they become human beings to us.

They become characters.

Lise: They come to life.

- We can love them.

They come to life, exactly.

Lise: And we feel some connection to them.

- Exactly.

Lise: Um, I-it start-- It’s two-sided.

We first mix it with family history, and Lakia Holmes was one of our very, very first guests on the show.

Kendall: Exactly.

- And she wanted to overcome pessimistic view of the world.

Kendall: She was a pessimistic lady.

- But her-- She found out that her great grandmother was an optimist.

- Exactly.

Lise: And she thought, How can I come from that?

- Exactly.

- So she starts out by meeting her grandfather.

Kendall: Who literally was the only person left alive that had the answer to her question which was why did they move so quickly from Alabama where they had been for generations up to New York which is, you know, where they lived ever, ever, ever since then.

What happened?

And she, she really needed to understand that one critical question to unlock the whole story.

Lise: This is Lakia Holmes, mixing it with history.

Kendall: Exactly.

Lakia: I feel nervous going to meet my grandfather for the first time because for most of my life, I didn’t even know he existed.

I mean, part of me is a little... angry at him for not being in my life, but once I get to talk to him and, you know, understand why, then who knows how I’ll feel.

There definitely will be a lot of questions.

He’ll have a lot of explaining to do.

♪♪ ♪♪ Grandpa?

Jimmy: Yeah!

Hello.

How are you?

Mm-mm.

Lakia: [crying] - I know.

Lakia: [crying] - I know.

Take it easy.

Take it easy.

Take it easy.

I know.

Come sit down.

- I didn’t even know... - Yeah.

- you existed for-- until I... You look just like Uncle Gene.

- Yeah.

Uh-huh.

Lise: Lakia’s grandmother, Anna Pearl, moved to New York City with her parents and children in 1948.

Her grandfather eventually followed Anna Pearl, but quickly found that city life was not for him.

Within a few years he returned to Alabama, and Anna Pearl eventually asked for a divorce.

Jimmy consented and later remarried and started a new life in California.

This explains why Lakia never met her grandfather, but one question lingers: Why did Anna Pearl move to New York so suddenly?

With this question on her mind, Lakia travels with her grandfather to the former Whitesmith farm where her grandparents and great grandparents lived and worked.

- A little weed in the road up out here.

- [chuckles] ♪♪ - Ooh!

Lotta cotton over there.

Golly!

Look at it.

This the house here, ain’t it?

It look like the house but bigger than that though.

♪♪ Lakia: So my, so my great grandmother worked in the kitchen for-- - Cooking for Whitesmith, yeah.

- So, these houses over here, you said this was a Whitesmith and his family.

Where did my great grandmother and my great grandfather... - Live in?

Lakia: Live?

Grandfather: Yeah, that was the back house.

The back house there.

Lakia: So it’s the house, like, right out over here?

Grandfather: Yeah, uh, right over there, yeah.

And they lived in the front house, the big-- Lakia: The big house?

Yeah.

Grandfather: That’s where they lived, right there.

The big house was just like a mansion.

You know, everything was so nice.

But then the back house, it was just... common beds, a stove, and you know, stuff like that.

- Did, did they move because they didn’t like the way-- Like, the conditions down here?

They just wanted-- - Like they were being mistreated.

Yeah, that’s what I said.

Yeah.

But they had to be misused some kind of way or another.

- Because it just, like, all of a sudden just... - All of a sudden.

- picked up and-- ‘Cause did they ever talk about moving prior?

- No.

Laka: So did my great grandfather move with them?

- Yeah.

Lakia: Or did he stay down?

- Uh-uh.

- here or-- - He didn’t have to go.

- So it was my great grandfather, my great grandmother, and grandma.

- Yeah.

- And they all just... - All of them just jumped up and left.

Mm-hm.

- But why?

- Just because somebody was abused so they tell me.

She abused, but they couldn’t tell me who it was.

But they were so afraid, you know, and that’s why they wanted to leave and leave in a hurry.

‘Cause I didn’t know that until way, way after.

You know, way after.

Lise: It wasn’t until much later that Jimmy would find out that it was actually his young bride, Anna Pearl, who had been abused by one of the powerful men in town.

Knowing the fatal consequences of her husband confronting such a powerful man, Annie Mae Jackson quickly packed up her family and moved them to New York City.

Lakia: So, when my great grandfather, Ed, found out, what was his reaction?

Like, what did he do?

