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Research strategies, DNA discoveries, family stories, and community for African American genealogists. Open to all readers — sign in to join the conversation.

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📌 Pinned 👋 Introductions

Welcome Home — Introduce Yourself & Your Family

ShellyDav · April 3, 2026 · 💬 1 reply
Welcome, family.

You have arrived at a space built for us — for those of us doing the sacred, sometimes heartbreaking, always meaningful work of tracing African American ancestry.

Whether you found this community because you are a lifelong genealogist with decades of research behind you, or because you typed a great-great-grandmother's name into a search box last week and could not stop — you belong here.

This board is for all of us.

— WHO WE ARE —

Legacy Keeprs is a platform built specifically for African American family heritage research. Our archives hold the names, stories, photographs, and documents of families whose histories were deliberately severed by the institution of slavery and its aftermath. We are here to restore what was stolen. Name by name. Record by record. Generation by generation.

— HOW THIS BOARD WORKS —

The discussion board is organized into six categories:

? Introductions — Tell us who you are, who you're researching, and where your family is from. This is where we meet.

? Research — Share strategies, methods, and questions about the genealogical research process. Brick walls, breakthroughs, sources, and methodology.

? DNA — Discuss DNA testing results, ethnicity breakdowns, shared matches, clustering, and how to use genetic genealogy alongside paper records.

? Events — Genealogy conferences, webinars, archive openings, DNA sale announcements, and community gatherings.

? Help — Ask any question. No question is too basic. If you are stuck, ask here. Someone in this community has likely been exactly where you are.

? General — Everything else. Family stories, historical reflections, things that moved you, resources worth sharing.

— YOUR FIRST POST —

Introduce yourself below. Tell us:

• Your name (or what you prefer to be called)
• What family line you are researching
• Where your family is from — even if you only know part of the story
• The one ancestor you most want to find

You do not need to have answers to any of these questions. You just need to be here, asking them.

The ancestors are listening. We begin.

With love and solidarity,
Clairetha Michele Davenport
Founder, The Faulkner & Davenport Foundation
Creator, Legacy Keeprs
1 Reply
ShellyDav · Apr 3, 2026
I'll go first.

My name is Michele. I am a descendant of the Faulkner, Taylor, Nevills, Pinkston, and Harris families — among others. My roots run through Lafayette County and Tippah County, Mississippi, through Shelby County, Tennessee, and back through the Piedmont and Coastal regions of North Carolina before that.

The ancestor I most want to find is the woman I know only as Emeline — and through years of research, I have come to believe she may have been Emeline Lacy, an enslaved woman held by Colonel William Clark Falkner of Ripley, Mississippi. She would have been born around 1837. She survived slavery. She raised a daughter named Fannie Forrest. And somewhere in her story is the thread that connects my family to a history that American institutions spent two centuries trying to erase.

I built this platform because I believe every family deserves what I am still searching for: a name, a date, a place. A record that says: I was here. I existed. I mattered.

Welcome. Now tell us about yours.

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