Post your response in the comments section of our blog and you’ll have the chance to win a free African Ancestry Test Kit!

Each year, February is a big month for African Ancestry. We are fortunate to have opportunities to share the African Ancestry Experience, meet new people, and engage in conversations across the country. This year, we thought a contest would be a good way to reach even more people and hear your perspective on finding your roots. We will pose a question each week and reward the most thoughtful and insightful response with a free MatriClan or PatriClan Test Kit.

We celebrate Black History every month at African Ancestry. For obvious reasons, we pump it up during the month of February. This year we’ve been celebrating by giving away free kits and other prizes. There’s one more chance for you to win a test kit this week by answering our FINAL contest question. Good luck!

This week we’d like to know: HOW DOES YOUR FAMILY CELEBRATE BLACK HISTORY MONTH? HOW DOES KNOWING YOUR ROOTS ENRICH YOUR CELEBRATION?

Post your response in the comments section of our blog between February 22nd through 28th and you’ll have the chance to win a free African Ancestry Test Kit!

The winner will be announced on March 5th and will be chosen by President, Gina Paige and Scientific Director, Dr. Rick Kittles! See full contest rules here.

UPDATE 03/01/10: This contest is currently closed.

Black History Month might be officially over but we celebrate African Heritage all year long! Thank you to everyone who participated in this month’s contests!!! Your responses were very inspirational! We’ll announce the winner of the last blog contest and the mailing list later this week. Trace your DNA. Find your roots. Today.

UPDATE 02/26/10:

It is very inspiring to know that there are families upholding the observance of Black History Month. Thank you for sharing the traditions that your families follow. This week’s winner is Nikki. She and her family have had a full month of remembrance, recognition, and celebration! Congratulations Nikki on winning an African Ancestry Test Kit for your family.

Read Nikki’s response:

On February 1st, we always begin by referencing The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: “If you teach this nigger to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave.” Thus, we celebrate by participating in the National African American Read-In [Chain], stressing the importance of literacy and of black literature.

We visit the National Civil Rights Museum to view the permanent and temporary exhibits. Soul Soldiers, the first national exhibit to commemorate the Black Experience in the Vietnam War, is currently displayed. We discuss our people: What can they tell me about Gil Scott-Heron or Van Jones? (both having lived in our hometown)

We celebrate our creative spirit: This year, we attended Hattiloo’s performance (a black repertory theatre) of August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson. We also attended a staging of Alice Childress’s Trouble in Mind in our neighborhood theatre.

Around Valentine’s Day, we pause to remember our sister-survivors of the Democratic Republic of Congo–survivors of rape used as a weapon of war.

We attend community lectures; we invite all our non-black friends to celebrate with us all month long; in short, we celebrate like “this may be our last time.” Seriously. It’s a celebration not limited to February, but surely amplified during this time.

Most importantly, we remember our ancestors, both cultural and biological. This year, we focused on Ida B. Wells-Barnett, editor and proprietor of the Memphis Free Speech, who wrote of the 1886 lynching of a black woman in the courthouse square of our hometown, Jackson, TN. (Something we were never taught in grade school.) We remember my maternal ancestors, the first black landowners within that same county who donated land to build the Friendship School for African Americans, and who left a legacy that still stands proud and firm today.

Post your response in the comments section of our blog and you’ll have the chance to win a free African Ancestry Test Kit!

Each year, February is a big month for African Ancestry. We are fortunate to have opportunities to share the African Ancestry Experience, meet new people, and engage in conversations across the country. This year, we thought a contest would be a good way to reach even more people and hear your perspective on finding your roots. We will pose a question each week and reward the most thoughtful and insightful response with a free MatriClan or PatriClan Test Kit.

One of the comments I hear regularly is “Everyone wants to know where they’re from.” Is this really true? Our third question of the month is designed to understand whether or not knowing your roots would affect/has affected you and why.

This week we’d like to know: HOW WOULD KNOWING YOUR ROOTS CHANGE YOUR PERCEPTION OF THE PAST, YOUR INTERPRETATION OF THE PRESENT, AND YOUR ASPIRATIONS FOR THE FUTURE?