- Well, you know, I didn’t even see him then, but they tell me how mean that, that he wanted to go to him-- to his boss man.

And that would be the-- Uh, Smith.

Lakia: And so he wanted to confront them.

Jimmy: Yeah.

And I-- his wife must’ve [indistinct] told him don’t, ‘cause she wanted to leave.

And, and that’s when they told me.

Lise: There it is in a nutshell, connecting with the fam-- mixing it up with your family history-- Kendall: Powerful stuff.

- --first part of this.

It is powerful!

She couldn’t have known that without meeting-- - Never.

Lise: With her grandpa.

- Yeah, he held the, he held the key to unlock that, that huge question for her which allowed her to then go on.

Lise: --simply starting close to home.

Kendall: Mm-hm.

Exactly.

- There’s a network there that you may not even know is available to you.

Kendall: Oh yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All sorts of stories.

I mean, Katie, Katie’s story was also a good example of how she-- you know, she started having these, uh, family, family nights where they, they, they invited the little bit more distant relatives in to tell stories to help put-- again, start putting flesh on the bone of this pedigree chart and saying, Wow our family story is amazing.

It’s epic.

Lise: And everyone’s family story is.

I remember when we first met, I said “What’s the best story?” And you said, “Every one’s better than the last.” Kendall: Yeah, yeah.

- Which has really been true.

There’s a lot of things out there in the world that can help you connect.

There are-- something called Family Societies.

Books by Family Societies and Libraries.

Can you explain that to me?

Kendall: Again-- Yeah, and again, all of this is to help you, uh, begin mixing your pedigree chart with history, specifically family history, and so you seek out family associations and societies, for example, that have done mountains of work to compile the stories-- the vital records, but also the stories and the history and information-- and put them in these family books.

And these volumes contain so many stories which is the valuable stuff.

Uh, newspaper articles on individuals sometimes.

Their obituary.

Lise: But you mean my family might have something like that?

It would be shocking to me!

Kendall: You never know which branch somewhere has been organized, and they’re, they’re everywhere.

They’re-- Yeah, they’re in public libraries, they’re in genealogical societies, uh, state archives.

They’re, they’re out there, and they’re powerful things.

Lise: And of course there’s always the internet.

I know that my sister connected with a family member in Europe that she had no idea existed.

It was just by a fluke.

Could we be related?

And they had both done the genealogy, and yes we were.

And there was a whole new-- Kendall: Yeah.

- network to connect with.

Kendall: Yeah, I mean to quote, to quote one of our other producers on the show, “You’d be stupid not to use--“ He’s a nice guy.

[indistinct] But you’d be stupid not to use the internet because the, the social networking component that is already existing vibrantly on, on the internet, uh, amongst family historians and genealogists is so powerful.

All you have to do, there are sites out there in case people don’t know.

All you have to do is go on these sites, list-servs and so on, and you enter a question.

I’m looking for so and so in this year.

We’ve had it come up where we’ve dropped, dropped those questions on the internet, and literally less than two hours later, we get four responses that boom unlock everything.

They bring in stories.

And of course we had information that they didn’t have.

It’s a great opportunity to share.

- The next part of this step is mixing in social history.

This has been profound for me sitting in this chair.

I’ve learned more about our nation than I ever knew.

Kendall: This is where it gets even bigger.

I mean, family histories are beautiful and poignant-- - But in the bigger picture, what does this mean?

We had a wonderful guest who we’re going to talk with today.

Durrell Daniels-- Kendall: Yeah.

- was looking for ancestors who may have left a legacy because he’s in this world saying I’m going to be an entrepreneur, and I wanna le-- leave a legacy for those that come next.

Kendall: Mm-hm.

- Now, who would’ve imagined he would find it?

But he did.

And it, it was the process of mixing it with the social history.

Kendall: And the family history first, right?

He finds the story, uh, which we won’t see all here, but we’ll see the aftereffects of first he found that family story, the family history, and then he said, okay, now I need to put this in context.

And so that’s where we pick it up here with this clip of him mixing it with the social history, and it changes the entire meaning and helps him with his “why.” - His f-- he found land records.

African American ancestors’ own land in the late 1800s in Mississippi just after the end of slavery.

He is meeting with a historian to learn more about what this means in the context.

It’s thrilling.

Let’s watch.

♪♪ Durrell: Well, my family went from being slaved or being enslaved to owning a lot of land, like several hundred acres.

