Ghosts of Our Ancestors

This article was written to commemorate Black History Month in the United States and to remind us of the contributions made by so many African Americans, as well as those with biracial and mutiracial heritage, to the history of our country.

A few years ago, after I became aware that I had a Gibson great-great-great grandfather, I began my search for Gibson ancestors with virtually no facts at all. Little did I know, however, how much information I would discover about this family. My research found that much of what has been written about the Gibson family in America concerns this family's biracial roots, ones that began in Virginia and continued as the family migrated into North and South Carolina and on to Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana and places beyond. Today, descendants of the early Gibson family of Virginia can be counted in the hundreds of thousands.

My Gibson story began with one man, John P. Gibson. All I knew in the beginning was that he had been born around 1799 in South Carolina, and he first appeared on a U. S. Census record in Mississippi in 1860. I later found that he had married Margaret J. Williams, born around 1820, in Monroe County, Mississippi on January 3, 1843. Through U. S. Census records recorded in Mississippi in 1860 and 1870, I found that John and Margaret Gibson became parents of seven children. One of their daughters, Malverda Gibson, later became my paternal great-great-grandmother. But along the research road, I found not only information about my South Carolina Gibson family and its descendants, but a treasure trove of interesting books and published articles about the biracial and multiracial heritage of this country.

One such book was "The Free State of Jones," written by Victoria E. Bynum and published by the University of North Carolina Press. This publication, a portion of which is available on Google Books, begins with an interesting quote by Sam Dabney, taken from James Street's "Tap Roots," published in 1943:

"We can't boast of our ancestors, because when we get started talking about our families, out jumps the ghost of a pirate or a cousin of color."

A reference to America's rich racial heritage, contained in Victoria Bynum's book, states that racial sentiments in the South "evolved over a period of three centuries." She states that "by the 1840's, claims of Indian, Iberian (Spanish), or Mediterranean (Moorish) ancestry, defended one's whiteness against race-based laws and social harassment." Gideon Gibson, a "light-skinned slaveholder of partially African ancestry" and a member of South Carolina's so-called Regulator Movement, is mentioned in Bynum's publication as a person who exemplified how racial identity was often "fluid" and "even negotiable in some cases."

Bynum goes on to say that "many of Gideon Gibson's descendants, migrated west in search of whiteness as well as lands." We know this is true, since some of the descendants of South Carolinians, Gideon Gibson, Jacob Gibson, and Jordan Gibson, eventually settled in the state of Mississippi prior to the Civil War. Their lives and the lives of some of their descendants have been well-documented in historical publications about several southern states, including Mississippi and Louisiana. Often, these publications mention the ethnicity of Gibson family ancestors.

One thing that is known for sure is that regardless of whether a person was labeled as a Mulatto, Mestizo, Mustee, Melungeon, Creole, Cajun, Redbone, or similar names denoting something other than an "all white" ancestry, racial "mixing" has occurred throughout American history. And it has not occurred only in the South Carolina backcountry and other states commonly known as "The South." Class consciousness was widespread and very real in the 1800s; it became common for those who had migrated from the colonies, including North and South Carolina, to portray their ancestors as aristocratic patriots and slaveholders. The facts, when known, often revealed that many of these "aristocratic" ancestors were actually Regulators, itinerant preachers, and even Tories.

In my quest to find my own Gibson ancestors, I found that members of this South Carolina family were not only involved in the infamous Regulator movement in that state, but their descendants later became civic and governmental leaders in Mississippi, Louisiana and Kentucky. The involvement of Gibson family members in business and politics has been well-documented. One well-known Gibson descendant, Randall Gibson, was instrumental in the founding of Tulane University, while another descendant, Tobias Gibson, is credited with the spread of Methodism in the South.

An interesting bit of history that I stumbled upon during this research that began with the Gibson family was the story of Dr. Walter Ashby Plecker, a small-town doctor who became the Registrar of Virginia's Bureau of Vital Statistics in 1912. Dr. Plecker's views about racial mixing became the impetus for the passage of the Racial Integrity Law of 1924, commonly referred to as "Plecker's Law." Details about this law can be read on the University of Virginia's website, in an article entitled "Battles in Red, White, and Black."