Post your response in the comments section of our blog between February 15th through 21st and you’ll have the chance to win a free African Ancestry Test Kit!

The winner will be announced on February 26th and will be chosen by President, Gina Paige and Scientific Director, Dr. Rick Kittles! See full contest rules here.

UPDATE 02/22/10: This contest is currently closed. But enter our Week 4 contest to try and win a free test kit.

UPDATE 02/26/10:

Thanks to all of you who entered our third contest. We were excited by the intensity of the perspectives on how knowledge of ancestry would affect you. This week’s winner is T. L. Hill who added a unique dose of creativity to the contest. Congratulations T.L. Hill on winning an African Ancestry Test Kit!

Read T. L. Hill’s Response:

Africa

A student without a teacher
A soldier without a general
A child without a mother

Africa

Post your response in the comments section of our blog and you’ll have the chance to win a free African Ancestry Test Kit!

Each year, February is a big month for African Ancestry. We are fortunate to have opportunities to share the African Ancestry Experience, meet new people, and engage in conversations across the country. This year, we thought a contest would be a good way to reach even more people and hear your perspective on finding your roots. We will pose a question each week and reward the most thoughtful and insightful response with a free MatriClan or PatriClan Test Kit.

One of our dreams for African Ancestry is that every black child know their ancestral roots. We have begun 2010 with two steps towards that goal. We’ve partnered with the Search for Common Ground Foundation on the True Roots Project. And, we’ve partnered with George Mason University on the Science, Technology, Ancestry and Me Project (STAMP) that will hopefully receive funding from the National Science Foundation. For our second contest of the month, please share your thoughts on kids and ancestry for the chance to win a free test kit for the young people in your family.

This week we’d like to know: WHY IS IT IMPORTANT FOR OUR KIDS TO KNOW THEIR ROOTS?

Post your response in the comments section of our blog between February 8th through 14th and you’ll have the chance to win a free African Ancestry Test Kit!

The winner will be announced on February 19th and will be chosen by President, Gina Paige and Scientific Director, Dr. Rick Kittles! See full contest rules here.

UPDATE 02/15/10: This contest is correctly closed. But enter our Week 3 contest to try and win a free test kit.

UPDATE 02/19/10:

My dream is for every Black child in America to know their roots. Voting for the True Roots project is one way that you can help make this dream a reality. We were excited by how many of you agree with us on the importance of young people knowing their roots. Over 60 of you shared your perspectives. We were particularly moved by Monique B’s entry and selected her as the winner of last week’s contest. Congratulations Monique B. on winning an African Ancestry Test Kit!

Read Monique B’s Response:

It is important because by knowing their roots a child can truly understand that, their past history is the roadmap to their future. What they learn in school is history, but who’s history is it? Our history has been cover up by a veil of false pretenses and hidden doorways. Our children have become the product of these injustices and shackles of the mind. They look at TV, magazines and billboards, then look at their own appearance and feel ashamed of their own features. Then to offset this they attempt to live as and share the same history with a people they feel have a true history. These roots they do not know are the same as a beautiful youthful tree being uprooted then toss aside, all hope is lost. Slave stories, and the spilled blood of slaves to the youth who does not know his roots, becomes a burden that they try to hide by portraying themselves as a soul who cares not at all about his history but more about his present. But if they open there minds to what was and not what is, they can follow the trail of tears, back to the footprints in the sands, back to the villages and centers where their ancestral people once stood with their heads high, loving the place they called home.

So once again to answer that question, “Why is it important for our kids to know their roots?” This analogy puts it in simple terms: That youthful tree that was discussed earlier and was described as being tossed aside with all hope lost, has been given a second chance by being rooted again, so now all hope is regained. So the same should be with our kids, not knowing their roots gives them the sense of all hope being lost, but by knowing their roots, hope of a better day is regained.

To everyone else, thank you for your responses. There are still more chances to win a FREE TEST KIT. Answer our Week 3 question to enter for a chance to win. Our Week 4 question will be posted on 2/22. Plus, you can also sign up for our mailing list in February and be entered for a chance to win a FREE TEST KIT.