Um, how is that-- how is that possible?

- It was the goal of an awful lot of people as they left slavery to, uh, to become landowners.

One thing a lot of people found surprising about Mississippi, um, is that it was a hopeful place.

Lise: During the Reconstruction period, Northern troops occupied the South and helped to successfully carry out elections where there was, for a time, a Black majority in the state legislature.

However, in 1875, the Mississippi Plan was devised to overthrow the North, suppress the Black vote, and disrupt elections in order to regain political control.

By 1877, Northern troops had vacated the Southern states leaving Mississippi African Americans once again in a climate of hatred and discrimination.

Prof Owenby: Late 1880s and early 1890s, the democratic party of Mississippi, uh, has what some people call the second Mississippi Plan and, and, and it’s, it’s South-wide, but it starts-- a lot of it starts in Mississippi.

That is... methods of, um, making it really difficult for African Americans to vote.

Lise: Mississippi was the first state to enforce Jim Crow enfranchisement laws that legislated against newly-freed Black citizens.

Southern legislators were able to drastically decrease African American voting rights in the South, making it increasingly difficult for them to acquire or keep land.

And it was in this harsh social and political environment that multiple generations of Durrell’s ancestors were somehow able to purchase land in Columbus against all odds.

Prof. Owenby: I found a statistic.

- Okay.

- Um, that in 1900, of the African Americans in Loundes County, there were about 2800 families farming, and of those, about 195 owned land.

So that’s less than 10%.

Well, 7%.

Something like that.

Uh, so it’s, it’s not out of the question for African Americans to own land.

Um, by comparison, the same statistic showed that of white people who farmed in Loundes County, 500 out of 700 owned land, so that’s... the difference between 7% and about 75% or 73%.

So, it’s not unusual for African Americans to sometimes own land.

It is more unusual-- from what I understand about your family, it’s a lot more unusual for people to own land for several generations at a time.

Durrell: I feel proud that I came from a generation of guys that was, uh, very progressive, very courageous.

I keep saying courageous because that’s what they were.

I have, I have role models.

Yeah.

And they’re right-- Well, they’re my family tree.

♪♪ - That’s great.

- Isn’t it fantastic?

Kendall: Right in his own family tree.

- A real pinnacle point for Durrell.

And in fact, we brought Durrell on via video chat.

Durrell, are you with us?

Durrell Daniels, we wanna bring you in on this conversation.

Hi Durrell!

Kendall: Hello Durrell.

- Hello.

Hey, how’s it going?

Lise: Terrific, entrepreneur.

How are you?

- I-- You know, I can’t even complain.

Lisa and Kendall: [laughing] Lise: I wanna talk about a specific moment in your journey.

We’re talking about the step of mixing, uh, your family history with the social history of the time.

And we just reviewed a clip where you did just that.

And I wanna know what meaning that had for you at that time that you saw the land ownership in that period of time.

- You know, it’s, it’s been very, uh, significant.

Um, the information, everything has just been a, an ongoing process.

I’m still, uh, overwhelmed with, uh, everything that I found out.

And, uh, it’s been life-changing.

Kendall: Exactly.

And, and, and that’s what, what we love about your example and your experience of it, was you were able to take your family history, put it in the context of the larger history which made it sort of explode in terms of meaning and depth where they were one percent.

You know, they were, they were one of one percent and maintained that family land-- Lise: To this day!

- Over a century.

Yeah.

That’s, that’s astounding.

But you wouldn’t have it without that social history.

- Exactly, yeah.

Kendall: So how do you feel now?

- Man, I feel awesome, man.

I mean, um, it got pretty emotional.

It got very emotional for me.

Lise: Thank you so much for joining us today, and thank you for sharing your family history with us once again.

- Ah, no problem.

Thank you for having me.

Lise: You bet.

Kendall: Thank you, Durrell.

Lise: I feel like we’re rushing on, and there’s so much good information.

This, this should be a three-hour show.

- Next time!

- Our, our next step, walking in their shoes.

This, again, is a part of the process that changes your trajectory in terms of your “why.” - Well it takes, it takes the family history and the mixing it with history that you’ve done, sort of putting the flesh on the bone, and then you’re putting yourself into it.

Lise: Actively.

Physically.

- Literally.

- You gave a great example of-- Kendall: Thank you!

- You know that your relative tilled the soil for eight hours a day in Louisiana summers-- Kendall: And that’s one thing to think about that, yeah.