This law became Virginia's infamous "one drop" statute, and its language created two racial categories, "pure" white and everybody else. The law's passage allowed Dr. Plecker to pursue his alliance with John Powell of the Anglo-Saxon Clubs of America in waging an all-out war against the mixing of the races. One of his efforts entailed a push for "ancestral registration." Virginians were reluctant to comply with the idea of "ancestral registration," even though the state had already passed the first anti-miscegenation law in 1662. At that time, "passing" as white may have been rather commonplace, but proof of racial purity was difficult to obtain.

Plecker's method involved identifying racial impurity by compiling a list of family surnames that were "known" to be "mixed." The list was arranged by Virginia counties and included the names of "racially mixed" families who lived in these counties.

Counties and surnames included in "Plecker's List," as this list became known, appear below:

Amherst County:

Pumphrey (Migrants to Allegheny and Campbell) Adcock (Adcox), Beverly (according to Dr. Plecker, this family was trying to evade the situation by adopting the name of Burch or Birch, which was believed to be the name of the white mother of the adult generation at the time), Branham, Clark, Duff, Floyd, Hamilton, Hartless, Hicks, Johns, Lawless, Nukles (Knuckles), Painter, Ramsey, Redcross, Roberts, Southwards (Suthards, Southerds, Southers), Sorrells, Terry, Tyree, Willis, and Wood

Bedford County:

Branham, Burley (See Amherst), Cash, Clark, Coleman, Duff, Floyd, Hartless, Hicks, Johns, McVey, Mason, Maxey, Mayse (Mays), Painters, Pults, Ramsey, and Wood

Charles City County:

Adams, Allmond, Collins, Custalow (Custaloo), Dennis, Doggett, Dungoe, Hawkes, Holmes, Howell, Langston, Miles, Page, Spurlock, Stewart, and Wynn

Caroline County:

Byrd and Fortune

Henrico and Richmond City:

See Charles City, New Kent, and King William

King William County:

Adams, Allmond, Bolnus, Bradby, Collins, Custalow (Custaloo), Dennis, Doggett, Dungoe, Hawkes, Howell, Langston, Miles, Page, Spurlock, Stewart, Wynn

Nelson County:

See Essex

New Kent County:

Adkins, Bradby, Collins, Langston, Stewart, and Wynn

Elizabeth City and Newport News:

Stewart (descendants of Charles City families)

Essex and King and Queen Counties:

Brooks, Broughton, Byrd, Cooper, Fortune, Hammond, Mitchell, Prince, Nelson, Robinson, and Tate.

Elizabeth City and Newport News:

Stewart (descendants of Charles City families)

Fauquier County:

Colvin, Hoffman (Huffman), Phillips (See Prince William) and Riley

Greene County:

Shifflett, Shiflet

Halifax County:

Epps (Eppes), Stewart (Stuart), Coleman, Johnson, Martin, Sheppard, Shepard, Talley, and Young

Lancaster County:

Dawson (aka Dorsey)

Lee County County:

Bolden (Bolin), Bunch, Collins, Delph, Freeman, Gibson (Gipson), Goins, Hawkins, Mise (Mize), Moore, Mullins, Ramsey (chiefly "Tennessee "Melungeons")

Norfolk County and Portsmouth:

Bass, Bright, King, Locklear (Locklair), Porter, Sawyer, and Weaver

Prince William County:

Tyson, Segar (see Fauquier)

Lancaster County:

Dorsey (Dawson)

Roanoke County:

Beverly (see Washington)

Rockbridge County:

Southerds (see Amherst), Sorrell, Terry, Tyree, and Wood (including migrants to Amherst Co.)

Scott:

Dingus (see Lee County)

Smythe County:

See Lee County

Russell County:

Castell, Keith, Meade, Proffitt, and Stillwell, also see Lee and Tazewell Counties

Washington County:

Barlow, Beverly, Hughes, Lethcoe, Thomas, and Worley

Westmoreland County:

Atwells, Butridge, Okiff (Okeefe), Sorrells, Worlds (Worrell)

Wise County:

