Speaking about black ancestry in white families has been taboo for generations, keeping black genealogists from asking too many questions. Draconian laws and prejudices have kept millions of people from knowing the true origins of their ancestors. No matter the color of your skin, readers will enjoy the exploration that Suellen Ocean embarks on in this fifth book of the Secret Genealogy series, "Black, White and Hamite; Ancestors of Color in Our Family Trees." It is the author's hope that this book opens doors in the genealogical world that have been closed for far too long.

Suellen Ocean found the history of Indian removals, rolls, lists, censuses and enumerations complicated and confusing while searching for her allusive Native American ancestry. In the fourth book of her Secret Genealogy series, Ocean thoughtfully gives the reader the guidance they need to search for their own Native ancestry. After reading this book you'll have both the keys and a better understanding of what's required for the amateur to navigate bureaucracies and websites that hold the answers to their questions. Read Secret Genealogy IV, Native Americans Hidden in Our Family Trees, before you begin your search.

Are we expecting too much from a DNA report? Can we find relatives if we take a DNA test? Will they be friendly? Will the test tell me where my ancestors came from? In this seventh book of the Secret Genealogy series, Suellen Ocean takes a candid look at DNA testing as a tool for uncovering hidden ancestry. The author takes the reader along as she encounters mtDNA, haplogroups, genomes and admixture calculators for the first time. If you decide to take a DNA test, you'll probably have the same questions that she does. It's time-consuming and heady stuff. Not easily understood. Prepare for your own DNA test by reading "Secret Genealogy VII, DNA... Jumping into the Gene Pool. A High-Tech Gathering of the Tribes."

Pearl's Secret is a remarkable autobiography and family story that combines elements of history, investigative reporting, and personal narrative in a riveting, true-to-life mystery. In it, Neil Henry—a black professor of journalism and former award-winning correspondent for the Washington Post—sets out to piece together the murky details of his family's past. His search for the white branch of his family becomes a deeply personal odyssey, one in which Henry deploys all of his journalistic skills to uncover the paper trail that leads to blood relations who have lived for more than a century on the opposite side of the color line. At the same time Henry gives a powerful and vivid account of his black family's rise to success over the twentieth century. Throughout the course of this gripping story the author reflects on the part that racism and racial ignorance have played in his daily life—from his boyhood in largely white Seattle to his current role as a parent and educator in California. The contemporary debate over the significance of Thomas Jefferson's longtime romantic relationship with his slave, Sally Hemings, and recent DNA evidence that points to his role as the father of black descendants, have revealed the importance and volatility of the issue of dual-race legacies in American society. As Henry uncovers the dramatic history of his great-great-grandfather—a white English immigrant who fought as a Confederate officer in the Civil War, found success during Reconstruction as a Louisiana plantation owner, and enjoyed a long love affair with Henry's great-great-grandmother, a freed black slave—he grapples with an unsettling ambivalence about what he is trying to do. His straightforward, honest voice conveys both the pain and the exhilaration that his revelations bring him about himself, his family, and our society. In the book's stunning climax, the author finally meets his white kin, hears their own remarkable story of survival in America, and discovers a great deal about both the sting of racial prejudice as it is woven into the fabric of the nation, and his own proud identity as a teacher, father, and black American.

Now that technology enables us worldwide, to share our family trees, we can dig deeper than ever. The intertwining of the roots of Judaism and Christianity continues to fascinate author Suellen Ocean. This sixth book in the Secret Genealogy series, continues with the Freemasons and Anglo-Saxons. New additions are Jewish Conquistadors, the Renaissance and the Holy Family and how intriguing it would be to connect to the Royal House of David.

"In Secret Genealogy II, not only does the author reach our ancient Jewish ancestry but the gray area of interlocking tribes of antiquity with whom many of us share our DNA. Secret Genealogy II takes another deep look into the meanings of names in our family trees, continuing to explore the theory that America was built on a much stronger Jewish foundation than what was originally thought by historians. This mesmerizing trail delves into the contradictions of American surnames and tries to answer some of the questions arising from the inconsistencies we run into when ancestry searching. When it comes to genealogy, why do families have so many secrets? What were they trying to hide? Why did they hide the country that they originally came from? Why say you're from Holland (Italy, Germany, or other) when you're not? Why did the family hide their original surname? And why did they change it? Secret Genealogy II helps you answer those questions."--Back cover.