Lise: Oh, that must be hard.

- Yeah!

But then if you go and you get behind a very ornery mule in the middle of, of July, in that, that hot muggy air, and then you-- and, and you go through it.

You go for maybe 20 minutes, but you feel it viscerally.

Your, your body senses it.

And then you imagine, whoa.

Every day, all day for years without end.

It completely changes that fact into a reality, and you f-- you can empathize.

That’s the ultimate-- ultimate power of walking in their shoes, is you empathize with these progenitors, y-y-your ancestors in a powerful way, and that’s where it all begins to really change your life ‘cause you’re bringing it back to your “why,” and it connects with that “why,” and, a-and it’s just amazing.

Lise: I wanna show an amazing example.

Andrea Campbell-- - Exactly.

- um, was really facing some medical challenges in her life and didn’t think she had it in her to do what had to be done to heal herself, to improve her life.

Kendall: Exactly.

And she wanted to-- she knew she had-- she came from this long line of what she called “strong Irish broads,” you know, these women who were so powerful and independent and got things done that they needed to, and she was, like, I don’t, I don’t feel I fit.

Like, I’m not one of them.

So she wanted to sort of reach back, learn about their lives, and walk in her great grandmother’s shoes as literally as possible to sort of empathize and tap into the feeling of being a strong broad.

Lise: Let’s watch Andrea’s journey.

Kendall: Let’s do it.

♪♪ Andrea: So I was over in Ireland when I was young, and we were staying at a little cottage, and we burned peat.

And I remember asking my dad, "What is it?"

And he said "It’s bricks made out of dirt."

I said, “We’re burning dirt?” So what exactly is peat?

- Well, dirt is completely different.

Dirt is, is fertile soil while peat is vegetation that rots down over thousands of years.

And it takes one thousand years for one foot of peat to grow.

A thousand years per foot of peat to grow.

This here is a sod of peat.

We call it a sod, you calls-- calls it-- called it a brick.

Andrea: Right.

Tom: But we call this a sod of turf.

And that’s basically what it is.

It’s just like a slab of butter.

Right?

- Okay.

Tom: And that will be placed out here in the field to dry.

And I’ll show ya how we cut it.

[squelch] Andrea: Okay.

[squelch] Would this be something that a woman would normally do or is this a boy’s job?

- Of course y-- no, no, no.

Women had to do everything.

- Oh, rats.

Well then I suppose if I wanna know what Bridget’s life was like, I should give it a try?

Tom: Down you come, girl.

Down you come.

Andrea: Let’s hope I don’t come down faster than I intend.

Tom: [laughs] It’s all right.

We’ll get you.

Now, take that sleán in you right hand.

Andrea: Ooh!

Ooh!

Tom: Have the-- Both: [laughing] Tom: That’s it.

Now, you cut it like this.

Are you right-handed or left?

Andrea: I’m right handed.

Tom: Nice.

Down with it.

[squelch] Look at that!

Look at that!

Andrea: Look at that!

- South America be proud of us.

She has definitely found her roots in Mayo.

Andrea: [laughing] ♪♪ Lise: Next, Tom is showing Andrea how to harvest potatoes.

Andrea: I’m assuming my great grandmother, Bridget, would’ve been a potato digger for the family.

- Well, you’re dead right.

You can rest assured.

They would’ve had diet of potatoes three times a day.

Andrea: Wow.

Tom: Breakfast, dinner, and tea.

Potatoes featured in their diet three times a day.

So you sh-- you can rest assured that your great grandmother or grandmother dug potatoes.

[scraping] Yep.

Andrea: All right.

Let me-- Tom: You’ll have to have a go at this now, my [indistinct] Andrea: Let me try.

I was good at the peat.

Let me see if I can do the potatoes.

Tom: Well, I never seen an Irish woman yet to fail getting a dinner.

Andrea: [laughing] - Now, now, y-- all you do is you lean back.

Andrea: And just lever it out.

Tom: Yes.

Andrea: Okay, so-- Tom: Bring nearer.

Andrea: Go in like that.

Tom: Bring nearer to this potato.

Andrea: Oh, like this.

Okay.

I can see one.

It wants to come up.

Tom: That’s it!

Andrea: And I just lever the plant up.

Tom: That’s it!

And there you have two!

Andrea: Look at that!

I got me some big spuds.

Tom: I bet you’ve been more successful than meself.

Look at-- look at that!