See Lee, Scott, Smyth, and Russell Counties

Crossing the Color Line

Last month, I received a release from ancestry.com. As a subscriber, I often receive electronic copies of the company’s press releases. But this particular release was different.  It announced research that had been completed by some of the best genealogists and family researchers in the field about a man named John Punch and the descendants of the man’s son, John Bunch. (No, the first letter of these surnames is not a typo, but is rather an example of how the spelling of names often changed phonetically in a time when standardized spelling was non-existent.) The Bunch family story spans multiple centuries and is a most fascinating one. This press release was even more significant, because it announced the discovery that John Punch was likely the first slave in America.  Even more significant was the finding that President Obama may be descended from John Punch through his deceased mother, Stanley Ann Dunham. According to the well-researched and documented Bunch family history, John Punch, a black man, was an indentured servant in early Virginia.  As punishment  for running away, the landowner to whom he was indentured enslaved him for life. According to research findings, John Punch’s son, John Bunch, a mulatto male born to an unnamed free white female, became the progenitor of the Bunch family in America. Although his father was a slave, law in effect in Virginia at the time of John Bunch’s birth dictated that he could live his life as a free man because his mother was free. The rest of the story traces the lineage of John Bunch and his family from Virginia into North Carolina and continues as descendants move south and westward, where they would eventually settle throughout several states. A link is provided here to read an earlier blog post about the Bunch family in Mississippi.

If you have watched episodes of NBC’s “Who Do You Think You Are?” and PBS’s “Finding Your Roots” hosted by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the discovery of a  family’s biracial roots is not a new one. But what is new is the fact that we seem to be more accepting of what has become a fairly common and sometimes public discovery. Although it was a shameful and often hidden part of a family’s history and our country’s past,  numbers of biracial children resulted from illegal interracial unions that occurred during slavery. But open relationships between the races and interracial marriages did exist and were not uncommon in early America until certain laws were enacted during the late 1700s and early 1800s.  In my own family research, I found  that one of my paternal lines descends from the Gibson family of North and South Carolina. Interestingly, Port Gibson, Mississippi, and Fort Gibson, originally in Indian Territory, are named for members of this family.  But the most interesting part of my research was finding that Gideon Gibson, the patriarch of the Gibson family in South Carolina, by most accounts, was descended from an interracial union that also occurred in Colonial Virginia.  

DNA testing and the popularity of genealogy research are changing the complexion of family history findings and are showing us as a nation that we were never neatly divided into black and white. Contributing to the availability of information about the construction of race in this country are a number of books written about American families that have biracial roots.  One of the best known of these books, entitled Free African Americans of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware, was written by Paul Heinegg, a respected lay genealogist and historian. With a poignant foreword by Ira Berlin, the book includes a lengthy list of surnames with known biracial beginnings and discusses the lineages of the families named. A more recent book is The Invisible Line, written by Daniel J. Sharfstein, a graduate of Harvard College and Yale Law School. Published in 2011, Sharfstein’s deeply researched historical narrative addresses the complexity of race in early America as it chronicles the lives of three American families named Wall, Spencer, and Gibson, who did, in fact, cross the color line.

At  a time when ethnicity and racial identity often cause wars and domestic discord, maybe we should take a closer look at  the congregation of individuals who helped form our country. We have always been a nation of immigrants, but history tells us the colors of our people have not always been well-defined.  If we know who we are and where we have been, knowing where we are going is made easier.

Our Roots Are Showing......

Happy St. Patrick's Day to all of you who have found your Irish roots and to those of you who are still searching. Even before I began my own family research, I knew that we had some Irish blood. When I was young, growing up in Mississippi, I would ask my mother, "Where are we from?" And my mother would always answer, "We are English, Scotch, and Irish." When I asked my father the same question, he added that (his) "Grandma told me that we have German blood." My paternal grandmother's response to my question was (her) "Papa's family was Black Dutch from Pennsylvania," and (her) "Mama's grandfather was a full-blooded Indian."

The truth is that each of their answers was, in part, true, although my great-grandmother's grandfather was not Native American. I do not have all the answers yet for this particular ancestor, but it appears that his South Carolina heritage was likely a tri-racial one that possibly included some Native American blood.

Now that I am older, when I think about the names of families in my childhood neighborhood and of my classmates from school, l realize that so many of them were Scotch-Irish names. Names that began with "Mc," or an "O" followed by an apostrophe, may have outnumbered even the Smiths and the Joneses in Mississippi during those days. With over ten years of research behind me, and with a family tree that includes the names Atwood, Baldridge, Coggins, Gibson, Meriwether, Pettus, Porter, and Ragland, it seems that my mother's answer to my childhood question was the correct one.

And now that my brother has three sons with red hair and two of my own grandchildren have beautiful red hair, I do believe that our Scotch-Irish roots are "starting to show."

