Shall we regard our girl children as Jephthah’s Daughters? How long will we continue to perpetuate the adage, “Women love their sons, but raise the daughters.” Every child deserves the opportunity to succeed in life but success comes through accepting responsibility and learning to be accountable. Any child male or female who constantly lashes out at authority figures in a bid to always be “right” is a child bound for prison or the graveyard. Stop making girls the sacrificial lambs!!
Ladies, let’s love our girl children and stop putting them on the altar in order to save a son who does not wanted to be saved and does not think he needs help or worse some no account man who should not even be a part of our households to begin with. Let us not return to ancient times when girls and women were thought of as little more than chattel or commodities to be bought and sold. (See below for more details on ancient economies)
“One of the unusual things about the Bible is that it preserves some bits of this larger context. … It would seem that the economy of the Hebrew kingdoms, by the time of the prophets, was already beginning to develop the same kind of debt crises that had long been common in Mesopotamia: especially in years of bad harvests, the poor became indebted to rich neighbors or to wealthy moneylenders in the towns, they would begin to lose title to their fields and to become tenants on what had been their own land, and their sons and daughters would be removed to serve as servants in their creditors’ households, or even sold abroad as slaves.
“[This is what the biblical book of Nehemiah is referring to in the passage,] ‘Some of our daughters are brought unto bondage already: neither is it in our power to redeem them.’ One can only imagine what those words meant, emotionally, to a father in a patriarchal society in which a man’s ability to protect the honor of his family was everything. Yet this is what money meant to the majority of people for most of human history: the terrifying prospect of one’s sons and daughters being carried off to the homes of repulsive strangers to clean their pots and provide the occasional sexual services, to be subject to every conceivable form of violence and abuse, possibly for years, conceivably forever, as their parents waited, helpless, avoiding eye contact with their neighbors, who knew exactly what was happening to those they were supposed to have been able to protect. … http://www.delanceyplace.com/view_archives.php?2009
Donations to this Ministry for the Housing Fund can be made in U.S. Funds via money order or bank checks made payable to Rochdale Village Inc. 169-65 137th Avenue, Jamaica, NY 11434, Account No. 083-11G-16924 or directly to deborah.palmer280@gmail.com via Paypal. Thank you and God Bless.
My Maternal Ancestry Tree: The bond and bridge that enable me to crossover from America to Africa
Maternal Ancestry Journey
Isaiah 54:1-3
New King James Version (NKJV)
A Perpetual Covenant of Peace
1 “Sing, O barren,
You who have not borne!
Break forth into singing, and cry aloud,
You who have not labored with child!
For more are the children of the desolate
Than the children of the married woman,” says the LORD. 2 “ Enlarge the place of your tent,
And let them stretch out the curtains of your dwellings;
Do not spare;
Lengthen your cords,
And strengthen your stakes. 3 For you shall expand to the right and to the left,
And your descendants will inherit the nations,
And make the desolate cities inhabited.
Mable Elizabeth Palmer
The eternal question, Who Am I? Many of us find the answer within our respective Family Trees. It was obvious to me that my ancestry began in Africa, but where in that great continent did my ancestors originate. But for me as an African American some of the branches were broken off and gone missing.
Thus began my quest to not only discover my maternal lineage but my genetic link to Mother Africa. Hidden within the larger search to trace my family history on my Mom’s side was the greater goal to honor my mother and complete myself as a branch of the family tree. DNA can now unlock the secrets and the past giving voice to generations of women, the collective matriarchy that ultimately formed me. Living in a society that often devalues, trivializes and cuts Black Women down, within my personal family history lay the opportunity to validate and reaffirm self.
Family Skeletons Revealed
Hattie Finney Banks was my grandmother. Hattie and Mattie Finney were twin sisters. Mattie Finney moved to Illinois and married a man named Harper. I always wondered what became of Mattie. My grandmother Hattie Banks never spoke of her twin sister Mattie. I always thought that was unusual but I did not ask any questions. Did not want to pry.
About two years ago my brother Stephen and I spent Thanksgiving with our New Jersey cousins. My Aunt told me a family story which might explain the split between the sisters and why they never again contacted each other.
My grandfather Hugh Banks, Hattie’s husband murdered Daniel R. Finney. So Hugh Banks killed his in-law, his wife’s close relative. Hugh Banks died in prison sometime around 1940. My Aunt went to the funeral. She does not know the reason why Hugh Banks murdered Daniel Finney. All this took place in the 1930s. After the funeral Hattie took my Mom, Mable, her sisters and moved to Dayton, Ohio. Hattie told everyone including my mother, her sisters and me that Hugh Banks had died in a coal mining accident.
I suppose she had to make up a false story and hide the truth because of embarrassment, shame or just wanting to forget. From what little my grandmother Hattie Banks told me Hugh Banks was a violent and abusive husband. I guess when she moved to Dayton to be with her brothers Clarence & Willie she just want to forget the past and start with a clean slate. I can’t prove it but somehow, some way this murder was probably behind Hattie and Mattie breakup.
23andme Ancestry
Good Ancestor News: Found out this week that through my maternal line my ancestors were from Mozambique. I belong to the maternal haplogroup L3e2b1a.
I also probably have some Nigerian ancestors. My maternal genetic makeup is 85% Africa, 12% Europe and 3% Asia.
Our ancestry and genealogy are traced through mitochondrial DNA which is only passed down from mother to child. This is fascinating information. By the way the study affiliated with Dr. Henry Louis Gates is free and they are targeting African Americans. I’ve wanted to have my DNA traced for several years and when I saw the ad in Ebony or was it Essence along with the word Free, I immediately signed up. I was so thrilled to find out this news. Now along with my African co-workers feel a more direct connection to the Motherland.
Naturally, I’ll never be connected to Mother Africa the way in which my co-workers from Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Togo, and Mali are since they were born there and have a direction connection with the culture, language and respective tribes, I feel now more of a blood tie. Now I can plan for my pilgrimage to this country of my ancestors in the next five to ten years.
I’ve shared my findings with a select group of like-minded co-workers and when I return to work on Sunday will continue to do so.
As I previously stated, Hattie Finney Banks was my maternal grandmother. I’m in the process of writing a book honoring my mother, Mable Elizabeth Palmer, Hattie’s eldest daughter. Right now I’m trying to locate the birth certificate of either Hattie or her twin sister Mattie Finney. I want and need to know who their mother, my great grandmother was. I need that piece of information for not only my research but for my literary work. I know plenty about my Dad’s family history but almost nothing about my Mom’s side. Also there is something in me which needs completion.
When I look in the mirror I see Mable Elizabeth Palmer. I see unknown people from my collective past begging me to tell their story. I must answer their cries to be heard. Before I travel to Mozambique, South Africa I’ll have to visit West Virginia and examine birth, death, prison and military/Armed Forces records that may be available.
Then in 2012 back to Ancestry.com for more research on my maternal family tree. My maternal ancestors from Mother Africa call me and I willingly answer the call. Our patriarchal society bows down to the greater stronger Matriarchy for only females carry the mitochondrial DNA that enable all of us to trace our roots and find our origins. The Journey continues!!
National Geographic also offers a similar test but it costs $99.95. That will have to wait until I receive my Federal income tax check next year. I want to see if genetic lineage test comes up with the same result as 23andme. I would think that for $100 the testing would be more wide-ranging and comprehensive. My goal is to find out more about my maternal lineage. My ultimate goal is to deepen my connection to my mother, grandmother and of course Mother Africa.
Espiritu en Fuego/A Fiery Spirit 