Andrea: [laughing] Tom: Now wouldn’t any woman be proud of her.

Huh?

Andrea: Now I should be able to get me a husband.

Show him I can dig potatoes like that.

And potatoes are one of the only things I actually know how to cook!

- Well there you have it.

No problem.

I nearly-- I nearly ate them meself without cooking them.

Look at that!

- That is gorgeous.

Gorgeous.

Tom: Okay.

♪♪ Lise: Prior to leaving Ireland, Bridget’s family and community would’ve thrown a festive musical celebration known as an American Wake to bid her farewell and wish her luck on her voyage to America.

A group of local dancers and musicians have gathered from the surrounding villages to recreate this experience for Andrea.

[Irish jig] ♪♪ Andrea: Something about sitting there and listening to the music, it was curiously moving.

I mean, there were actually a couple of times that I teared up.

[applause] ♪♪ I can feel my Irish roots!

Uh, it’s-- I love the way the land looks.

It’s, it’s so green.

And the weather of course.

I love the cold weather.

I mean, we’re here in July, and I have to have a sweater on, a jumper as the Irish would call it.

I have to have a jumper.

Um, and you can just feel the life in the air.

You can smell it.

You can smell the la-- I mean, I don’t know whether it’s rotting stuff in the bog or what, but it smells wonderful.

Um, and I just feel myself coming alive here.

♪♪ - And now you are alive here with us in studio, Andrea Campbell.

- Live!

- So excited to be back!

Andrea: Yay!

Well, we’re talking specifically about walking in their shoes, and you really-- I mean, digging peat.

Could there be a more active-- Kendall: Yeah.

Andrea: right.

Kendall: You were literally out there with him.

Andrea: I was.

I was in the bog.

[laughter] Lise: How did that change your experience?

- Oh, that was absolutely critical.

Um, I think if you watch the episode, you can kind of tell that in the beginning, it was a very intellectual experience for me, and it was all about the history and the thinking.

And the more I did what my great grandmother did, and the more I was where she was, the more it shifted from the intellectual to the emotional.

And she became a person.

Uh, and weirdly that also then rolls so that the history became more real to me.

Not just she became a person, but all the people around her and when that was.

So, um, the-- it-- the part that had been intellectual before became more emotional as well.

- You f-- you felt it.

- I felt it.

Lise: I’m feeling it now.

Kendall: The fun moment is when you say “I feel Irish.” Andrea: Yeah.

Kendall: I mean, you can’t get-- that’s, that’s the closest you can approximate in describing the experience of walking in shoes.

You-- It’s like, I feel it.

I, I cannot put it in other words, huh.

- Yeah, exactly.

Lise: And you were all about wanting to gain strength from the heritage before you and not feeling like you had any of that, and in the end of your journey, you felt... Andrea: I felt strong.

I felt like a strong Irish woman, or as we would say in my family, “a tough Irish broad.” [laughter] - Can’t get any stronger than that.

Andrea: Yeah.

- And you now have a, an even deeper conviction that you’ve, you’ve continued on, right?

I mean-- - Oh absolutely.

Uh, ‘cause, you know, my mom does the genealogy in our family, and I-- my eyes glaze over, I’m not really that interested.

Uh, but she has some fun stories, but my questions are always, like, well what did they eat?

What did they do?

How-- what kind of clothes did they wear?

Lise: Yes.

- And in fact, I spent this summer up in North Carolina, and I was seeing these recipes for, like, dandelion jelly.

I’m like, ooh I wonder if my ancestors ate that.

Uh, it-- could I learn how to make that?

And just k-- trying to kind of recreate the experience that they would’ve had and learn more what their day-to-day lives would be like.

- And that’s-- thats-- sorry.

That-- and that’s the fun of it is there’s so many different ways that you can walk in their shoes.

It can be as simple as making dandelion jelly or as elaborate as going to Ireland and digging peat.

Lise: - E-exactly.

In fact, we have tips that we’ve set up for our home viewers so that they can find their way through walking in their ancestors’ shoes.

Watch.

♪♪ Walking in your ancestor’s shoes is simple.

Just pick some part of their story that you can reenact.

It can be as elaborate as traveling overseas to your great-great grandfather’s homeland to stand on the dock where he boarded the ship to the new world or as simple as baking your great grandmother’s famous bread and letting its aroma fill your home.

What really matters is that your experience helps you empathize with your ancestors.

Now, when looking for walk in their shoes experiences, try searching the internet for phrases like...