The Ghosts of our Ancestors

A few years ago, after I became aware that I had a Gibson great-great-great grandfather, I began searching for Gibson ancestors. Little did I know how much information I would find about this family.

Much of what has been written about the Gibson family in America concerns this family's biracial roots, beginning in Virginia and continuing in its migration through North and South Carolina and on into Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Louisiana. My Gibson ancestor was born in South Carolina about 1799. His name was John P. Gibson, and I still have not found the names of his parents. But along the research road, I found many interesting books and published articles about biracial and multiracial heritage in the early years of this country. One such article included "The Free State of Jones", written by Victoria E. Bynum and published by the University of North Carolina Press. Chapter 1 of the publication begins with an interesting quote of Sam Dabney, from James Street's "Tap Roots," published in 1943.

"We can't boast of our ancestors because when we get started talking about our families, out jumps the ghost of a pirate or a cousin of color."

A reference to America's rich racial heritage, contained in Victoria Bynum's book mentioned earlier in this post, states that racial sentiments in the South "evolved over a period of three centuries." She states that "by the 1840's, claims of Indian, Iberian (Spanish), or Mediterranean (Moorish) ancestry, defended one's whiteness against race-based laws and social harassment." Gideon Gibson, a "light-skinned slaveholder of partially African ancestry" and a member of South Carolina's Regulator Movement, is mentioned in this publication as a person who exemplified how racial identity was often "fluid" and "even negotiable in some cases." Bynum goes on to say that "many of Gideon Gibson's descendants, migrated west in search of whiteness as well as lands." We know this is true, since many of the descendants of Gideon Gibson, Jacob Gibson, and Jordan Gibson who ended up in the state of Mississippi prior to the Civil War have been well-documented in the state histories of Mississippi, Kentucky, Louisiana, and even the history of Methodism in Mississippi. We know, too, that regardless of whether a person was labeled as a Mulatto, Mestizo, Mustee, Melungeon, Creole, Cajun, Redbone, or similar names denoting something other than an "all white" ancestry, racial "mixing" has occurred throughout American history, and not only in the South Carolina backcountry and other states commonly known as "The South." Class-consciousness was very real in the society of the 1800's, and it became common for those who lived in the colonies, including North and South Carolina prior to migrating farther west and south, to portray their ancestors as aristocratic patriots and slaveholders. The fact was that many of their "aristocratic" ancestors were Regulators, itinerant preachers, and even Tories.

An interesting bit of history that I also discovered during my research was the story of Dr. Walter Ashby Plecker, a small-town doctor who became the registrar of Virginia's Bureau of Vital Statistics in 1912. Dr. Plecker became known as the impetus for the passage of the Racial Integrity Law in 1924, commonly referred to as "Plecker's Law." The law became Virginia's infamous "one drop" statute, and its language created two racial categories, "pure" white and everybody else. Dr. Plecker had allied with John Powell of the Anglo-Saxon Clubs of America and had begun to wage an all-out war against the mixing of the races, one of which was a push for "ancestral registration."

According to J. David Smith in "The Eugenic Assault on America: Scenes in Red, White, and Black," Virginians were reluctant to comply with the idea of "ancestral registration," even though the state had passed the first anti-miscegenation law in 1662, when "passing" as white may have been rather commonplace and proof of racial purity was difficult to obtain.

Plecker's method of identifying racial impurity was to compile a list of family surnames that were "known" to be "mixed." The list was by Virginia county and the names of the "racially mixed" families who lived in these counties, and is shown below:

Amherst: Pumphrey (Migrants to Allegheney and Campbell) Adcock (Adcox), Beverly (this family is now trying to evade the situation by adopting the name of Burch or Birch, which was the name of the white mother of the present adult generation), Branham, Duff, Floyd, Hamilton, Hartless, Hicks, Johns, Lawless, Nukles (Knuckles), Painter, Ramsey, Redcross, Roberts, Southwards (Suthards, Southerds, Southers). Sorrells, Terry, Tyree, Willis, Clark, Wood

Bedford: McVey, Maxey, Branham, Burley (see Amherst)

Rockbridge: (migrants to Augusta), Cash, Clark, Coleman, Duff, Floyd, Hartless, Hicks, Mason, Mayse(Mays), Painters, Pults, Ramsey, Southerds (see Amherst), Sorrell, Terry, Tyree, Wood, Johns

Charles City: Collins, Dennis, Bradby, Howell, Langston, Stewart, Wynn, Custalow(Custaloo), Dungoe, Holmes, Miles, Page, Allmond, Adams, Hawkes, Spurlock, Doggett

King William: Collins, Dennis, Bradby, Howell, Lanston, Stewart, Wynn, Custalow(Custaloo), Dungoe, Bolnus, Miles, Page, Allmond, Adams, Hawkes, Spurlock, Doggett

New Kent: Collins, Bradby, Stewart, Wynn Adkins, Langston

Henrico and Richond City: (see Charles City, New Kent, and King William)

Caroline: Byrd, Fortune, Nelson (see Essex)

Essen and King and Queen: Nelson, Fortune, Byrd, Cooper, Tate, Hammond, Brooks, Boughton, Prince, Mitchell, Robinson

Elizabeth City and Newport News: Stewart (descendants of Charles City families)

Halifax: Epps (Eppes), Stewart (Stuart), Coleman, Johnson, Martin, Talley, Sheppard (Shepard), Young

Norfolk County and Portsmouth: Sawyer, Bass, Weaver, Locklear (Locklair), King, Bright, Porter

Westmoreland: Sorrells, Worlds (Worrell), Atwells, Butridge, Okiff

Greene: Shifflett, Shiflet

Prince William: Tyson, Segar (see Fauquier)

Fauquier: Hoffman (Huffman), Riley, Colvin, Phillips, (see Prince William)

Lancaster: Dorsey (Dawson)

Washington: Beverly, Barlow, Thomas, Hughes, Lethcoe, Worley

Roanoke County: Beverly (see Washington)

Lee and Smyth: Collins, Gibson (Gipson), Moore, Boins, Ramsey, Delph, Bunch, Freeman, Mise, Bolden (Bolin), Mullins, Hawkins - Chiefly Tennessee "Melungeons"

Scott: Dingus (see Lee)

Russell: Keith, Castell, Stillwell, Meade, Proffitt (see Lee and Tazewell)

Wise: (see Lee, Scott, Smyth, and Russell Counties)

As the Registrar, Dr. Plecker had the authority to change various forms of registration required in Virginia, including birth certificates and marriage records. Since he exercised this authority and changed or added to the documents as he saw fit regarding racial makeup, the process of alteration became known as "pleckerizing."

The impact of this finding on my research was that two of my family lines were included on the list, Gibson and Porter. What it really meant was that I had much more research to do.

Finding the Gibson Family - A Mixed Racial History

This week, I decided to seriously search for the evasive Gibson family connection. But first I decided to review, once again, the information that I already have. For actual documents, all I really have are two U.S. Census records and a marriage certificate.

But what I have found written in other sources is so much more.

When I first started this search, I had little to go on. My father didn't know his grandmother's maiden name, so that led to the request for information to the Social Security Administration. Please keep in mind the only reason I received this information is that my great-grandmother, Margaret Susanna Meriwether Porter just happened to be old enough to be eligible for Medicare when the law was passed about 1960. She was too old to be eligible for Social Security payments, however, so she had to apply for a Social Security number before she could be eligible for Medicare benefits.

But that request made a world of difference in my research, because the copy of her application for a Social Security number provided me with the maiden name of my great-greatgrandmother, Malverda Gibson, and this bit of information unlocked the door to the past. My initial reaction was "Malverda won't be difficult to find, and I was right about that, but finding the Gibson family proved to be much more difficult.

I found Malverda Gibson the first time I searched U. S. Census records for persons living in Mississippi. According to the U. S. Census of 1860, taken in Calhoun County, Mississippi, Malverda Gibson was living with her family in the Cherry Hill community. Her father and her mother were shown to be "J. P. Gibson" and "Margaret J. Gibson." J. P. Gibson's occupation was shown as "blacksmith." Other children in the household were sisters named Elvira, Mary, Martha, and Becky. Other male household members were brothers named Asberry and Francis. When I saw the names of Malverda's two brothers, I decided on the spot the family must have been Methodists, since it appeared they had named two sons for the well-known early Bishop of the Methodist Church, Francis Asbury. I also found the family enumerated again on the U. S. Census of 1870, this time in Carroll County, in the Duck Hill community.