Combine these terms with specifics you know about your ancestors such as when and where they lived or their occupations.

You can also take advantage of tourism offices.

Call the tourism office of the region where your ancestor lived and tell them what you know about your ancestor.

They can tell you all about historic vacation spots where you can actually walk in you ancestor’s shoes.

And these are just a few of the suggestions of how you can walk in their shoes as you do your own Generations Project.

♪♪ So from walking in their shoes to our fifth and final step which is share it and-- Both: Watch it ripple.

- So the share it part.

Let’s start there.

What’s that all about?

- Well, it’s, it’s in the sharing where, where you h-- basically you’re telling the story of your Generations Project.

And it’s in that process of writing it down or sharing it in some way that you coalesce all of it and you bring it back to your “why,” and the meaning just emerges, uh, like you couldn’t do it unless you did have that opportunity to turn and share it with other people.

- Exactly.

We have some video footage of the different ways that our guests have gone about sharing it.

Oftentimes a journal is the first, first thing.

And I find that a lot of people on their journey synthesize it in the journal writing.

Kendall: In the writing down.

And it’s good because journal writing-- you carry it with you.

Like, you see everybody’s carrying it in the moment ‘cause it’s in the moment that you’ve gotta write down that impression that might not come back to you ever.

Lise: Or it’s gone.

Kendall: Exactly, write it down.

Lise: And then later you get to go back and look at that.

And think of all the history you learn about yourself through other family members’ diaries and journals.

It’s a gift for the future.

- And then photo-taking of course.

I mean, uh, it-- for me, that’s how I gravitate.

I’m a more visual individual, right?

I’m in TV.

A-and, and for me, that’s a way to tell the story within a story because you frame that photo in a way.

It’s not just snap.

Maybe for some people.

But you frame the photo, right?

And that tells a story unto itself.

And then you put it into context like-- - Right, a scrapbook or a family blog.

And again, the story gets shared.

Kimball: Exactly.

Lise: Um, our beautiful Lumina Gershfield-- Kendall: There you go.

Lise: as an artist had to paint it.

- Amazing way to share it.

It was perfect for her.

Lise: I’m not a painter, but that really struck me.

That was something that I thought, I might wanna do that.

Kendall: Yeah, it’s like writing it down, only painting it out.

Lise: A different part of your brain working.

Kendall: Exactly.

Lise: And a different processing.

- And then she brings it back to the studio with you-- Lise: and there it is.

Kendall: and tells the whole story of all the women that she-- she learned about on her Generations Project.

And then of course we now have, have Maile, a whole other artistic expression.

- Whose song has been heard by you know, so many people now.

it has been passed on and listened to and shared beyond the family.

Kendall: Exactly.

Learns the story of her great grandmother, turns it into a song, shares it with her immediate family as we saw, and then it’s now since been recorded.

It’s being heard across, uh, the Hawaiian islands.

People have picked it up because it’s a beautiful song and a beautiful story from her Generations Project.

- Exactly.

- And now it’s rippled out.

- And sharing it really is the process that brings you back to your “why.” - Exactly.

- It’s the pay-off.

It’s the bookend of your story.

I hope that our viewers will read and share their ideas on our website about how they shared it and how you can share it to promote ideas in others, byutv.org.

Kendall: So many creative ways of sharing-- Lise: Exactly.

- that are out there.

Lise: But the pay-off to all of it is watching it ripple.

Kendall: The ripple.

- And Vicki Biss... a-another favorite.

They’re all our favorites.

They’re all like our babies now.

Kendall: I know, right?

- Um, we’ll catch up on her story and then we’ll bring Vicki into the studio with us.

Kendall: Let’s do it.

♪♪ Lise: Vicki Biss is an adventurous woman who always believed she came from American-Indian stock.

Vicki: Daddy said that there was Indian blood in the family.

No one else would talk about it.

My grandfather was William Tecumseh Biss, and he was supposedly born on the reservation, and he was the first part-white child.

I don’t know much else except that I was told that.

Lise: So Vicki set out to put the legend to the test.

After some digging, Vicki found an old family Bible which revealed that her grandfather’s middle name was not American-Indian, but was actually a tribute to the Civil War general William Tecumseh Sherman.

Vicki: All these years I’ve wondered, white boy born on the in-- reservation?

Who is this?

This finally makes sense!

To know is the greatest feeling.

Lise: But there was one more twist.

Vicki did have an unconventional Native ancestral connection.

One of Vicki’s Revolution-era ancestors was abducted by Native Americans as a child and raised in the tribe.

He was eventually returned to his white family, and though he had a hard time adjusting to the so-called civilized lifestyle, he stayed in white society and began the ancestral line that would lead to Vicki.

Vicki: I never thought I would find out that I really do have Indian ancestry, but it’s not the direction I thought.

♪♪ - Vicki Biss, welcome back.

Kendall: [laughs] Vicki: Thank you for having me back.

Lise: Well, you have some amazing stories particularly about this fifth and final step which is watching it ripple.

Vicki: Oh wow, did it ripple.

- Wh-- did it?

Vicki: Yes.

- Tell me everything.

- I got home, I drew a tree.

I took a picture of a tree in the, uh, in my yard and had to figure out where all these, all these I found out, I had to put it down on paper so I had all these roots going down.

And of course my son got into it.

He’s-- we did the Biss side, but there’s the McDermith side.

And he said, We’re gonna find that.

And he got on and did a program.

He’s got hundreds almost I think thousands.

- I think it was around like almost 2000.

- Yeah, yeah.

Lise: Oh my gosh!

Vicki: Relatives, and they’re all on.

And, uh, you get that and it’s their birthday, and you know everything about them.

These are living relatives, but there’s also the deceased relatives that are-- and it’s, it’s an amazing study!

- And so that impact on your son’s life, you know, rippled out from you to him and... - Huge!

Lise: There was that story about high school, too, about a reunion, isn’t there?

Vicki: I have been working on the-- and it just is over the-- our 50th reunion from Palm Springs high school.

And totally loved it, and I had a great question I asked all of the classmates, and they told me about their parents and their ancestors, how they moved to Palm Springs, why were were all together at one time.

- That’s great.

- And in the meantime, they, they watched my episode on the, um, Generations Project, and one of them told me that she went back and went working on hers and has now dug up to the 16th century!

- Perfect.

- She was so excited that she could do that!

She, she watched how they did it for me and just... - Did you ever imagine, Vicki, that that would be a part of the process to-- Vicki: I didn’t think about that!

Kendall: Exa-- That’s, that’s one of my favorite moments, to be honest, is hearing stories like this come back to us where this ripple effect-- It literally, ripples turn into waves, right?

As they, as they spread out because we, we can never predict how profoundly it’ll change your life, but then touch other lives, change them, inspire them to do the same thing, and it ripples out and out.

And it’s that unexpected part that-- So many times after the fact we hear stories like yours and we say, Who would’ve thought?

Lise: Right.

- Right?

Who would’ve thought?

Vicki: But there’s that very special thing too.

I asked my brothers and sisters, um, what they felt, and it was connecting with those cousins again.

Kendall: Mm.

Vicki: And actually seeing a deeper part of what-- where our ancestry came from.

We really never thought about it or, um... - That’s the ripple effect again, yeah of connecting families that you never really necessarily had the impetus.

You know, and this, doing a Generations Project-- Vicki: All the sudden-- - Gives-- Exactly.

Lise: Well, you reach out.

You reach out to those very people to get information, or you share that you have done this process and-- I know my sister’s done that for us in our families that she’s reached out to relatives.

Cousins that we were close when we were little, we all played together, and then everybody’s had their own families and spread out a little bit, and you reignite those relationships, and your memories are so great and so fond and-- Kendall: And that brings it back to the, the “why.” Why do a Generations Project?

Because it’s an entirely different experience than you’ll ever, ever have of in a sense just doing genealogy and family history.

And in fact, no offense, but we, we wanna get rid of those terms.

They have-- they’re too, too laden with meaning.

Lise: That’s right!

- Get rid of genealogy, family s-- It’s have you done a generations project?

Don’t ask, Have you done your genealogy?

Well, what does that mean?

Have you done a generations project?

It’ll change your life if you do it, so.

Lise: Beautifully said.

I couldn’t say it better myself.

Thank you both.

Thank you.

Please join us on our website at byutv.org and share with us all the experiences you’re having as you do your very own generations project, particularly any stories you might have about watching it ripple.

Kendall Wilcox, so glad to have you in front of the camera for a change.

Kendall: Thank you.

- Vicki Biss, I hope to join you on that swing very soon.

I appreciate the offer.

She really did offer.

I’m Lise Simms.

I’ll see you on the next Generations Project.

♪♪