During the same timeframe that I located the census records, the LDS church had posted all their family history records online at www.familysearch.org. One search on the new LDS website, and I had the marriage date for a John P. Gibson and Martha J. Williams. They were married on January 3, 1843, in Aberdeen, Monroe County, Mississippi. Now I had something that might reveal names for the next generation back, parents' names for John and Margaret.

The next day, I called the Monroe County, Mississippi County Clerk in Aberdeen, Mississippi and requested a copy of the marriage record. A very friendly and helpful person in the clerk's office there located the document, and about a week later, I received a copy of the marriage license and a marriage bond posted in the amount of $500 by someone named "Joseph Gibson." My first thought was that Joseph must have been John's father, but that would have been too good to be true, and as it turned out, it was not true. Sometime later, I located a copy of Joseph Gibson's will, probated in Monroe County, Mississippi, and that information, combined with some recent research efforts, has established that Joseph and John were likely not brothers, but possibly cousins, instead.

The next source of information came to me entirely by accident. I was doing some online searching for the name Gibson and South Carolina and happened across a reference to a PBS Frontline presentation entitled "Blurred Racial Lines." One of the families profiled was the Gibson Family of South Carolina, along with a short list of other names with similar racial backgrounds. This information is available at www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/secret/famous/

Accidentally, I had stumbled onto something that paved the way to further research about the Gibson family and other persons like them who were called at that time "free persons of color." Some of these individuals, including Gideon Gibson, were specifically referred to as "mullatos."

About that same time, I found that Winthrop Jordan had written a book, entitled "White Over Black" that included similar information about the racial background of the Gibson family in South Carolina.
Recently, I have read other references to the Gibson family's history in several historical publications, including "Children of Perdition: Melungeons and the Struggle for Mixed America" by Tim Hershaw, "Unification of a Slave State" by Rachel Klein, and "Black Slaveowners - Free Black Slave Masters in SC, 1790 - 1860", by Larry Koger. All three publications include numerous references to the Gibson Family, as well as some of their South Carolina relatives and neighbors, the Bunch, Sweat(t) and Murph families. Previews of these books are available online at www.books.google.com.

Several members of the Gibson Family in Mississippi and Louisiana have been well-chronicled. Port Gibson, Mississippi, one of Mississippi's historic towns, was named for Samuel Gibson, an early settler in the old Natchez District, before Mississippi attained statehood. The old Presbyterian Church, with its steeple containing a hand pointing toward Heaven, is a landmark in Port Gibson, along with Chamberlain-Hunt Military Academy, and several houses and other buildings with historical significance. Tobias Gibson was born near Warrenton, Mississippi, and his involvement with the Methodist Church in Mississippi is documented in a book written about the history of Methodism in the state. Randall Lee Gibson, son of Tobias, is well-known for his rise from a private to Brigadier General during his service in the Civil War, and later for his service to the State of Louisiana during several terms in Congress. Randall Lee Gibson is also particularly remembered for his support of the founding of Tulane University by Paul Tulane, a former resident of Louisiana. Information about Randall Lee Gibson can be found at http://www.tulanelink.com.

Earlier this week, I located copies of the transcriptions of two letters written in the late 1800's. One is from a daughter of Randall Lee Gibson's, living near her mother's family in Kentucky at the time, and another from a minister in Adams Co., MS, who had known the Gibson Family well. Both individuals shared personal information about Gibson family members and how their family could be traced back to Gideon Gibson and the Gibson Family of South Carolina.

Ironically, nothing is mentioned in either letter about the mixed racial background of the Gibson family.

Finding the Gibson Family - A Mixed Racial History

This week, I decided to seriously search for the evasive Gibson family connection. But first I decided to review, once again, the information that I already have. For actual documents, all I really have are two U.S. Census records and a marriage certificate.

But what I have found written in other sources is so much more.

When I first started this search, I had little to go on. My father didn't know his grandmother's maiden name, so that led to the request for information to the Social Security Administration. Please keep in mind the only reason I received this information is that my great-grandmother, Margaret Susanna Meriwether Porter just happened to be old enough to be eligible for Medicare when the law was passed about 1960. She was too old to be eligible for Social Security payments, however, so she had to apply for a Social Security number before she could be eligible for Medicare benefits.

But that request made a world of difference in my research, because the copy of her application for a Social Security number provided me with the maiden name of my great-greatgrandmother, Malverda Gibson, and this bit of information unlocked the door to the past. My initial reaction was "Malverda won't be difficult to find, and I was right about that, but finding the Gibson family proved to be much more difficult.

I found Malverda Gibson the first time I searched U. S. Census records for persons living in Mississippi. According to the U. S. Census of 1860, taken in Calhoun County, Mississippi, Malverda Gibson was living with her family in the Cherry Hill community. Her father and her mother were shown to be "J. P. Gibson" and "Margaret J. Gibson." J. P. Gibson's occupation was shown as "blacksmith." Other children in the household were sisters named Elvira, Mary, Martha, and Becky. Other male household members were brothers named Asberry and Francis. When I saw the names of Malverda's two brothers, I decided on the spot the family must have been Methodists, since it appeared they had named two sons for the well-known early Bishop of the Methodist Church, Francis Asbury. I also found the family enumerated again on the U. S. Census of 1870, this time in Carroll County, in the Duck Hill community.

During the same timeframe that I located the census records, the LDS church had posted all their family history records online at www.familysearch.org. One search on the new LDS website, and I had the marriage date for a John P. Gibson and Martha J. Williams. They were married on January 3, 1843, in Aberdeen, Monroe County, Mississippi. Now I had something that might reveal names for the next generation back, parents' names for John and Margaret.

The next day, I called the Monroe County, Mississippi County Clerk in Aberdeen, Mississippi and requested a copy of the marriage record. A very friendly and helpful person in the clerk's office there located the document, and about a week later, I received a copy of the marriage license and a marriage bond posted in the amount of $500 by someone named "Joseph Gibson." My first thought was that Joseph must have been John's father, but that would have been too good to be true, and as it turned out, it was not true. Sometime later, I located a copy of Joseph Gibson's will, probated in Monroe County, Mississippi, and that information, combined with some recent research efforts, has established that Joseph and John were likely not brothers, but possibly cousins, instead.

The next source of information came to me entirely by accident. I was doing some online searching for the name Gibson and South Carolina and happened across a reference to a PBS Frontline presentation entitled "Blurred Racial Lines." One of the families profiled was the Gibson Family of South Carolina, along with a short list of other names with similar racial backgrounds. This information is available at www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/secret/famous/

Accidentally, I had stumbled onto something that paved the way to further research about the Gibson family and other persons like them who were called at that time "free persons of color." Some of these individuals, including Gideon Gibson, were specifically referred to as "mullatos."

About that same time, I found that Winthrop Jordan had written a book, entitled "White Over Black" that included similar information about the racial background of the Gibson family in South Carolina.
Recently, I have read other references to the Gibson family's history in several historical publications, including "Children of Perdition: Melungeons and the Struggle for Mixed America" by Tim Hershaw, "Unification of a Slave State" by Rachel Klein, and "Black Slaveowners - Free Black Slave Masters in SC, 1790 - 1860", by Larry Koger. All three publications include numerous references to the Gibson Family, as well as some of their South Carolina relatives and neighbors, the Bunch, Sweat(t) and Murph families. Previews of these books are available online at www.books.google.com.

Several members of the Gibson Family in Mississippi and Louisiana have been well-chronicled. Port Gibson, Mississippi, one of Mississippi's historic towns, was named for Samuel Gibson, an early settler in the old Natchez District, before Mississippi attained statehood. The old Presbyterian Church, with its steeple containing a hand pointing toward Heaven, is a landmark in Port Gibson, along with Chamberlain-Hunt Military Academy, and several houses and other buildings with historical significance. Tobias Gibson was born near Warrenton, Mississippi, and his involvement with the Methodist Church in Mississippi is documented in a book written about the history of Methodism in the state. Randall Lee Gibson, son of Tobias, is well-known for his rise from a private to Brigadier General during his service in the Civil War, and later for his service to the State of Louisiana during several terms in Congress. Randall Lee Gibson is also particularly remembered for his support of the founding of Tulane University by Paul Tulane, a former resident of Louisiana. Information about Randall Lee Gibson can be found at http://www.tulanelink.com.

Earlier this week, I located copies of the transcriptions of two letters written in the late 1800's. One is from a daughter of Randall Lee Gibson's, living near her mother's family in Kentucky at the time, and another from a minister in Adams Co., MS, who had known the Gibson Family well. Both individuals shared personal information about Gibson family members and how their family could be traced back to Gideon Gibson and the Gibson Family of South Carolina.

Ironically, nothing is mentioned in either letter about the mixed racial background of the Gibson family.